OSUOSL News

Interview with OSUOSL Google Code-in Student

12/17/10

We're about one month into our participation in the Google Code-in contest and all of our students have been doing a fantastic job, tackling tasks from user interface design to testing and writing new code for our home grown Ganeti Web Manager project. One of our students, Piotr, has really impressed us with his dedication to the project, often asking our mentors for even more tasks to complete. He has already completed seven tasks and is already hard at work on his eighth. When you have such a great experience with your student, it's natural to want to share the story. Piotr graciously told us a little about his experiences, and his father, Marek, was kind enough to give permission for Piotr to be interviewed.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I'm 17 and I live in south of the Poland. I started learning programming about 5 to 6 years ago, I don't remember clearly. I'm also interested in music (but listening to, not composing) and cycling.

How did you hear about the Google Code In contest? What made you decide to participate?

Two or three years ago there was the Google Highly Open Participation Contest (GHOP). I had missed the opportunity to start working for its projects from the beginning of the contest, so I wanted to get involved early in the following year. I was waiting for any information about GHOP until one day I read about Google Code-in on their Google Open Source blog.

What made you decide to work on projects for the OSU Open Source Lab?

I've known Python for some time now, and I find it wonderful language, so I wanted to work on projects which use Python. OSU Open Source Lab's Ganeti Web Manager not only uses Python, but also one of its famous frameworks: Django. I like both.

You've been doing a lot of work on the Ganeti Web Manager tool. What's the most challenging task you've completed so far?

So far I've done (or almost done) two tasks (logging events in database and the interface to working with user's SSH keys), but divided into smaller ones. Both were demanding, but the latter one involves using JavaScript along with Python, so I think I had more troubles with that task.

Is Google Code-in your first experience contributing to an open source project? If not, what other projects have you worked on?

No, it's not the first one. Personally I also make my own projects open source. I have also contributed to Web2Py, another Python web framework.

What is your favorite part about working with the OSU Open Source Lab for Google Code-in?

I didn't know it at first, but it turns out that Ganeti Web Manager will be used for some important projects at the Open Source Lab and that makes me really happy.

Ed. Note: Look out for an announcement about a cool new project from us using Ganeti Web Manager in the next few weeks.

Are you working with any of the other projects participating in Google Code-in? If so, which ones and what are you working on?

Currently no, but I have done some work on KDE's Polish translation and the MoinMoin wiki engine.

If you could meet any technologist from any time in history, who would it be? What questions would you want to ask her/him and why?

There are many technologists I'd love to meet, but some significant ones include Richard Stallman (I'd thank him for his work on GNU), John von Neumann and Stanisław Ulam, who is also from Poland. I know the last two are mathematicians, but we all owe them for game theory, cellular automata, even the Monte-Carlo method. I'd would have loved to attend their lectures, if there were any. Jacek Karpiński is another person I would like to meet. He was a genius from Poland, called the "second Bill Gates," though his dreams were never realized due to the government policies. I'd like to talk with him about his computers. I would also like to meet Nikola Tesla. He is a very inspiring person, and I'd talk to him about all of his famous inventions.

Anything else you would like to tell us?

I didn't think of this previously, but it turns out that those 9 hours of difference in timezone between Poland and Oregon is sometimes quite a trouble.

Thank you for taking the time to interview with us, Piotr.

And many thanks to Google for putting on Google Code-in. There are just over three weeks left in the contest, so take a look at our task list- and those of the other 19 open source projects participating, and get some code in!

Documentation, user experience research, advocacy materials, testing, etc. all gratefully accepted, of course.

CrisisCommons is pleased to announce partnership with OSU's Open Source Lab

12/15/10

CrisisCommons is a global network of volunteers who use creative problem solving and open technologies to help people and communities in times and places of crisis. CrisisCommons is pleased to join several other humanitarian free and open source software projects hosted by Oregon State University's Open Source Lab (OSL).

The CrisisCommons community creates “CrisisCamp” events where volunteers of all skill levels can work across borders, languages and timezones to collaborate on projects, translate languages, build open source technology tools, and aggregate data to provide support for crisis response efforts. During the worldwide response to the Haiti and Chile earthquakes, this community organized 63 events across 8 countries with over 2,300 people participating to support such projects as Person Finder, a searchable database of missing persons, and Tradui, the first Creole translation application. The OSL has been part of the CrisisCommons community from the beginning, through the CrisisCamp Portland (CrisisCampPDX) event on January 23, 2010.

Born from the adversity of the Haiti event, a grass roots CrisisCommons community emerged and grew throughout 2010. We supported technology work on crisis events throughout the year, including the Tennessee Floods, Gulf Oil Spill, and Pakistan Floods. We hosted the First International Crisis Congress in July, 2010, in Washington DC, which convened CrisisCamp city leads, experts in disaster management, and partners in the public and private sector together to outline our goals and agenda for the commons community. Our OSL partnership continued here too, as Deb Bryant, Public Sector Communities Manager for the OSL, was part of our Congress, and has been a key advisor to CrisisCommons ever since.

One key goal global of CrisisCommons is to develop a commons-based approach to crisis management and global development that spans public and private sectors, NGO/NPO's, and other Volunteer Technology Communities (VTCs). We seek to do this by leveraging, supporting, or building through an openness mele of open source, open data, and open standards, and by exploring a research-based agenda to technology applicability in a crisis.

Since the Congress, the community has been actively working on a foundation grant to continue its growth, and move beyond a grass-roots community. We are pleased to announce that the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has awarded a two-year, $1.2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support the development of CrisisCommons. CrisisCommons will be funded for 2 years under the Wilson center to continue our work.

A key step in this process is establishing a solid infrastructure to support our CrisisCommons community activities, hence why we are excited to expand our partnership formally with the OSL. We are delighted to be able to learn from experts in open source communities and provide scalable and reliable resources for CrisisCamp technology innovation and response efforts.

Our work with the OSL will focus on the following areas:

Hosting and support of core CrisisCommons services, including our websites, wikis, and other community and knowledge/training resources for commons/community steady-state operations
Establishing foundational model for Crisis/Disaster based lab and research based open source projects to support technology innovation in this space
Establishing a model for specific crisis/disaster response technology hosting that are needed in a disaster event (surge capacity model)

We are still new to this, and have so much to learn from the OSL and their wider partner community, but are excited to start our journey. We look forward to joining OSL and becoming a successful HFOSS project under their stewardship. One more forward step together toward lessoning human suffering in the world, and achieving opportunity for good through adversity.

Looking forward to the future,
Deborah Shaddon
CrisisCommons Infrastructure Working Group Lead
deborah at crisiscommons dot org
@deborahshaddon

OSU Open Source Lab to assist young students in “Google Code-in” contest

11/15/10

11-15-2010

CORVALLIS, Ore. – High school students can soon participate in the Google Code-in Contest with the assistance of the Open Source Lab at Oregon State University.

In this contest, which begins Nov. 22, students aged 13-18 will be provided with a list of tasks that could improve various open source software projects. The OSU Open Source Lab, one of 20 organizations participating in this initiative, will ask students to create logo artwork, write code, produce documentation, fix software glitches and do other tasks.

Students do not need to have prior programming experience to complete many of the contest tasks.

“We are excited to participate in the Google Code-in contest,” said Jeff Sheltren, operations manager for the OSU Open Source Lab. “We’ve mentored university students in open source development for the past five years in Google's Summer of Code program and had great success. We look forward to helping high school students engage with open source software projects and communities.”

This project is one of several K-12 educational initiatives the lab participates in, including the Oregon Virtual School District and the TeachEngineering Project.

In the Google Code-in Contest, successful participants will receive a T-shirt from Google and have the opportunity to win up to $500 for their submissions. Full details are available online at http://google-melange.com. To stay up to date on working with the Oregon State University Open Source Lab for the Google Code-in contest, people may visit http://osuosl.org/gci or follow @osuosl on Twitter.

About the OSU Open Source Lab:
The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is the home of growing, high-impact open source communities. Its world-class hosting services enable the Linux operating system, Apache web server, the Drupal content management system and more than 50 other leading open source software projects to collaborate with contributors and distribute software to millions of users globally. Through custom software development, vendor partnerships and industry events like the Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON), the Lab's staff and students encourage open source adoption in education, government, health care and other sectors. For more information, visit http://osuosl.org.

Media Contacts:

By Leslie Hawthorn, 408-480-2918 or leslie.hawthorn@oregonstate.edu

Contact: Jeff Sheltren, 503-821-1280 or jeff.sheltren@oregonstate.edu

TeachEngineering Project Receives Award from NSF's National Science Digital Library

11/10/10

At the annual meeting of the National Science Digital Library in Washington, D.C. earlier this week, the TeachEngineering digital library received a “recognition of excellence” award from NSDL. The NSDL is the National Science Foundation's online library of resources and collections for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and research.

At the opening of this year’s annual meeting, chair Susan Jesuroga recognized the TeachEngineering collection as the most learning application-ready collection in NSDL. The recognition was based on an audit of quality criteria defined by NSDL as part of an assessment of the learning application readiness of NSDL’s 121 collections.

TeachEngineering is a digital library of 900+ K-12 engineering lessons and hands-on activities. The lesson materials are developed by a variety of universities in collaboration with K-12 schools organizations and programs and are made available free-of-charge to educators. The TeachEngineering initiative is run by a collaboration of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Duke University, Worcester Polytechnic University, Colorado School of Mines and Oregon State University. The project is hosted at OSU’s Open Source Lab.

For more information about TeachEngineering, visit http://teachengineering.org. For more information about the TeachEngineering project and the Open Source Lab, see our TeachEngineering Featured Project Story

Leslie Hawthorn Joins OSU Open Source Lab

10/07/10

October 7, 2010

CORVALLIS, Ore. - The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is pleased to announce that Leslie Hawthorn has just joined the team as an Open Source Outreach Manager. An internationally known speaker and advocate for open source software development methodologies and community practices, Leslie Hawthorn brings more than 10 years experience in project management, marketing and public relations to her new role. She previously worked as a Program Manager at Google Inc, where she was responsible for the company’s open source outreach efforts, most notably the Google Summer of Code program and Google Highly Open Participation contest.

Leslie has been honored with the 2010 OSCON Open Source Award and the 2010 National Center for Open Source in Education Award. She also serves on the NSF/CPATH Steering Committee for the Humanitarian FOSS Project and the Editorial Board for the open source Business Resource. She has previously served on the Advisory Board for the GNOME Foundation and most recently on the Program Committee for the first ever open source Track at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women In Computing.

"We are thrilled that Leslie Hawthorn has joined the Oregon State University Open Source Lab," said Terri Fiez, Head of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "Her extensive experience with managing programs that introduce students to open source software development will be a great asset to the university and support our new open source curriculum."

Leslie's duties will include developing new programs to increase awareness and adoption of open source development in the undergraduate and graduate levels. As part of her immediate efforts, Leslie will join forces with Deborah Bryant, Public Sector Communities Manager, to focus on outreach for GOSCON, the Government open source Conference. She will also be working on marketing and fundraising efforts for the Lab, which serves over 100 significant open source communities and more than 6 million software downloads per day.

“The addition of a full-time, committed resource focused on outreach came in response to a tremendous demand for the Open Source Labs services and expertise,” said Curt Pederson, Chief Information Officer and Vice Provost for Information Services. “The global open source community - academia, industry and government - provides a rich model for innovation through collaboration, in keeping with the University’s land-grant mission to build community. The Open Source Lab is one of Oregon State University’s premier contributors to this communal conversation.”

About the OSU Open Source Lab: The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is the home of growing, high-impact open source communities. Its world-class hosting services enable the Linux operating system, Apache web server, the Drupal content management system and more than 50 other leading open source software projects to collaborate with contributors and distribute software to millions of users globally. Through custom software development, vendor partnerships and industry events like the Government open source Conference (GOSCON), the Lab's staff and students encourage open source adoption in education, government, health care and other sectors. For more information, visit http://osuosl.org/. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Drupal is a trademark of Dries Buytaert. Google Summer of Code and the Google Highly Open Participation Contest are trademarks of Google. Other company and project names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies and projects.

About Oregon State University: OSU is one of only two U.S. universities designated a land-, sea-, space- and sun-grant institution. OSU is also Oregon’s only university designated in the Carnegie Foundation’s top tier for research institutions, garnering more than 60 percent of the total federal and private research funding in the Oregon University System. Its more than 20,300 students come from all 50 states and more than 80 countries. OSU programs touch every county within Oregon, and its faculty teach and conduct research on issues of national and global importance.

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