Team Project Experiences in Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS)

Abstract

Providing students with the professional, communication, and technical skills necessary to contribute to an ongoing software project is critical, yet often difficult in higher education. Involving student teams in real-world projects developed by professional software engineers for actual users is invaluable. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has emerged as an important approach to creating, managing, and distributing software products. Involvement in a FOSS project provides students with experience developing within a professional environment, with a professional community, and has the additional benefit that all communication and artifacts are publicly accessible. Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects benefit the human condition in some manner. They can range from disaster management to microfinance to election-monitoring applications. This article discusses the benefits and challenges of students participating in HFOSS projects within the context of undergraduate computing degree programs. This article reports on a 6-year study of students' self-reported attitudes and learning from participation in an HFOSS project. Results indicate that working on an HFOSS project increases interest in computing. In addition, students perceive that they are gaining experience in developing software in a distributed environment with the attendant skills of communication, distributed teamwork, and more.

The Case for Kairos: The Importance of Moment and Manner in Software Engineering Communication

“…A special issue of ACM Transactions on Computing Education on team projects feature several articles that discuss the benefits of exposure to complex communication contexts [20,21,22].…”

Board # 77 : Helping Faculty & Students to Participate in Humanitarian Free & Open Source Software: The OpenFE & OpenPath Projects

“…The culture also encourages participation by volunteers, including students. Student participation in HFOSS projects has shown potential to improve student learning, motivate the study of computing, attract more women to computing, and develop appreciation of the societal impact of computing [14,15]. Note: The OpenFE and OpenPath projects focus exclusively on HFOSS projects, so HFOSS is used below.…”

“…OpenFE produced multiple publications [3, 13,15,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] as well as course materials for getting both students and faculty members involved in HFOSS projects (see http://foss2serve.org). OpenFE supported a growing community of instructors who are involving students in HFOSS.…”

“…One effective way for students to develop such knowledge, skills, and attitudes is to participate in Humanitarian Free & Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects. Research has shown that student participation in HFOSS projects has a positive impact on student motivation to study computing and a strong positive impact on perceived learning related to software engineering [1,2]. The OpenFE and OpenPath projects seek to help faculty and students participate in HFOSS projects and communities.…”

The Ethical Challenges of Community-Based CS Training at Portland State

“…As far as the non-exclusivity of open source goes, it is worth asking if something actually has to be easily accessible to a large range of people, or just theoretically so. For example, if I write a piece of software, make the source code publicly available, but nobody sees it or uses it, (Ellis, Hislop, Jackson, & Postner, 2015). The very existence of this category shows that at least some people don't see writing FOSS in itself as necessarily a public service.…”