Hi folks,
We're just 1 day away from the deadline for student applications in this year's Summer of Code. What does that mean?
Deadline ========
************************************************************** * * * STUDENT APPLICATION DEADLINE: 19:00 UTC, Friday 21st March * * * **************************************************************
At that point (just over 24 hours from now), students will no longer be able to make new applications in Google's melange web app. *Existing* applications will be editable after that deadline, but may need some mentor/admin intervention to do so. (I'm told there will be a toggle to make an application ediable again.)
So: if you're a student considering applying to work with Linaro this summer, you *must* have an application posted in Melange by the deadline. If you've been holding back and have not applied yet, don't delay!
Equally, if you're a mentor and you've been discussing a possible application with a prospective student, please pass this information along to them as well. Once that deadline has passed, Google will not accept any more applications for 2014.
What happens beyond that point - tweaks, ranking and slots ==========================================================
Mentors and admins should review all the applications posted, working out which of the applications they consider good enough. If there are any questions for the students, or suggestions on how to improve the applications or further things that should be done: this is the last possible stage for this dialogue to happen.
The next deadline is the 6th of April. By this point, the admins and mentors must have worked out which of the student applications are best and marked them accordingly in Melange.
As an organisation, we must then decide how many project slots to request from Google. If we have 5 really good applications for 5 different projects, then clearly we will apply for 5 slots. If we have 4 really good applications but they're only covering 2 different projects (i.e. 2 each), then we should only apply for *2* slots. There's no scope for multiple instances of a single project here. So, here's a hint to the students: if you're applying for a project then try and make your stand out. Either make it the clear *best* proposal for a project, or come up with a distinct project proposal so that it makes sense as a separate slot.
Google will then review all the slot requests from all the organisations and will allocate them as they see fit. That's when we and the other orgs get to decide which student proposals to accept for the summer. Then the fun starts!
Students - how to apply =======================
I was hoping to have our wiki set up for student access by now, but it's not happened yet. We *will* have something in the next few days so it's working for the summer, but don't wait for that now. Student applications should be made through Melange, ideally using our application template from
https://wiki.linaro.org/SummerOfCode2014/StudentApplicationTemplate
as a basis. Don't feel constrained to *only* give us the information that's requested there - please make applications as complete and as creative as possible. Suggested timelines and milestones are good here. Show us evidence that you've researched the topic of your project and you're not just regurgitating what we suggested in the posted project ideas page. Make it clear why you think *you* are the right person to work on your project.
At this stage, make sure that you're responsive to feedback and questions too. Now is the time to impress your potential mentors. Join us on the mailing list or on irc and discuss things.
Mentors - ranking process =========================
I'll be in touch shortly with a plan for this. Watch this space! In the meantime, please provide timely feedback and help to students. Things may be about to get very busy... :-) In the meantime, you should be able to read some more background in the (internal) wiki at
https://wiki.linaro.org/Internal/SummerOfCode2014/Mentors
Finally =======
Good luck to all of you, and let's hope we get some awesome student proposals that will lead to successful projects.
Cheers,
Hi folks,
We're just 1 HOUR away from the deadline for student applications in this year's Summer of Code. What does that mean?
************************************************************** * * * STUDENT APPLICATION DEADLINE: 19:00 UTC, Friday 21st March * * * **************************************************************
Students, if you've not applied yet then you're really slacking! Go and get on with it!
Mentors, we need to get on with helping students with feedback on their proposals. For all the basically-sensible proposals that we have in Melange from tonight, we will allow students *definitely* one more week to discuss and refine them. Our deadline in Linaro will be
***************************************************************** * * * APPLICATION REFINEMENT DEADLINE: 19:00 UTC, Friday 28th March * * * *****************************************************************
We may give students more time beyond that in exceptional circumstances, but we're already being generous.
Mentors then need to get on with ranking the proposals and picking which students we would like to work with this summer. For more information on that process, please read the internal wiki page:
https://wiki.linaro.org/Internal/SummerOfCode2014/Mentors#How_do_we_pick_pro...
Hopefully that will cover everything, but if you've got any questions, please pester me!
Cheers,
Steve,
is the rule one project - one student? Or there might be several students per project?
Thanks, Maxim.
On 03/21/2014 10:01 PM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
Hi folks,
We're just 1 HOUR away from the deadline for student applications in this year's Summer of Code. What does that mean?
*- STUDENT APPLICATION DEADLINE: 19:00 UTC, Friday 21st March *
*
Students, if you've not applied yet then you're really slacking! Go and get on with it!
Mentors, we need to get on with helping students with feedback on their proposals. For all the basically-sensible proposals that we have in Melange from tonight, we will allow students *definitely* one more week to discuss and refine them. Our deadline in Linaro will be
*- APPLICATION REFINEMENT DEADLINE: 19:00 UTC, Friday 28th March *
*
We may give students more time beyond that in exceptional circumstances, but we're already being generous.
Mentors then need to get on with ranking the proposals and picking which students we would like to work with this summer. For more information on that process, please read the internal wiki page:
https://wiki.linaro.org/Internal/SummerOfCode2014/Mentors#How_do_we_pick_pro...
Hopefully that will cover everything, but if you've got any questions, please pester me!
Cheers,
On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 02:36:57PM +0400, Maxim Uvarov wrote:
Steve,
is the rule one project - one student? Or there might be several students per project?
Hi Maxim,
That's a good question, and thanks for asking.
The rule is *strictly* one project, one student. Google are not looking for group projects here. If a (large) project can be sensibly split into multiple smaller ones that fit students well, such that they don't depend on each other then that works too.
Another thing that came to mind that I dodn't emphasise earlier, although it's not likely to affect us as far as I can see. This is a Summer of *Code*. Google don't want all- or mainly-documentation projects. Obviously, appropriate amounts of documentation are expected to accompany code as delivered! :-)
Cheers,
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 06:01:52PM +0000, Steve McIntyre wrote:
Mentors, we need to get on with helping students with feedback on their proposals. For all the basically-sensible proposals that we have in Melange from tonight, we will allow students *definitely* one more week to discuss and refine them. Our deadline in Linaro will be
*- APPLICATION REFINEMENT DEADLINE: 19:00 UTC, Friday 28th March *
*
We may give students more time beyond that in exceptional circumstances, but we're already being generous.
As a follow-up to that, over the weekend I went through all seventeen of our student proposals and ticked the "editable post-deadline" flag on each. Mentors, as you review the applications please communicate with the students and make sure they know that they can still refine stuff at your direction.
Cheers,
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 06:01:52PM +0000, Steve McIntyre wrote:
Mentors, we need to get on with helping students with feedback on their proposals. For all the basically-sensible proposals that we have in Melange from tonight, we will allow students *definitely* one more week to discuss and refine them. Our deadline in Linaro will be
*- APPLICATION REFINEMENT DEADLINE: 19:00 UTC, Friday 28th March *
*
We may give students more time beyond that in exceptional circumstances, but we're already being generous.
Hi folks,
Mentors, gentle reminder: please go through the list of applications in Melange and review the applications. You *definitely* need to review and give feedback to students who are applying for *your* projects, but please also look through the rest of the list. Only a few of us have done this so far, and we should make an effort so that we have a reasonable number of reviewers for every application. See
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/proposal/list/org/google/gsoc2014
and work through the list please!
Students: tomorrow is the end of the (extended) period we're giving you for refining your applications. If there is feedback from mentors asking for more detail or other improvements, do your best to get back to us with an updated application. We'll start making decisions in the next couple of days, so don't hang back!
For reference, we currently have 17 applications for 7 distinct projects. Of a possible (but unlikely) 5 star maximum score, the very best student application so far has got a solid average score of 4.2. The worst has a score of 1.
Cheers,
-
Maxim Uvarov -
Steve McIntyre