Initiatives/University Involvement Initiative

Objective: University Involvement Initiative

Overview

Increase Fedora's exposure in university environments, particularly engineering universities.

Expected Impact

Increased user base with a specific focus on future contributors.

Timeframe

For maximum effect, this should kick into gear at the beginning of the (Northern Hemisphere) academic summer, with the intent of having events planned during the 2015-2016 school year.

Aspects

• Coordinate marketing, ambassador and outreach groups to focus on university needs
• Work with universities to provide install-fests during student orientation periods
• Work with universities to regularly run Fedora-focused hackfests
• Work with university IT departments to co-maintain one or more Fedora computer labs (and help them upgrade them during breaks)
• Establish work-study, co-op and for-credit programs at universities

Metrics

• Increased contributions from university programs
• Increased bug reports and feature requests
• Increased mind-share among potential contributors (not easily measured)

Realized Impact: FY16

• Establishment of Letters@fedoraproject.org has enabled us to formally support academic credit to students in India and other countries where these letters can be of use.
• Fedora Has been Accepted to Google Summer of Code 2016!
• Fedora has participated in both rounds of Outreachy this year. Though we were not able to field eligible candidates in the winter, numerous applicants have remained active contributors.
• After Software Freedom Day 2016, we now have a model for offering a "badge-a-thon" at Universities and other events.
• Though hubs has not been under as much active development as we anticipated in 2015, 2016 is ramping up. There are tickets filed related to the EDU Hub now.

Additional Notes

Some prototypes of this have been performed at Brno universities over the last few years, with very positive results. We should coordinate with the contributors involved in those efforts and learn from their successes and failures.

There is also a University Outreach program run by Red Hat's "Open Source and Standards" department which was involved in the RIT partnership from which we eventually acquired Remy DeCausemaker. I assume he will have plenty to add to this discussion as well as contacts in the university world.

Campus Ambassadors

To help identify regions and locations that Fedora may have an opportunity to influence, it is helpful to have an idea of what Ambassadors across all regions of Fedora actively have a position of influence in either a university, high school, or other education environment. This is regardless of role, whether as a student or a faculty member. Ambassadors with connections to education institutions are encouraged to fill in their information below.

Asia and Pacific (APAC)

FAS Username	Name	Institution	Location	Role
username	Example Name	Harvard University	Cambridge, MA	Student

Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)

FAS Username	Name	Institution	Location	Role
nmilosev	Nemanja Milošević	University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Informatics	Novi Sad, RS	MSc Student
churchyard	Miro Hrončok	Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Information Technology	Prague, Czech Republic	MSc Student, Teacher

Latin America and South America (LATAM)

FAS Username	Name	Institution	Location	Role
username	Example Name	Harvard University	Cambridge, MA	Student

North America

FAS Username	Name	Institution	Location	Role
jflory7	Justin W. Flory	Rochester Institute of Technology	Rochester, New York, USA	Student
viorel	Viorel Tabara	Athabasca University	Athabasca, Alberta, Canada	Staff
corey84	Corey Sheldon	Various Makerspaces	Northern Va, USA	Community Member

Objective Lead

Remy DeCausemaker

History

Initial council approval: April 27, 2015

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