Initiatives/University Involvement Initiative

Objective: Proposed 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 2016-2017 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.

Proposed Program: Campus Ambassadors

Outline

After having a conversation with Red Hat's University Relations Team, we have drafted a proposal for a program that looks/feels more like traditional EDU outreach. Below is a description of the particulars. A rough outline of the program would be:

• Develop materials for EDU-specific outreach to be used in our efforts, regardless of a Representatives program
• Hold a Fedora Activity Day (FAD) for EDU material development and Campus Ambassadors training
• Search for and select (3) Campus Ambassadors from each region of Fedora Ambassadors (NA, EMEA, APAC, LATAM)
• Hold a Campus Ambassadors training FAD where we work with the 12 student representatives on how to run on campus workshops/events
• Organize (3) events at schools in each region (12 total)
• Re-evaluate the program after AY2016

Quaid's Funnel of Contributor Engagement

Karsten Wade has described in the past the "funnel" of contributor engagement.

• Tier 1 events are Introductory, and will expose students to both FOSS in general, and increase *awareness* of Fedora's role in the FOSS community. Our first year of the program will target Tier 1 events exclusively.

• Tier 2 events will target Power Users and be organized on-site. This will require commitments from a Campus Ambassador, at least one dedicated staff / faculty member, and 25 students.

• Tier 3 events will target Contributors and be organized on-site through the same manner and scope as we organize Fedora Activity Days. At this point, it is expected that the Campus Ambassadors will be fully integrated into the Fedora community.

Schools and Campus Ambassadors

The program's focus will be on a minimum of three schools per region (APAC, EMEA, LATAM, North America). The schools should have:

• Computer science program, OR
• Active Linux User Group, OR
• Large student audience

Owing to the number of schools, one Campus Ambassador will be identified for each selected school.

Campus Ambassadors kit

• Stickers
• Exclusive swag
• Campus Ambassadors budget (Travel + Food)

Metrics

The EDU team currently tracks:

• Schools we visit
• Number of attendees

The data recovered will help in determining the level of impact each event had. This will be instrumental in planning and managing future events. Data visualizations and reports will be generated based on the raw data collected.

Quaid's triangle

1. Awareness

The awareness program will focus on imparting knowledge by answering the questions

• What is Linux?
• Why Linux?

The answers to these questions will form a formidable base for the complete program. Along with the aforementioned questions, the attendees could also be enlightened about Open Source in general and its principles. Further, this will facilitate the understanding of the answer to the question: Why Fedora? (without being disparaging to other Linux distributions).

2. Power User

Power users could be defined as avid learners aiming to elevate their productivity by using available tools. The workshops held in this program will focus on teaching advanced tools and how Fedora can be easily set up to use these tools.

In a nutshell:

• Git tutorial on GitHub (Pagure?)
• Git + OpenShift tutorial
• GPG
• SSH
• Showing off advanced features in Fedora
• Installing Fedora on the VM
• Ansible
• OpenStack
• ownCloud

3. Contributor

• Personal guidance to lead the contributor towards the contribution pathways owing to his/her preferences or liking towards certain contribution areas.
• Badgeathons
• Hackathons
• FADs

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.

Campus Presence Inventory

Asia and Pacific (APAC)

FAS Username	Name	Institution	Location	Role
woohuiren	Huiren Woo	Ngee Ann Polytechnic	Singapore	Student
Hardwyrd	Romar Micabalo	Cagayan de Oro	Philippines	Teacher/coordinator
Dhanesh95	Dhanesh Sabane	ZES's ZCOER	Pune, Maharashtra, India	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
ardian	Ardian Haxha	University for Business and Technology	Pristina, Kosovo	BSc Student
jonatoni	Jona Azizaj	University of Tirana, Faculty of Economics	Tirana, Albania	Business Informatics Student
germano	Germano Massullo	University of Rome Tor Vergata	Rome, Italy
twohot	Onyeibo Oku	Enugu State University of Science and Technology	Enugu, Nigeria	Faculty/Ambassador

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
swilson	Stephen Wilson	Colleges	Mississippi, USA	Ambassador/ Facilitator

Objective Lead

Remy DeCausemaker

History

Initial council approval: April 27, 2015