Mentoring Organizations

What is a mentoring organization?

A group running an active free/open source software project, e.g. the Python Software Foundation. The project does not need to be a legally incorporated entity. Mentoring organizations must produce and release software under an Open Source Initiative approved license in order to participate in the program.

What is the role of a mentoring organization?

Each mentoring organization is expected to provide:

1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from, publicly published by the mentoring organization as an "Ideas" list
2. An organization administrator to act as the project's main point of contact for SIDE-Labs
3. A person or group responsible for review and ranking of student applications, both those proposals which tie into the org's "Ideas" list and "blue-sky" proposals
4. A person or group of people responsible for monitoring the progress of each accepted student and to mentor her/him as the project progresses
5. A person or group responsible for taking over for a student's assigned mentor in the event they are unable to continue mentoring, e.g. take a vacation, have a family emergency
6. A written evaluation of each student participant, including how s/he worked with the group, whether s/he should be invited back should we do another SUMO, etc.

In addition to these responsibilities, a mentoring organization should actively encourage each student developer to participate in the project's community in whichever way makes the most sense for the project, be it development mailing lists, idling in the project's IRC channel, participating in the project's forum, etc. A truly successful mentoring organization will work diligently to ensure that as many of their students as possible remain active project participants long after the conclusion of the program.

What is the role of an organization administrator?

An organization administrator oversees the overall progress of a mentoring organization and its students throughout the program. Organization administrators will have different responsibilities depending on the organization, but at the very least they will need to:

1. Submit the organization's program application to SIDE-Labs
2. Act as the main point of contact between SIDE-Labs and the organization
3. Respond to any inquiries from SIDE-Labs within 48 hours
4. Assign a back up mentor should a mentor be unable to work with a student
5. Ensure all program evaluations are completed on time on or before the deadlines

For some projects, the organization administrator also acted as an arbiter when disputes arose between students and mentors, but each project should individually decide how such situations should be handled.

Can a mentoring organization have more than one administrator?

Yes, but it's not strictly necessary. It's good to have a back-up administrator identified who can cover for your administrator should s/he go out of town, etc. If your back-up administrator becomes the primary administrator, make sure to notify SIDE-Labs's program administrators.

What kind of mentoring organizations should apply?

Many different types of open source projects can participate in SUMO as long as they are related to SIDE-Labs. As long as your project can provide mentors and is releasing models & code under an Open Source Initiative approved license, you are welcome and encouraged to apply. Unfortunately, there are far more great open source projects than we can work with, so if your project is highly niche or has very few users, chances are that your application will not be accepted.

When will accepted mentoring organizations be announced?

We will announce the list of accepted mentoring organizations on the SUMO 2010 home page on June 21, 2010.

Should students contact the mentoring organization before the program begins?

If you're interested in contributing to a particular open source project, there's no need to wait for SUMO to start; start idling in the project's IRC channel, subscribe to the development mailing lists, take a look through the bug tracker and submit a patch. If you see something that you think would make a particularly good project for SUMO, why not suggest it to the organization?

That said, we'll announce the list of accepted organizations on June 21, 2010. At that point, students should definitely contact the mentoring organizations using the contact information listed on the project's "Ideas" page.

Should students send proposals directly to the mentoring organizations?

No, all proposals should be submitted to the mentoring organization using the 2010 program site.

Are mentoring organizations required to use the code produced?

No. While we hope that all the code that comes out of this program will find a happy home, we're not requiring organizations to use the students' code.

Will a student receive the stipend if the organization does not use her/his code?

As long as the goals listed in a student's accepted application are met according to the judgment of her/his mentoring organization, the student will receive the stipend whether or not the project uses the code produced.

What if there is no organization doing the kind of open source work I'm doing?

This will concern essentially modelling domain related projects.

If you have an outstanding need for an alternate mentor, SIDE-Labs will accept suggestions. For instance, suppose you're working in a cryogenics lab and the only ones really qualified to judge your work writing profilers for liquid nitrogen delivery systems are other cryogenicists. In such a case, you can submit your "alternate" project application.

When applying, choose 'SIDE-Labs' as the mentoring organization. Your application should describe who you'd like to oversee your work and include detailed contact information for your proposed mentor. SIDE-Labs's program administrators will then review your application and notify you and your mentor whether your alternate project has been accepted. Please don't apply unless your proposed project has an academic research focus and you've already found an advisor from your university or industry to mentor you.