Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
99 lines (56 loc) · 4.22 KB

cohosting-student-events.md

File metadata and controls

99 lines (56 loc) · 4.22 KB

Co-hosting Student Events

Pattern Summary

Collaborate with student clubs to co-host one-off, open source-focused campus events.

Problem / Challenge

There is a growing interest in open source amongst student cohorts outside of academic courses.

However, OSPO staff time and resources are limited.

Pattern Category

  • Community building
  • Developing and sharing best practices
  • OSS education & skills

Context

A university wishes to broaden open source engagement with students, particularly in terms of skills development and growing a culture of contribution.

Forces

There is a growing or established interest and demand for open source workshops/activities beyond what’s currently on offer in academic courses.

Interested students have a number of competing commitments.

Solution

Collaborate with student clubs and organizations to co-host one-off, open source-focused campus events.

The focus on one-off events recognizes the students’ competing commitments and allows for greater flexibility around scheduling and topic choice.

Organizing the events in partnership with student organizations gets student buy-in and also distributes the workload between student co-organizers and OSPO staff.

Division of tasks may typically be:

OSPO Staff:

  • Designing the event (based on consultation with student co-hosts).
  • Liaison with potential sponsors (if sponsorship or swag is required).
  • Organizing venue and refreshments.
  • Promoting the event through OSPO channels.

Students:

  • Advertising and drumming up excitement amongst networks and informal communication channels (e.g. unofficial Discord servers).
  • Offering the student perspective on planning, logistics, the topic choice and what would make the event valuable.
  • Supporting the setup of the event, welcoming attendees, facilitating technical activities, and clean-up post event.
  • Amplifying the impact of the event through social media/mailing lists.

Resulting Context

OSPO staff gain valuable insights into the open source-related resources that students want on campus.

Student leaders feel empowered by the opportunity to drive an event’s focus and to deliver it. (They also can add the event to their resumes.)

Both OSPO staff and student organizations build their networks and grow their mailing lists (through event registrations).

The process of event organization facilitates relationship building between the OSPO and student clubs/organizations.

One-off events can be used as starting points for further collaboration. Examples include:

  • Cultivating interest in full-term academic courses.
  • Encouraging students to apply to mentorship/internship opportunities.
  • Recruiting students as contributors to campus open source projects.

Additional Learning from University of California Santa Cruz

Students have a lot of priorities competing for their time and attention. When co-organizing an event, it’s helpful to ensure regular check-ins and/or set deadlines for reserving rooms, advertising, etc.

Student co-hosts who don’t have explicit open source experience may benefit from a crash course on using Git/GitHub or other relevant topics.

Industry partners may be able to donate swag or small pots of money. This strengthens relationships with industry partners as there is a quick feedback loop on the impact of their funds.

Known Instances

UCSC OSPO, University of California, Santa Cruz, UC OSPO Network

References

Contributors & Acknowledgement