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OpenMRS has been accepted for the 4th year as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code™ in 2010. We've enjoyed participating in this great program in the last 3 years and are even more excited about the projects and mentors we have available this year. Coding for OpenMRS is a great way to practice your coding skills and, at the same time, help benefit people in developing countries who are on the front lines of the battle against HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

Projects

The following projects and students have been selected for OpenMRS internships (Google Summer of Code and OpenMRS Internship Program 2010). Congratulations!

Expectations

What we expect of you:

• Become familiar with OpenMRS and your project prior to the start date.

• Write a blog post each week about your experiences.

• Commit early. Commit often. This is an important value in our open source community - read why.

• Join the interns mailing list. (We'll help you with this.)

• You are now part of our developer community. We want you to feel like part of the team, so we hope you will:

  • Have technical discussions on IRC or on the developers mailing list.

  • Ask questions (the smart way) if you get stuck.

  • Participate in our ?Developers Forum (Inactive) via phone or Skype.

What you should expect of OpenMRS during the summer:

• You will have fun!

• You will learn how to work within an open-source project.

• You will have a clearly defined mentor and a backup mentor.

• Your mentor will be able to spend at least 4-5 hours per week working with you.

• If you ask a question the smart way, our community will do what they can to help you.

• The program administrators will be available if any problems arise between students and mentors.

Next Steps for Students

1. Contact your mentor today. Make a plan to communicate with them regularly. Determine the best way to communicate (e-mail, IRC, IM, Skype, telephone, etc.).

2. Get OpenMRS installed and running. Read Developer Documentation, Getting Started as a Developer (Archived Version), and ask others in the community if you have questions.

3. Get a development environment installed and running.

4. Review our ?Conventions page.

5. Get an ?OpenMRS ID if you don't have one already.

6. Set up a blog for GSoC. Send the URL to @Michael Downey. If you don't have a blog yet, you can create one for free at WordPress.com or Blogger.com.

7. Browse the current OpenMRS code specific to your project.

8. Create your User Page. Read OpenMRS ID to learn how.

9. Browse other GSoC projects and the pages they have for their students. We want to be the best!

10. Review the requirements for your project together with your mentor.

11. Submit a formal written proposal to your mentor.

12. Agree on final requirements with your mentor.

13. Develop a project schedule (timeline) with your mentor.

Program Timeline

We will follow the official Google timeline for the program.

• Through May 23: Community bonding period.

  • Get to know your fellow interns and mentors.

  • Do the things listed above in "Next Steps".

• May 24: Coding begins!

  • You should have a project plan in place by this date.

  • Important: Commit code early and often!

• July 16: Mentors submit a mid-term evaluations of your work to Google.

• August 9: Plan to finish coding by this date, then use the final week to scrub code, write tests, improve documentation, etc.

• August 16: "Pencils down." No more coding after this date.

Helpful Community Resources

• You are highly encouraged to join the Developers Forum (Inactive) every Thursday. You can participate by telephone, Skype, or even just on IRC. The 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month will be dedicated to Summer of Code, so make every effort to attend to listen to your fellow students' presentations (see the next section for details).

• We use JIRA as a tool for issue tracking and project management.

• About using e-mail:

  • If you have a highly specific question, contact your mentor.

  • Technical discussions, ideas, and requests for feedback should generally be sent to the developers mailing list (email|dev|openmrs.org).

  • Mailing Lists (Legacy)

    • The Interns list is for GSoC administrative issues. This list should not* be used for technical discussions. 

    • The developers list is for technical discussions.

• IRC discussions in the #openmrs channel of freenode are always fun! Useful for shorter discussions or for large group discussions

• Skype or Phone — sometimes a short discussion can get ideas across much more efficiently

• Google Docs — an excellent tool for sharing and collaborating in real time on documents or spreadsheets

• Use the OpenMRS wiki often:

  • Be sure to make a user profile page.

  • Every project should have a OpenMRS wiki page where you document your project, progress, technical details, show mock ups, etc.

• Scheduling tools:

  • TimeAndDate.com — to clarify/coordinate times around the world

  • Doodle.ch — to coordinate meeting times for larger groups

Project Presentations

• Every student will be required to give a short (15-minute) presentation/demo of their project twice during the program. You can use our screen sharing tools to demo your project. Look in the table above to determine which group you are in.

  • Group 1: 3-June (new date!) and 8-July

  • Group 2: 10-June and 22-July

  • Group 3: 24-June and 12-August

• If you have a serious conflict with one of these dates, contact a student in a different group and trade dates with them. Check your calendars now to make sure.

Questions?

• If you are a GSoC student and have further questions that aren't answered in this document, please contact @Michael Downey or your mentor.