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Difference between revisions of "Summer of Code/Application/2014"

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=== How many potential mentors do you have for this year's program? What criteria did you use to select them? ===
=== How many potential mentors do you have for this year's program? What criteria did you use to select them? ===
===  What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students? ===
We know that the students can do that. We learned this the hard way the first time 'round the GSoC ride :-) The measures we set in place during the previous years almost eradicated this problem.
As in the last few years, we will again be sure to enforce certain rules at the program start; we will clearly explain that this work should be considered as full-time, and if that is in any doubt, we will not let the student enter the program.
We have also introduced the policy that students have to provide status to their mentors on a bi-daily basis at most. If a student disappears for more than 3 days without notifying his/her mentor, the student will fail the project. The students will be made immediately aware of this during their applications. We have positively identified that frequent and meaningful communication goes a long way in keeping the students engaged and interested.
Of course, comprehensive timelines will be required as usual, and we will accept only those of the students which will set realistic goals, thus minimizing the risk of getting intimidated. This factor too frequently leads to the student disappearing.
During the program, we will make sure that the students will feel comfortable with their tasks. Our mentors already have experience with that. Moreover, in difficult situations in the past there was not just a single person feeling responsible for a particular student, but rather the whole project was trying to help when needed. These reflexes on behalf of the mentor group but also on behalf of the active team members of ScummVM have proven to be a pretty good "tool" and we are going to do our best this year too.
Based on our more negative experience two years ago, we will also make sure that internal project tensions stay internal and under control, since they were an identified cause of demotivation of our disappearing student in 2011. The current project management structure should make sure that it will not as easily happen in the future.


===  If you answered “yes” to the question above, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation. Please also list your pass/fail rate for each year. ===
===  If you answered “yes” to the question above, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation. Please also list your pass/fail rate for each year. ===