2016 Email Announcements

This is an archive of all broadcast emails sent to Mentors and Org Admins.

August 30, 2016: GSoC 2016 has come to a close - thank you all!

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

Thank you for being a GSoC 2016 Mentor or Org Admin! Your dedication and commitment to bringing new contributors into the open source community is greatly appreciated. We applaud you for your great efforts this summer (or winter for our friends in the southern hemisphere).

By now all of your students have received their pass/fail emails. We know that making the decision to fail a student can be difficult, but it is a very important (and necessary!) part of the program.

Blog Posts

We want to hear from you! Tell us about your GSoC experience in a wrap-up post that we may feature on the Google Open Source blog. Post can include organization and project descriptions, interesting stories/anecdotes, or anything else you’d like to tell the world about. Please send draft blog posts (don’t forget to include pictures and logos!) to [e-mail] and he will work with you to get your article posted. Examples of past posts are here and here.

Org Payments

Later this week we will begin to send PO’s to each organization. It will take awhile for 160+ PO’s to be generated—don’t worry if you don’t receive yours until closer to September 15. Email [e-mail] with any payment questions.

Mentor Summit

The GSoC Mentor Summit, held at the Google Campus in Sunnyvale, California, is 2 months away! Right now over 90 organizations and 155 mentors have registered for this year’s Summit. If you are one of the 2 designated mentors/org admins from your org be sure to do these 3 steps by September 20th (the sooner the better):

1) Complete the Mentor Summit Registration form once you are sure you will be able to attend.

2) Book your hotel room. Shuttles will run between the two hotels throughout the weekend. Rooms must be booked before September 21, but we suggest you book soon to guarantee your room. You choose which hotel you wish to stay at.

To book your room, use these GSoC specific hotel registration links: Sheraton Sunnyvale or Aloft Santa Clara

(When booking your hotel you will need to supply a credit card number but you will not be charged for the nights of October 28 and 29.)

3) Read the GSoC 2016 Mentor Summit website for many more details about the weekend (more updates coming soon)

Waitlist Information

If your organization has more than two delegates that wish to attend the Mentor Summit please have additional folks put their name on the waitlist. As we get closer to the event we will contact any of the people we can accommodate. Please do not book a hotel room until Google admins have contacted you directly about an open space.

Not sending any Mentors to the Summit?

If your organization does not wish to send anyone to the Mentor Summit at all please fill out this two question form so that we can take people off the waitlist.

For more information on the Mentor Summit you can also read our previous email with more details.

Feel free to reach out to our team at [e-mail] with any questions.

Best, Stephanie and Mary

August 24, 2016: Final Evaluations of Students due by August 29 19:00 UTC

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

You can now go into the GSoC webapp and submit your Final Evaluations of your students. Be sure to submit the Evaluation before Monday, August 29th at 19:00 UTC.

You need to validate the target of the URL the student has supplied to their work product for GSoC 2016 (which you will see in the evaluation form). Make sure it meets your requirements as well as those mentioned in the Work Product Submission Guidelines. The URL supplied by the student will be public on the GSoC site for everyone to view and look at the work completed by GSoC students this year. You want to be sure it represents your project and your student’s work accordingly.

Because we have asked students to submit a URL to showcase their work product this year, we would like to request that if the target of your student’s link was particularly great (had all of the relevant information in an organized and clear fashion) to please just paste the URL into this 1 question form so that we can gather some good examples for students for next year. Thanks! This is not required, just a helpful thing for students in future GSoC programs.

Important Upcoming Dates:

August 25 19:00 UTC: Deadline for updating shipping address.

August 29 19:00 UTC: Deadline for submission of Mentor Final Evaluation of student.

As always, please reach out to our team at [e-mail] with any questions.

August 9, 2016: GSoC 2016 is rapidly coming to a close!

TO: Mentors and Org Admins on an active project

Next week students will begin submitting their Final Evaluations. We have encouraged students to reach out to you to share a preview of their submission URL and let you verify it meets Google’s and your requirements before they submit. Students can not edit their evaluations once they have submitted them — it’s in their best interest to have you review the link first.

Mentor Final Evaluations (of students) Start August 23rd at 19:01 UTC

Mentors are responsible for validating the target of the URL (provided in the evaluation), making sure it points to the GSoC 2016 work product and meets the other requirements. Mentors will use this information as part of their pass/fail decision. The deadline to submit Final Evaluations is August 29 19:00 UTC

Org Payments

Reminder: OA’s must fill out the payment request form by August 20 to receive mentor summit/student stipend payments. To date, there are over 30 organizations who have yet to fill out the form. There will be NO extensions on this deadline. If you do not want to be paid, please fill out the form to let us know. Visit the payment site for more detailed information or contact [e-mail] directly.

Important Dates:

August 15 19:00 UTC: Student Final Evaluation (of mentor) period starts.

August 20 19:00 UTC: Deadline for submission for payment information by OA’s

August 23 19:00 UTC: Deadline for Student Final Evaluation (of mentor) submission.

August 23 19:01 UTC: Mentor Final Evaluation (of student) period starts.

August 25 19:00 UTC: Deadline for updating shipping address.

August 29 19:00 UTC: Deadline for submission of Mentor Final Evaluation of (student).

And don’t forget to sign up for the Mentor Summit if you have been selected to attend!

Feel free to reach out to our team at [e-mail] with any questions.

July 25, 2016: Reminder: Org payment information due soon!

TO: Org Admins

This is your friendly reminder for obtaining payments for GSoC 2016. One OA from each organization must complete the Supplier Enrollment process by 8/1 AND fill out the payment request form by 8/20. These deadlines can not be extended for any reason. If you have already completed both steps, please disregard this email.

Detailed instructions can be found here.

Important Dates & Deadlines:

• before August 1, 2016: An OA from each org must complete the Supplier Enrollment process with Google (only if you have not been paid as a supplier by Google before).
• before August 20, 2016: An OA from each org must complete the payment request form so that we can generate a PO.
• between August 31 - September 15, 2016: Google will create a PO for you and email it to the OA that submitted the request.
• December 1, 2016: This is the last day you can invoice against a PO. We can not accept any invoices that come in after December 1, 2016. No late invoices will be accepted.

If you have any questions, please contact [e-mail] or [e-mail].

July 15, 2016: 2016 Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

The GSoC Mentor Summit is 3.5 months away! Read below for all the details.

Event Dates

Friday, October 28 - Sunday, October 30

Location

Conference: Google Campus in Sunnyvale, California.

Hotels: Sheraton Sunnyvale and Aloft Santa Clara

Purpose of the Mentor Summit

Google Summer of Code has been around for 12 years and continues to thrive because of the heart and soul of the program - our Mentors. As a way to say thank you and to continue to keep the program maturing and evolving we hold an annual weekend unconference. We bring two mentors from each participating organization to Northern California to talk about GSoC and the FOSS community, what can be done to make the program better, how to keep students involved in their communities post GSoC and to discuss many other relevant topics. And of course, it’s a fun way to meet up with other mentors and org admins across the GSoC universe.

The Mentor Summit is pretty informal (which seems to make most people very happy). The attendees make the schedule for the weekend. We will have a track related to Google open source projects and to discuss some specific GSoC and GCI topics but otherwise y’all make the weekend what you want it to be.

Who can come to the Mentor Summit?

Two Mentors or Org Admins are invited from each of the participating GSoC 2016 orgs. It is solely up to the Organization Administrators and your community to decide on which two people will be attending (but they must be 2016 Mentors with assigned student projects or a 2016 Organization Administrator).

Organizations that miss 1 evaluation during the program will only be able to send 1 delegate. Any organizations missing 2 or more evaluations will not be able to send any delegates to the Summit.

Where can I find more information about the Mentor Summit?

Please visit the Mentor Summit website for information about the program for the weekend, hotels, shuttle schedules, local information, instructions for requesting visa letters, and more. We’ll be adding more information to the site as the date gets closer, so make sure to check back often!

How do I get reimbursed for my flight tickets to the Mentor Summit?

Each organization will receive $2200 from Google to cover the costs of travel for the Mentor Summit for two people. Organization Administrators are responsible for distributing the reimbursements to their delegates. You should talk to your Org Admin to find out what receipts they want from you for the reimbursement.

Waitlist Information

Many orgs wish to send more than two delegates to the Mentor Summit. If your organization has any people above the two delegates that wish to attend the Mentor Summit please have them put their name on the waitlist. As we get closer to the event we will contact any of the people we can accommodate. Please do not book a hotel room until Google admins have contacted you directly about an open space.

Not sending any Mentors to the Summit?

If your organization does not wish to send anyone to the Mentor Summit at all please fill out this two question form so that we can make note of it and can possibly take some of the people off of the waitlist.

Sign Up Here!

If your Org has decided that you should attend the Mentor Summit please complete all 3 of these steps before September 20th, preferably at the same time. (The sooner the better to guarantee you a hotel room)

1. Please complete the Mentor Summit Registration form as soon as you are sure you will be able to attend.

2. Book your hotel room. Shuttles will run between the two hotels throughout the weekend. Rooms must be booked before September 21, but we encourage you to book as soon as you know you will be attending to guarantee your room. You get to choose which hotel you wish to stay at.

   To book your room, use these GSoC specific hotel registration links: Sheraton Sunnyvale or Aloft Santa Clara

   When booking your hotel you will need to supply a credit card number but you will not be charged for the nights of October 28 and 29.

3. Read the GSoC 2016 Mentor Summit website for many more details about the weekend

If you have any questions please contact us at [e-mail]

July 15, 2016: GSoC Student Work Submission Guidelines and Final Evaluations

TO: Mentors and Org Admins on an active project

With a little over a month left for students to complete their GSoC 2016 projects we want to remind you about a change to final evaluations.

In previous years, students were required to upload their work to the program website (as a zip or tar file). This year, as part of their final evaluations, students will provide a single URL to the code they produced. Then, as part of their final evaluation of the student, mentors will validate the target of the URL (provided in the evaluation), making sure it points to the GSoC 2016 work product and meets the other requirements.

Please read the Student Work Product Submission Guidelines now to help your student find the best option for their situation. It is very important that you work with your student and let them know exactly what you expect from them in the submission well before August 15th. As with the midterms, final evaluations cannot be changed after submission.

We are interested in hearing any suggestions you have on the Student Work Product Submission Guidelines document. We will not be changing the submission system, but we would like to hear more good (and bad) examples which we can potentially add to the document. Please send them to [e-mail].

Don't forget to encourage your students to spend some time on code cleanup, documentation, testing, and other best practices.

Important Upcoming Dates:

August 15 19:00 UTC: Student final eval evaluation period starts.

August 23 19:00 UTC: Deadline for student final evaluation submission. Mentor final evaluation (of student) period starts.

August 25 19:00 UTC: Deadline for updating shipping address.

August 29 19:00 UTC: Deadline for submission of mentor final evaluation of (student).

As always, please reach out to our team at [e-mail] with any questions.

July 6, 2016: GSoC Mentor Summit and Assigning Additional Mentors

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

Thank you all for completing your midterm evaluations on time. We only had 2 mentors who didn’t complete their evaluations by the deadline, which out of almost 1200 evaluations is very good.

Assigning More Mentors to Student Projects

Org Admins: We want to remind you to add any mentors that are not currently assigned to a project but are in fact mentoring a student project, to the student’s project in the next couple of weeks. We send out bulk emails that only go to the Org Admins and Mentors of Assigned Projects (reminders, invites to the mentor summit, etc.) like this one.

There are many mentors that registered for GSoC but aren’t actually working on a student project (the project they volunteered for wasn’t accepted by the org, etc.) and we don’t want to continue to spam them with these emails that are specific to assigned mentors and OAs only.

Mentor Summit

As we mentioned back in May, the dates for the annual GSoC Mentor Summit are October 28-30, 2016 in Sunnyvale, California.

Each org will be able to send up to 2 Mentors/Org Admins from the GSoC 2016 program to the event using the $2200 travel stipend per org (unless the org missed any student evaluations). Only mentors assigned to a project or Org Admins are eligible to attend the Summit.

It is up to your org to determine which 2 people you would like to send to the summit. We encourage you all to start thinking about it now as we will be sending out the registration forms for the Summit and sending the link to the Mentor Summit site with additional important details and FAQs in the next couple of weeks.

All Previous Announcements

We have compiled a page with all of the previous Mentor and OA announcements that we have sent since the program began. This page is great for quick reference of an email you vaguely remember reading as well as being helpful for any new Mentors or OAs who might have been added later in the program (after March 8th).

Feedback in Midterm Evaluations

Thank you all for your feedback in the midterm evaluations. The “Anything Else” section has proved to be both very helpful and at times entertaining. :)

June 26, 2016: Your midterm eval of your student has not been submitted

TO: Mentors and Org Admins with a missing midterm evaluation

Our records indicate you have not submitted your midterm evaluation of your student. This midterm evaluation is a required part of your participation in GSoC. The deadline to complete your midterm evaluation of your student is mere hours away - June 27th at 19:00 UTC.

If the mentor is unable to complete the midterm evaluation they must have another mentor or the org admin complete it for them before the deadline. Organizations will lose $1100 of their mentor travel sponsorship for each evaluation missed. Missed evaluations also reflect poorly on organizations for future applications to GSoC.

Remember, only 1 mentor can submit an evaluation for a student.

If you have any questions feel free to email us at [e-mail]

June 23, 2016: Midterm Evaluations and Failing Students

TO: Mentors and Org Admins on an active project

The deadline to complete your midterm evaluation of your student is Monday, June 27th at 19:00 UTC. If the mentor is unable to complete the midterm evaluation they must have another mentor or the org admin complete it for them before the deadline. Organizations will lose $1100 of their mentor travel sponsorship for each evaluation missed.

To fail or not to fail? Every year we tell organizations and mentors to fail students who are not doing their work. Often people will want to give the student the benefit of the doubt that they will get better for the last half of the coding period - this rarely happens. 11 years of experience has taught us if you are considering failing a student then you should.

Google Summer of Code requires students to write quality code for the open source organizations they are working with while meeting their scheduled milestones. Students should not receive a stipend for just being good proposal writers and nice people. They must also produce quality code that lives up to the expectations of your community. If they don't they should be failed. Period.

In the midterm evaluation there is a section where you can leave feedback directly for the student that they will see after the midterm deadline. This is the place to say what they did well and also why you failed them (what they should have been doing - example: communicating with the mentor/community and meeting their scheduled milestones, etc.)

Failing students is expected and encouraged (when appropriate) When Google admins are considering the Org Applications each year we look at the pass/fail status of an org’s previous GSoC experience(s). We expect to see some failures. Having orgs who pass all of their students every year gives us pause as we have to wonder if the orgs are being too lenient with their students. Failing a student can be a good thing for the student. It can teach them the importance of deadlines, responsibilities, and also not over-committing or overselling their skills.

When deciding whether to pass or fail your student you should be considering the actual code produced and their involvement in the community. It is your responsibility to your organization, to all of the other students participating in GSoC, to yourself, and to Google, to evaluate the student on the quality of their code contributions they have produced during these first 5 weeks of the program. Things happen and students get sick or have other issues pop up that don’t allow them to work as much on GSoC as they wish. This happens. But just like with a job, if you don’t do your work and meet the requirements of your job you are let go. Students that aren’t meeting their deadlines and producing quality code should be failed.

Remember, only 1 mentor can submit an evaluation for a student.

If you have any questions feel free to email us at [e-mail]

June 21, 2016: Midterm Evaluations and Org Payment Information

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

• Midterm Evaluations are now open and are due June 27, 19:00 UTC. Please ensure your mentors complete their evaluations before the deadline. You can easily view the status of each evaluation via your dashboard.
• We have just recently added very important information about Mentor Org Payments and Mentor Summit Stipends to this page. Please read through this information very carefully, as the process has changed from previous years. If you have any payment related questions, please contact [e-mail].

June 7, 2016: Important GSoC Midterm Evaluation Information

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

We hope you are enjoying working with your students during these first few weeks of coding.

Below is important information regarding your required midterm evaluation of your student(s) - please read everything very carefully.

IMPORTANT DEADLINE for ALL MENTORS: Midterm Evaluations open June 20 and are DUE June 27, 19:00 UTC

This midterm evaluation is a required part of your participation in GSoC 2016 and should take you about 10 minutes to complete. If you do not complete the midterm evaluation of each of your students by June 27, your organization will automatically lose $1100 of the mentor travel stipend for the mentor summit. There are no exceptions. Missed evaluations also contribute to our decision on whether to accept and organization in future years of GSoC.

Starting at 19:00 UTC on June 20th you can go to your dashboard on the GSoC program site to complete the midterm evaluation. Just click on the “Complete Evaluation” button and fill out the form. You must complete the entire evaluation form at once — you can not submit a partially completed evaluation and you can not edit the evaluation once it has been submitted. You must submit your midterm evaluation by June 27th at 19:00 UTC.

Can’t submit the Evaluation from June 20-27?

If you know you will be unable to complete the evaluation of your student between June 20 - June 27 at 19:00 UTC, please ask the other mentor working with your student to complete the form. Your Org Admin can also fill out the form on your behalf. Be sure to provide them the answers to the questions below so they can fill out the form for you when the evaluation period opens.

Only one Mentor can complete an evaluation for a student

If there are multiple mentors working with a student you will need to decide which of you will be filling out the midterm evaluation of the student. Only one mentor can complete the evaluation. Once the evaluation has been submitted it can not be edited, so be sure you both agree on the outcome (pass versus fail) and who will be filling out the form ahead of time.

If you are a Mentor for multiple students then you will see all of the Midterm Evaluations that need to be completed in your Dashboard. From there you can click on the name of the student you wish to complete a midterm evaluation for.

In case you are wondering what the questions will be on the midterm evaluations, we have added them to the bottom of this email for a preview.

If you have any questions please email us at [e-mail]

---

Preview of the midterm evaluation questions:

(all questions are required)

History

• How many years have you participated in GSoC as a Mentor or Org Admin?

Communication

• When did you first communicate with your student?
  • Before orgs were announced
  • Between orgs announced and start of student application period
  • Between start of student application period and students announced
  • After students were announced
  • Not sure
• How often do you and your student communicate?
  • Daily
  • Twice a week
  • Once a week
  • Twice a month
  • Once a month
• How do you communicate with your mentor(s)?
  • 1:1 Instant Messaging
  • IRC or other group chat
  • Video Chat
  • Voice Chat
  • Private Emails
  • Mailing Lists
  • Blog Posts
  • In person
  • Other (fill in answer)
• How many hours a week do you spend on “Project name” per week?
  • Enter the average number of hours per week. Limit it to only this particular project.
• How many total hours do you spend on GSoC per week?
  • Enter the average number of hours per week. It should include all GSoC related time.
• How often do you require status updates from your student?
  • Daily
  • Every few days
  • Weekly
  • Only when explicitly requested
  • Never
• Rate the quality of the student’s interactions with the project mentor:
  • Very bad
  • Bad
  • Okay
  • Good
  • Excellent
• Please rate the quality of the student’s interactions with the community:
  • Very bad
  • Bad
  • Okay
  • Good
  • Excellent

Rating

• Is the student on track to complete their project?
  • The student has already completed the project
  • The student is ahead of schedule
  • The student is on schedule
  • The student is behind the schedule
  • Not sure
• What is the quality of code/work the student has produced thus far?
  • Very bad
  • Bad
  • Okay
  • Good
  • Excellent
• For the midterm evaluation should the student pass or fail?
  • Pass
  • Fail

Everything Else

• Feedback for student (This content will be shared with the student)
  • We suggest you include one thing they're doing well (with examples) and one area where they could improve (with a suggestion for how.)
• Anything else you’d like to tell us?

May 13, 2016: GSoC info before coding begins

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

We hope your students are actively participating in your community and are excited to start coding on May 23rd.

Failing students in the community bonding period

If you believe your student has not been actively participating in the community bonding period and you wish for them to fail the program please contact us at [e-mail] by Monday, May 16th at 22:00 UTC and we will remove the student from the program.

Feedback Survey

Thank you to all of you who have submitted your feedback on your GSoC experience so far. We have been reading through the comments and look forward to talking through more of them at the mentor summit this October. Speaking of the Mentor Summit...

Mentor Summit dates

The GSoC 2016 Mentor Summit will be held from October 28-30 in Sunnyvale, California. Each org will be able to send two representatives (they can be mentors or org admins). Missing evaluation deadlines will result in reducing the travel stipend and the number of representatives an org can send to the Mentor Summit.

We will be sending more details on the process for obtaining the mentor summit travel stipends and mentor stipends to Organization Administrators in a few weeks.

Mentor Manual

Just a reminder to be sure to read the Mentor Manual if you haven't done so already to help you over these next few months of the GSoC program.

May 9, 2016: We'd love your feedback on GSoC

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

Before student coding begins, we would appreciate five minutes of your time for feedback on your Google Summer of Code experience so far.

http://goo.gl/forms/Kh8LPGJmIb

April 29, 2016: Community Bonding Period Update

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

Thank you all for being Mentors and OAs for GSoC 2016! We value your commitment to GSoC and your enthusiasm for helping students learn more about open source. All of you are the reason this program has continued to grow and evolve since 2005. Thank you.

We rely on you to help enforce the rules and to keep your students on course over the next 4 months. We want to help you build long term contributors to your projects and have made some changes/clarifications to the community bonding period that should help everyone be more clear on what is expected of them.

This is a very long email but contains very important information, please read it carefully.

Community Bonding Period

As part of the student’s acceptance into GSoC they are expected to actively participate in the Community Bonding period (April 22 - May 22). The Community Bonding period is intended to get students ready to start contributing to your organization full time in May.

Unfortunately, some students think their acceptance into GSoC guarantees them the initial $500 payment. That is not the case. A student does not receive $500 just for writing a good proposal. They must be active in the Community Bonding period to earn that $500.

Community Bonding activities may involve:

• Becoming familiar with the community practices and processes. (This often involves a mix of observation and participation.)
• Participating on Mailing Lists / IRC / etc. (Not just lurking.)
• Setting up their development environment.
• Small (or large) patches/bug fixes. (These do not need to be directly related to their GSoC project.)
• Participating in code reviews for others. (Even someone who isn't familiar with the project can contribute by pointing out potential inefficiencies, bad error handling, etc.)
• Working with their mentor and other org members on refining their project plan. This might include finalizing deadlines and milestones, adding more detail, figuring out potential issues, etc.
• If the student is already familiar with the organization, they could be helping others get involved in the community.
• Reading (and updating!) documentation they will need to understand to complete their project.
• Reporting or replicating bugs.

Active means active. Students have committed to the program schedule, and we would like you to hold them to it. There is no simple standard, as every org is different, every student has different time constraints, and there are many different ways to interact. Some students may require coaxing and encouragement in order to get them to actively participate.

If you do not see regular public interaction from the student, you should strongly encourage it. Public interaction is important -- it is a key principle of open source -- work happens where everyone can see it. Similarly, all work done by the students should be shared in a publicly available repository.

By May 16th if the student has not been active in Community Bonding please notify Google at [e-mail] to let us know. After a brief investigation, we may remove the student from the program. They will not receive any payments.

Do not feel bad about "failing" a student.

The past eleven years of GSoC have demonstrated that students who don't interact early and often are more likely to fail later. Often they just disappear. We don't want you to waste your time on students who don't care about the project/organization and don’t even attempt to show interest these first few weeks of the program. Small contributions early on are often a very positive signal.

Organizations will not be penalized for failing students who are not fulfilling their responsibilities during the Community Bonding period. We expect there to be students who fail this Community Bonding period, just like we expect there to be some students who fail the midterm and others that fail the final. This is completely normal.

If you have questions as to whether a student has met the guidelines, don't hesitate to ask. Email [e-mail] with a summary of the student's activities during the Community Bonding period, and we will review it.

April 22, 2016: Confirmed Mentors of a Student Project

TO: Mentors and Org Admins with a confirmed student project

Congratulations, you will be spending the next few months working with {Student display name} on {Project title}.

Please welcome your student into your community and work with them to plan the milestones they will need to meet. Setting clear expectations early is one of the best ways to help your student succeed.

You can read the Mentor Manual for some great tips on how to communicate with your student and make a project plan.

If you have any questions please contact our Google Open Source Programs team at [e-mail] or email the mentors mailing list if appropriate.

April 18, 2016: Student Project Selection Reminder

TO: Org Admins

Just a quick reminder to select your students in the web app with their mentors before the deadline on Wednesday at 19:00 UTC.

Currently 25% of the orgs have not chosen their students yet.

If you have any questions please contact us at [e-mail]

April 7, 2016: Slot Selection and Project Selection

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

• Deadline for OAs to submit their slot requests: Monday, April 11th at 19:00 UTC.
• Google will release slot allotments on Wednesday, April 13th.
• Deadline for OAs to select projects (students) / assign mentors: Wednesday, April 20th at 19:00 UTC.

Slot Requests

Deadline: Monday, April 11th at 19:00 UTC.

Org Admins must request a minimum and maximum number of project slots for their organization based on good proposals received and available mentors. These numbers are used to help Google allocate slots. Orgs may receive less than your requested minimum. New orgs will likely only receive a couple of slots, no matter how many they request.

There is a 1:1 mapping between projects and students. A student may only complete one GSoC project per year. Slots should only be requested for projects which you think are likely to succeed. Do not plan to accept "okay" proposals.

Read Slot Allocation and Project Selection for more information.

Student Eligibility

Deadline: Monday, April 11th at 19:00 UTC.

April 11th is also the deadline for students to have any re-submitted proof of enrollment documents reviewed. Forms submitted in the last few hours may not be reviewed before the deadline. Students have been informed of this and have all been sent a reminder email to correct their form before the deadline. Students without valid proof of enrollment documents will not be eligible to participate. There will be no exceptions.

Conflict Resolution

If you try to accept a student that has already been accepted by another organization, you will see a notice to that effect. Contact info for that org’s admins will be displayed so you can ask if they would be willing to release the student. They can choose a different student for that slot.

Google will not get involved in these decisions. It is up to the organization that first chose the student to decide how they wish to proceed. Do not ask the student, as this will leak the information that they are accepted before the decision is finalized.

Emails and Communication Reminders

• Do not tell students that they have been accepted into the program before the public announcement on April 22nd. Decisions are not official until it is on the website and emails are sent.
• OA’s will receive a confirmation email for each student that they have accepted into their org on April 22nd. For large orgs this will be a lot of emails, we apologize in advance.
• Mentors with accepted projects will receive an email letting them know they are a mentor for the project.
• Don't assume that just because you've received an email that everyone else has. A lot of emails are being sent, and due to how email was designed over 30 years ago, they may not be delivered simultaneously, immediately, or in order.

Timeline

April 11, 19:00 UTC: Slot request deadline.

April 13: Slot allocations announced.

April 14 - 20: Fill slots with projects.

April 22: Accepted projects announced.

April 23 - May 22: Community Bonding Period.

May 23: Coding begins!

March 23, 2016: Final PDF review and Slot Allocation

TO: Mentors and Org Admins

The student submission period is nearly over (less than 57 hours to go)! You are all quite busy responding to students and giving them feedback on their draft proposals right now. In the next phase of GSoC, you get to select which proposals you will make into GSoC projects.

Reviewing Final PDF Proposals -- March 25 - April 10

The deadline for students to submit their Final PDF proposal is Friday, March 25th at 19:00 UTC.

Students must submit a Final PDF proposal before the deadline or your org will not be able to select them as a student. Students without Final PDF proposals cannot be accepted, and there will be no exceptions.

March 25th 19:00 UTC is also the deadline for students to submit a proof of enrollment in an eligible university program. Students who fail to do this, are ineligible for GSoC this year. We will be reviewing the forms and students will have a chance to resubmit if there are any problems.

After 19:00 UTC March 25 org members will be able to see the Final PDFs submitted by students.

Your decision about whether or not to select a student should be based on the Final PDF proposal. You will also be able to reference the draft proposal -- but should not make your decision based on it. A draft proposal is intended to be used to view the comment thread and maybe see how the student interacted with you and responded to comments, etc. Do not use it to let the student make more changes after the deadline. That is not fair to all the other applicants.

Want to Mentor?

If you are interested in being a mentor for a given proposal then you can click the purple “Want to Mentor” button to help your Org Admin know who is interested in mentoring which proposals. This is particularly helpful for the org admins when determining if they have enough mentors for their slot request numbers.

Slots Request - deadline April 11 19:00 UTC

Org Admins will request a minimum and maximum number of project slots. Slots should only be requested for projects where there is at least one confirmed mentor and that you think have a good chance of succeeding. Do not accept "okay" proposals. New orgs will likely only receive 1-2 slots, no matter how many they request.

April 11th is also the deadline for students to have any re-submitted proof of enrollment forms approved. Note that students with invalid forms will not appear in your list of student projects you can choose from starting April 13th (when slots are announced).

All Org Admins should read Slot Allocation and Project Selection for more detailed information.

Upcoming Important Dates

March 26 - April 11 19:00 UTC: Review all submitted student proposals with your org and consider how many you want to select and how many you can handle. Decide on the minimum/maximum number of student slots to request.

April 11, 19:00 UTC: Deadline to submit slot requests. (OAs)

April 13, 19:00 UTC: Slot allocations are announced.

April 14 - 20: Select the proposals to become student projects. At least 1 mentor must be assigned to each project before it can be selected.

April 22: Accepted GSoC students/projects are announced.

April 23 - May 22: Community Bonding Period.

May 23: Coding begins

Please contact us at [e-mail] with any questions.

March 16, 2016: How to interact with students during proposal phase

TO: Org Admins

A mentor brought up a very important point that I want to share with all of you.

You will be interacting with tens or even hundreds of students over the next 10 days. Each is participating for their own reason. For some, it is the love of code. For others, it's the money. Many will have questions such as "Is my proposal better than the other students’?" "Are you going to pick me?" Some will be very anxious about getting accepted. To help you manage their questions and maintain the spirit of the program, we have some guidelines for you to follow.

Don't talk about:

• If you plan to accept the student.
  • You don’t know how many slots you will receive and don’t want to give students false hope. Google’s official email to students on April 22nd should be the first time students learn whether they were accepted or not.
• How other mentors rated a student’s proposal.
  • If you want to tell a student your personal opinion of their proposal, that's ok (and good), but you are encouraged to phrase it as constructive criticism. "I think your proposal would be better if you..."
• How many slots you get assigned by Google (when they are announced in a few weeks.)
• Do not ask about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, marital status, children, sexual preference, disability, illness or lifestyle choices.
  • If the student wishes to share this information with you, they can. You should not instigate a discussion about it.

Do chat about:

• Who their mentor(s) might be
  • If the student is getting proposal feedback it is likely from their prospective mentor anyway.
• Their proposal
  • Students are encouraged to request feedback by sharing their drafts with organizations, and Mentors are expected to provide feedback to students. Over 11 years of GSoC history has shown that students who work with mentors on their proposal are more likely to succeed.
  • For students who choose to use Google Docs for their proposal, you can makecomments and suggestions inline.
  • Help them define a reasonable scope and timeline. This is often an area that can be difficult for students.
• Your community
  • Every open source project has a different community style. Introducing students to how your project works will help them fit in.
• Tools, technologies, and techniques
  • As they apply to your organization and their proposal.

Maybe chat about:

You do not have to share any of this information with prospective students. Different orgs will have different reasons for sharing or not.

• Telling students that someone else has applied on the same topic
  • This happens often and an org may choose two students to work on variations of the same project. Students may want to get competitive and in some rare cases could try to scare away their competition. Some orgs choose not to share this information.
  • Some orgs want to have students who are writing proposals on the same project idea to talk it out in IRC or on their org list. This is your decision. There are pros and cons to this one. It depends on the project, the mentor and the students.
• How many proposals your org received
  • There are good reasons to let students know and reasons not to tell students this information. It can encourage or discourage them from investing in your organization. Please use your best judgement.

Reviewing Proposals

At the bottom of every proposal page, there is an “Internal Review” section that is only viewable by your org's members.

If you wish to receive emails when someone comments on a proposal you have commented on, you can opt-in to that on your profile page. (Select "My Profile" from the menu in the top right corner.)

All organization members can click the "I want to mentor" button to express interest in mentoring a proposal.

Org Admins have the ability to Star or Ignore proposals if they wish to. No other ranking system is provided on the site. Org Admins can export proposals from their dashboard and rank in whatever way makes the most sense for their organization.

Remember, if you make comments outside of the GSoC Website (for example, on the shared Google Doc draft proposal), those may be seen by the student.

Inviting Mentors

All mentors must be invited. This seems to be a point of confusion and mentioned on IRC quite often so we just wanted to reiterate it again here. Org Admins, you may want to be sure the potential mentors in your community are aware that you must invite them before they can register as a mentor.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact our team at [e-mail]. Part of our team will be traveling to FOSSASIA this week (we hope to see you there!) and we may have considerable delays responding to emails particularly those that are addressed to a single person. By using the group email we can hopefully respond to you in a more timely manner.

March 8, 2016: What is expected of OA's

TO: Org Admins

Welcome to Google Summer of Code 2016! There are some changes from previous years — please carefully read all of the information below even if you are a veteran participant.

What is expected of Org Admins:

• Ensure that your organization's profile page is complete and accurate. Keep your ideas list up to date. Make sure the logo looks good. (A logo that contains the organization name in readable letters is suggested.)
• Ensure that the "Application Instructions" for students is thorough and complete.
• Communicate with prospective students about possible project ideas. Mentors should be helping too.
• Invite mentors to your org. Make sure you have enough.
• Request project slots.
• After slot allocation, select students and assign mentors.
• Negotiate with other organizations in the case of a conflict over a student.
• Ensure that your org is set up in Google’s supplier system to receive mentor stipends and mentor travel stipends. (More info coming in May.)
• Make sure your mentors are communicating with students regularly.
• Make sure all mentor evaluations of students are completed. It is your responsibility to nag the mentor or complete it for them.

Important GSoC 2016 Dates and Deadlines

March 14 - 25: Mentors and Org Admins review student draft proposals and give students feedback on their proposals.

March 26 - April 10: Review all submitted student proposals with your org and consider how many you want to select and how many you can handle. Determine the minimum/maximum number of student slots to request.

April 11: Deadline to submit slot requests.

April 13: Slot allocations are announced.

April 14 - 20: Select the proposals to become student projects. At least 1 mentor must be assigned to each project before it can be selected.

April 22: Accepted GSoC students/projects are announced.

April 23 - May 22: Community Bonding Period.

May 23: Coding begins

June 20 - 27: Midterm evaluations

August 23 - 29: Final evaluations of students.

Mid/Late October 2016: Mentor Summit (dates TBD)

Reviewing Student Proposals

Students should have already started reaching out to you to discuss project ideas. Starting March 14, students will be able to submit their proposals via the website. Each student may submit a total of 5 proposals to the program.

Historically, the students with the best proposals reach out to the orgs early to receive feedback before submitting their final proposal. To encourage more students to seek feedback on their proposals we made draft proposals part of the proposal workflow. Be sure to refresh your dashboard periodically so that you can see when new drafts are ready to review. We are encouraging the use of Google Docs for proposals as this will allow you to comment directly on the proposal (if the student sets their sharing settings correctly).

Students must submit their final proposal as a PDF through the website. It will be visible to you after the deadline for student applications (March 25 19:00 UTC).

Students can delete their proposals. If a proposal disappears from your list, it is likely because they deleted it.

Inviting Mentors to your Org

New for 2016: All mentors must be invited by an Org Admin. If you need a way to track people who want to mentor for you, we suggest using a Google Form or just having them send you an "I want to mentor" email.

Org Admins can also be mentors. (The website considers the Org Admin role to be a superset of the Mentor role.) In smaller orgs this is very common. In larger orgs, Org Admins often act as a backup mentor. If an assigned mentor does not perform their duties (evaluations, communication, mentoring) it is the Org Admins' responsibility to find a replacement mentor or step in and mentor themselves.

Student Selection/Slot Allocations

The slot allocation and student selection processes have changed this year. Please read the slot allocation information very carefully.

Payments for Mentor Stipends and Mentor Summit travel

We have streamlined the process for distributing the mentor and travel stipends.

• Orgs receive $500 USD per student they mentor regardless of if the student passes or fails.
• Orgs receive $2200 for mentor travel if they successfully complete all of their evaluations on time. One missed evaluation results in the loss of $1100 of the $2200 travel stipend. If an org misses two evaluations over the course of the program they will not receive any of the $2200 travel stipend and will not be able to send any mentors to the mentor summit in October.
• New for 2016: Orgs will no longer be required to submit invoices for their mentors’ travel, each org will instead receive the full $2200 (pursuant to the above).
• New for 2016: All orgs will be able to send 2 mentors to the summit this year.

More detail about how to receive the organization's funds will be shared in May. Mentor summit details will be shared in the next month or so.

Contact Us

Please use the [e-mail] email address for questions so that anyone on our team can answer your question.

If you want to be included on the GSoC mentors mailing list be sure to opt in on your user profile page. We will add anyone who has opted in to the list late this week. We will continue to add people to the mailing list every couple of weeks throughout the program.

Quick Glossary

Proposal: A document which describes the project the student wants to work on for your organization. Should contain a timeline containing clear milestones and specific deliverables.

Slot: Google will grant each org a certain number of project “slots” based on slots requested and history with GSoC. Each slot can hold one student/project.

Project: Once a student has been selected and projects are announced their proposal becomes a project for the remainder of the program.