Evaluations

  • Google Summer of Code (GSoC) includes two evaluation periods: midterm and final, where both mentors and contributors provide feedback on their experience.

  • Mentors assess contributors' progress, code quality, and overall performance, determining if they pass or fail.

  • Contributors reflect on their experience, communication with mentors, challenges faced, and the impact of GSoC on their skills and future involvement in open source.

  • Evaluations gather insights into project completion, mentor-contributor interactions, and the overall value of GSoC for both individuals and organizations.

  • Feedback collected during evaluations helps improve the program and provide guidance for future GSoC participants and mentors.

There are two times during the coding phase of GSoC where mentors evaluate their contributors' progress and experience and contributors evaluate their mentors.

Below are examples of the questions that may be asked during each of these evaluations.

Mentor

Only one evaluation can be submitted per GSoC contributor project. If there are multiple mentors they can all see the evaluation and edit it but the last updates before the deadline takes precedence.

Midterm

  • When did you first communicate with your GSoC contributor?
  • How often do you and your GSoC contributor communicate?
  • How do you communicate with your GSoC contributor?
  • How many hours do you spend on your GSoC contributor's project per week?
  • How often do you require status updates from your GSoC contributor?
  • Rate the quality of your GSoC contributor's interactions with the project mentor(s)
  • Please rate the quality of your GSoC contributor's interactions with your organization and community.
  • How would you rate your GSoC contributor's performance overall?
  • Is your GSoC contributor on track to complete their project?
  • Are you allowing your GSoC contributor to use any AI tools?
  • For those mentors who allow AI use, do you agree or disagree with the following statement: AI has improved the quality of your GSoC contributors work.
  • If you have a great resource that you point your contributor at for when/how to use AI tooling please list it below with a brief description of what it does and why you support it. (optional)
  • For this evaluation, should your GSoC contributor pass or fail?
  • (If passed) Are you confident in your decision to pass your GSoC contributor?
  • (If failed) Why did you fail your GSoC contributor?
  • Feedback for your GSoC contributor (will be shared directly with GSoC contributor)
  • Anything else you'd like to tell Google?

Final

  • Did your GSoC contributor complete this project?
  • On average, how many hours do you spend on this GSoC contributor project per week?
  • Did any portion of your contributor’s work involve AI?
  • If yes, how did your contributor use AI?
  • How would you describe your contributor’s use of AI through this engagement?
  • Did you notice an improvement in your contributors' utilization of AI over the course of the program under your guidance?
  • Did your GSoC contributor correctly upload their work? Please verify that the link above clearly points to the contributor’s work and meets the work submission guidelines. Someone looking at that link should be able to tell that this was work completed for GSoC? Invalid or missing submissions should result in failing this evaluation.
  • How would you rate your GSoC contributor's performance overall?
  • For the final evaluation, should your GSoC contributor pass or fail?
  • (If passed) Are you confident in your decision to pass this GSoC contributor?
  • (If failed) Why did you fail your contributor?
  • How do you expect your GSoC contributor's project to impact your org in the long term? (examples: was a critical patch, a standalone module, a new feature, etc.)
  • I believe GSoC is valuable for my organization (ranking options)
  • I believe GSoC is valuable for open source (ranking options)
  • Feedback for your GSoC contributor (shared directly with them)
  • What advice would you give to future GSoC contributors?
  • What advice would you give to future GSoC mentors?
  • What kind of advice would you give contributors and mentors on project scope and focus?
  • Anything else you'd like to tell Google or suggestions on how we could improve the program?

GSoC contributor

Midterm

  • Were you a GSoC contributor last year?
  • If yes, which org did you work with?
  • When did you first communicate with your organization this year?
  • How many weeks before accepted orgs were announced did you first communicate with the org?
  • Was the welcome documentation for your organization easy to understand and access?
  • How did you decide to select this organization?
  • How often, on average, do you interact with your mentor(s)?
  • How do you communicate with your mentor(s)?
  • What is your preferred method of communicating with your mentor? (shared w/Mentor and Org Admin)
  • Rate the quality of interactions with your mentor(s)
  • Has your mentor allowed and/or encouraged you to use any AI tools?
  • Was the community bonding period before coding began helpful for you?
  • What would have made the community bonding period more helpful/a better experience for you?
  • What is the most challenging part of participating in GSoC so far?
  • Feedback for your organization and mentors
  • How responsive are your mentor(s)? (shared only w/Org Admin)
  • Anything else you'd like to tell Google?

Final

  • Provide a link to the work you did during GSoC this year.
  • How many total hours do you think you spent working on your project since the coding period began? (Do not include planning during the community bonding period)
  • Did any portion of your work involve AI?
  • How would you describe your use of AI through this engagement?
  • Are you more confident using AI tools after your GSoC 2026 experience?
  • What AI tools did you use?
  • Did you have a job or internship during GSoC? (Part time or full time.)
  • Were you a student in an academic program when the coding period began?
  • How many hours of classes were you taking during the GSoC coding period when you were an active student?
  • What is your favorite part of participating in GSoC?
  • What do you consider the most challenging part of participating in GSoC?
  • Would you apply for GSoC again (if you were eligible)?
  • How would you rate your experience with GSoC overall?
  • Would you recommend your mentor(s) to other contributors?
  • Do you plan to continue to contribute to this organization?
  • Do you hope to become a maintainer on this or another OSS project in the future?
  • Did you have any problems with your mentor or the organization?
  • Will you continue to participate in open source?
  • Has your work in GSoC helped you get a job offer or internship?
  • Has GSoC helped improve your programming skills?
  • Tell us how GSoC helped improve your programming skills.
  • Would you consider being a mentor or org admin for GSoC?
  • Did the communications from Google Program Administrators during the program keep you informed?
  • What advice would you give to contributors participating in GSoC in the future?
  • Anything else you'd like to tell Google or suggestions on how we could improve the program?
  • Feedback for this organization and mentors
  • What could your mentor(s) or this organization do differently to better help contributors in the future? (shared with Mentors and Org Admin)
  • Any general feedback for {ORG NAME}? (What they could do better or what they excelled at) (shared with organization administrators only)