OpenAstronomy is a collection of projects united by a common goal to foster open source development of astronomy software. We are submitting this application together in order to strengthen collaboration between the different projects, for example by offering project ideas that extend across multiple packages, in order to reduce duplication of efforts and strengthen interoperability. As an umbrella organization with an astronomy theme, we will be able to include diverse projects (not only Python-based) and accept students with experience with different languages, while uniting projects with the common goal of providing tools for the scientific exploration of the Universe.
By participating in GSoC as an umbrella, we aim to improve the experience for both students and mentors alike, while reducing the administrative overhead. We have successfully participated the last two years positioning us as the reference hub of open source astronomy.
[994/1000]
20+
All the mentors are volunteers, but some of them are new in the programme. For this reason the new ones will be paired with an experienced mentor. Each sub-organisation has weekly teleconferences to discuss their development, in these calls they will dedicate a time for the GSoC mentors and students to update the progress and problems encountered.
Mentors are encouraged to use a particular room in the real-time chat systems put in place by the organisation so they know they can reach their students at any time (It's expected that the students are connected during their working hours).
Additionally, to reward the work of the mentors we started last year to issue openbadges - http://openastronomy.org/badges/SoC/mentor/badge-image.png
[750/1000]
The students are asked to write fortnight posts in a blog with their progress[1]. Additionally, from the timeline in their application and with the help of the mentors a number of milestones will be set. All this information will be publicly available.
In case of problems or delays most of the mentors have experience in help the students to identify the causes that drag them behind. The organisation admins will keep a close eye on the projects with inexperienced mentors to be able to help before it’s too late.
If after all the efforts the student doesn't show interest or disappears, the student will be failed.
[1] All the blogs are aggregated and shown at - http://openastronomy.org/Universe_OA/
[705/1000]
Working together with the community is a very important aspect for all of the sub-organisations under OpenAstronomy. We have created a page with guidelines on what students can do to increase their chances to be accepted into the OpenAstronomy GSoC programme. To ensure students interact with our communities before submitting their applications, we require that they submit a patch - ensuring therefore their interaction with the existing developer community. The students are encouraged to further discuss their project ideas within the whole community using the communication systems available. They are expected to be present on the real-time chat rooms during their working hours, not only to talk with their mentors but to participate in the community discussions with other students and members of the community.
Finally they are required to post a blog every fortnight, showing the broader community their progress. The comments left by the community will show the impact of their work.
[997/1000]
We aim to involve all new people with our communities as much as we can. GSoC students will be encouraged no less. We hope to convince them of the attractive and usability that our projects have for the long term. As many astronomers and astrophysicists are new to these tools and good programming practices, we will invite the students to give tutorials about their contribution to astronomy and astrophysics institutes and occasionally at international conferences. This will help the students to get a better understanding of the needs in the community and to get closer to the users and the field. This can also provide the student a big push in their career, and open new doors. Some of our students have found internships with NASA or STScI.
To further encourage students, we ask the students to spend a small fraction of their time reviewing others’ pull requests - creating a habit that they may follow once GSoC ends. Several of our previous students became mentors themselves in later years.
[993/1000]
Yes
- 2017, 2016 - as OpenAstronomy
- 2013, 2014, 2015 - as sunpy/astropy under PSF
For each year your organisation has participated, provide the counts of successful and total students (e.g. 2016: 3/4)
- 2017: 8/9
- 2016: 7/8
- 2015
If you are a new organization to GSoC, is there a Google employee or previously participating organization who will vouch for you?
If so, please enter their name, contact email, and relationship to your organization. (optional)
Null
[0/500]
- 2015
http://openastronomy.org/members/
OpenAstronomy started in 2015 as an umbrella organization for GSoC and to coordinate other activities as organizing conferences and workshops. Our members page provide links to all of them. Some of the organizations under the umbrella have been participating in GSoC since 2013 under the Python Software Foundation. All these summers have been very successful to our projects, providing strong pushes to our development. The experience for students and mentors have been incredible - GSoC rocks!
[484/500]