Custom Plug-ins for OSS
Relying on an external community of contributors as part of course projects can interfere with class schedules if project managers are slow to assign tasks, provide feedback, review pull requests, or merge changes. Instead, Gehringer 1 suggests that students can build extensions to work on top of existing OSS. They will be able to learn from software functioning in the real world without having to work with complicated, sometimes bureaucratic, development workflows. Furthermore, they do not need to understand the entire codebase if there are APIs and sufficient documentation. Students will be able to brainstorm creative ideas for their plug-ins while staying within the boundary of their technical expertise and the course scope. Unlike the previous model that requires direct contributions to OSS, instructors will not have to scour the web in search of projects suitable for hundreds of students.
References
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E. F. Gehringer. 2011. From the manager’s perspective: Classroom contributions to open-source projects. In 2011 Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). F1E-1-F1E-5. https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2011.6143028 ↩