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OSS in the CS Classroom

Challenges & Questions

How can instructors find suitable project ideas easily?

  • Students should be encouraged to exercise their creativity and brainstorm ideas according to their interests
  • Browse compiled lists of software ideas

How can a classroom community simulate an OSS development environment?

  • After building their applications, students will assume the role of OSS developers and contribute to each other’s work
  • Like project managers, they can review contributions to their own software and merge them
  • Student projects can be published online with an open source license to encourage other novice programmers to contribute to and learn from
  • Students can be better prepared and motivated to contribute to existing OSS outside of the course

How should projects be graded?

  • Instructors can verify whether students have applied CS2 concepts into their projects
  • They can also grade documentation to check students’ understanding of their code