Foss 101: engaging introductory students in the open source movement

Can engaging students in free and open source software (FOSS) pique their interest in computer science? This paper describes an introductory computer science course that introduced students to using FOSS, to contributing to a humanitarian FOSS project, and to studying the broader impact of FOSS on our society. Students learned basic web programming skills (PHP/MySQL) and made small but significant contributions to a global FOSS project. Mistakes were made and opportunities were missed. But overall the experiment was a success and the experience was enjoyable and educational for students and instructor alike. By building on what worked well, this course could serve as a model for incorporating study of FOSS into the introductory computing curriculum. Categories and Subject Descriptors K.3.2 [Computing Milieux]: Computer and Information Science Education--Computer science education, Curriculum General Terms Human factors Keywords Open source software, open source movement, curriculum de...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: SIGCSE
• Authors: Ralph Morelli, Trishan R. de Lanerolle
• Keywords: Education, Global Foss Project, Humanitarian Foss Project, Open Source Software, SIGCSE 2009