{% extends "master.html" %} {% import "calendar.html" as calendar with context %} {% block title %} Syllabus — The RIT HFOSS Development Course documentation {% endblock %} {% block doc_toc %}
The source for this syllabus can be found at {{course.repo}}
- Instructor - {{instructor.name}} <{{instructor.email}}>
- Office: {{instructor.office.location}}
- Office Hours: {{instructor.office.hours}}
{% if assistant: %}- Teaching Assistant - {{assistant.name}} <{{assistant.email}}>
{% endif %}- IRC - irc.freenode.net, #rit-foss
There are a number of textbooks we’ll be referencing throughout the semester. You can find these books/texts/articles here on the resources page
This course will introduce students to the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Open Content movements, to the open source development process, and to the open questions of the efficacy of technology in the classroom.
Students will learn FOSS process and Tools with class projects that support the One Laptop Per Child community by creating content and software for free distribution to students and teachers around the world. The OLPC project is driven by a world-wide community–one that students in HFOSS will become part of.
For this course students will be expected to attend and make final presentations to the RIT and Rochester FOSS communities via the regular Rochester Pythonistas meet-ups and FOSSBox hack-a-thons when possible. Students will also become members of the Sugar and OLPC international communities. Local FOSS community members may join us in class sessions as well. Treat them as you would another instructor, but they’re also your peers in moving this innovative project forward.
While still a course where you will receive a letter grade, the spirit of the course is intended to be both open and fun.
An open course – students will have access to the ‘document source’ for the syllabus. While you are reading the syllabus right now, as a student of the class you have a right to fork the upstream repository, make modifications, and submit patches for review. Barring a troll festival, this can create a fun, dynamic environment in which the course curriculum can develop by the very same mechanism being taught during the semester (community-driven).
All code developed by students in the course must be licensed (by the student) under any one of the licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative.
Code that you write is your code, with which you can do what you will; true. However, if you’re unwilling to license code you write for an Free/Open Source course with a Free/Open Source license, you may be in the wrong course.
Attendance is required for this course. Students are allotted 2 excused absences per semester.
Subsequent absences will result in a 10% reduction of your final letter grade for each class missed.
Assignments are due at 4:59pm of the day they are marked as due, to be useful in class.
Late submissions will be deducted 10% per day they are late.
Your final grade for the semester will be derived from the following weights.
Component | Weight |
---|---|
{{name}} | {{value}} |
Blog updates – students are required to keep a blog to which they post updates about their investigations, progress, success, and pitfalls. This blog can be hosted anywhere, but must be added to the course participant page (there are instructions on how to do this in Homework - First Flight).
- You must make at least one blog post per week to receive full credit. This is in addition to any assignments that are posted to your blog for that week. A week ends on Sunday at 11:59pm.
- You must participate regularly in the course’s IRC channel: asking and answering questions.
- Contributions to the course curriculum, syllabus, and rubric are factored in here as well.
Blogging is good for you and good for the FLOSS community at large.
The details for the final can be found at Final.
Every Wednesday for the first portion of class, any student has the opportunity
to give a lightning talk
on a
topic of their chosing. Your lightning talk must be less than 5 minutes in
length and must be at least remotely related to the course material.
You will receive +1 extra credit points towards your final grade for every
lightning talk you give. Only the first 2 lightning talks offered will be allowed during a given
class. Talks will be chosen from among those offered by students on a FIFO
basis.