[cse491] [ctb at msu.edu: UCOSP projects/independent study for spring term]

[C. Titus Brown]

----- Forwarded message from "C. Titus Brown" <ctb at msu.edu> -----

From: "C. Titus Brown" <ctb at msu.edu>
Subject: UCOSP projects/independent study for spring term

I would like to invite interested students to participate in the
Undergraduate Capstone Open Source Project course run out of
U Toronto.  This fall, I ran this as an independent study for a
select group of students, and the feedback has been pretty positive.

Briefly, the idea is this: you sign up for an open source project (see
http://ucosp.wordpress.com/projects/) and work with other undergrads, both
local and distant, under the loose guidance of a project leader.  About
a month into the term you will go up to Toronto for a weekend to visit with the
other team members.  Each project has its own focus, technologies, and
requirements, so you'll have to look into them in more detail.

The goal is to give MSU students the opportunity to participate in
distributed collaborative development, with all of the communication
and personality challenges that entails.

A few other factoids --

 - the course will be run as an independent study under me (or another
   professor, if you can find one willing to supervise) and you WILL NOT get
   400-level CSE credit for it.  I'm hoping to change that but I won't know
   until after the start of the course, so you have to commit first.

   Several of the fall students have told me that it's an excellent resume-
   building experience and at least one is planning on taking it again, just
   for the experience.

 - I would not recommend taking this at the same time as any other programming-
   heavy course (e.g. the capstone...)

 - I'm adding some explicit requirements on top of whatever the project
   requires you to do; in particular, every week you'll need to drop me
   a note with your weekly goals and then follow up with a note about what you
   did get done, and what you didn't get done, and why.  This will help me
   figure out what grade to give :).  You also need to meet with the local
   group twice a month for ~1 hr for general feedback purposes.

 - Several of the projects (Basie, Markus, pony-build) are a good follow-on to
   my Web dev course.

 - Enrollment is *limited* so make up your mind soon, please. :)

Let me know if you're interested, and, if so, what project preferences
you have.  And if you haven't taken my Web dev course (CSE 491) please
write a short paragraph describing your background and interests.

thanks,
--titus
-----------------------------

Dr. C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu
Asst Prof., Michigan State U.
http://ged.msu.edu/

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu