Welcome prospective Outreachy interns! Open Data Kit is participating in Outreachy Round 15 with internships taking place December 2017 - March 2018. Please read through this post carefully to learn how to get started!
From the Outreachy website:
Outreachy provides three-month internships for people from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech. Interns are paid a stipend of $5,500 and have a $500 travel stipend available to them. Interns work remotely with mentors from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities. [...] Outreachy internships are open internationally to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people. Internships are also open to residents and nationals of the United States of any gender who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander.
About Open Data Kit
Open Data Kit (ODK) is a free and open-source set of tools which help organizations author, field, and manage mobile data collection solutions. Data collection is a key component of social good efforts ranging from polio elimination to rainforest conservation and ODK helps thousands of organizations collect data quickly, accurately, offline, and at scale. Read more on the website!
Communication
If you have any questions about Outreachy or the projects described below, please ask in the comments for this post! Administrators may split some of the longer threads into their own topics if needed but please start all Outreachy forum conversations in this thread.
We prefer you use the forum for communication so all time zones can have a chance to respond. If you have a question that needs a real-time answer, you can find us on the developer Slack. Questions about Outreachy itself should go in #outreachy. Questions about your initial contributions should go in the #docs-code channel.
We aim to have all project conversations in public to increase transparency and knowledge sharing. In this spirit, please refrain from messaging community members directly!
Project
We are looking for one or more interns to improve documentation and general communication about the ODK project. This project could involve different components depending on the interests, skills and goals of the intern and the needs of the community at the time. The overall goal is to help make sure that users can start their important data collection work as smoothly as possible and that new contributors can easily get started!
Non-coding writers, writers who want to learn or do a little coding, and coders who want to work on both writing and coding tasks are all welcome.
Coding tasks are primarily Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Java. People with experience in other languages who want to learn some Python are welcome. People with no coding experience are welcome.
Possible project components:
- Contribute to user-facing documentation - https://github.com/opendatakit/docs
- Update Frequently Asked Questions with questions asked on the forum, and move the FAQ (and other docs) to the newer docs repo
- Write up additional form design tips
- Contribute to developer-facing documentation - e.g. unified getting started guides, API documentation
- Create “how-to” videos and/or screencasts as discussed here
- Interview users to add content to the Showcase
- (Coding - Python) Help automate and improve the documentation authoring, building, testing, and deployment so that docs ship faster.
- (Coding - Python, Java) Automate screenshot creation for documentation (could be scripted in a variety of languages, if this interests you, please describe an approach in your application) - https://github.com/opendatakit/docs/issues/63)
- Create guides for data collection in specific domains. For example, for ecologists as described here
- Identify and remove outdated content from the website
- Usability / User Experience Testing of ODK tools, recommendations for improvements
- … Other ideas you have!
Mentors
Ronald Munjoma / ODK Slack: ronaldm / Twitter: munron43
William Mitembo / ODK Slack: williammitembo / Twitter: widemania
Adam Wood / ODK Slack: adammichaelwood / Twitter: adammichaelwood
Kate Chapman / ODK Slack: wonderchook / Twitter: wonderchook
Getting Started
- Read over this post very carefully and ask below if you have any questions.
- Look over the ODK documentation to familiarize yourself with the project and identify documentation improvements you could make.
- Learn how to contribute to ODK documentation and set up your local environment
- Contribute a documentation line edit
- Pick other documentation issues to work on, comment to say you are working on them and issue pull requests!
- Join the developer Slack and talk to community members in #outreachy about Outreachy and #docs-code about your initial contributions.
Applying to be an Open Data Kit Outreachy intern
Learn more about the Outreachy application process here. Applications will be accepted through October 23rd, 2017.
In your application you should describe:
- why you would like to be part of the Open Data Kit team
- which of the possible project components described above interest you the most and why
- what skills will help you be successful in your internship
- what impact the experience of this internship would have on you and your community