Outreachy 2017

Community
1

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
10 Likes
2

Hi Outreachy applicants! I just wanted to mention that Outreachy itself will be using Open Data Kit. Outreachy will have a booth at the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computer Science conference. We're going to be collecting data from people who stop by the booth, so that we can add them to our announcements mailing list. But we expect the wifi at the conference to be pretty spotty, so we're using the ODK app on an Android tablet to collect the data and subscribe people later.

Good luck with your application and contributions to ODK!

9 Likes
3

Hi there Outreachy applicants and contributors.

If you have dived into working on the docs repo:

  • THANKS! This is so exciting.
  • Please join the #docs-code channel of the ODK Slack if you haven't done so already.

If you've already started forking and working on issues (wooooooooooooo!), please make sure you pull back in changes from upstream into your local master on a regular basis, and then work on issue-specific branches from master. There's a lot of work going on all of the sudden, and we want to avoid accidental divergence and merge conflicts.

3 Likes
4

Outreachy non coding projects!
Find your interesting topic in the show case to begin. #showcase
refer to the key questions in the #outreachy-2017.
Lets show off the showcase!!!!!

1 Like
6

find this project very interesting I’d like to get involved

I do not have much experience with open source so I’d be glad to have a mentor!
I am interested to apply to the Outreachy for this round but I’d like to contribute anyway

I really want to help and improve my skills :slight_smile:
I am well prepared to work in a full stack range. I have some experience with Java( I would say mid level) .
I am also experienced with HTML5, CSS, javascript for the front end(beginners).

I look forward to hearing more details about the project.
Any advice on how should I proceed will more than welcome.

7

Welcome, @Komal-Agarwal96! The "Project" section describes what we are looking for an Outreachy intern to do during their internship. To get started, please read the "Getting Started" section carefully and follow those steps. If you have specific questions, you can ask them here!

8

Hello, @LN ! I have Front End Development knowlege and I want to work as intern and want to learn more. But I don't know where to submit application regarding slected project and where to introduce myself. guide me.

Thanks,

1 Like
9

Hello @Manpreet_Dhiman
Welcome to the ODK Community!

See Outreachy Website

Please introduce yourself here

Please join the #outreachy and #docs-code channels on slack

10

Hello Adam, I am interested in applying as an intern through Outreachy. I tried logging in to the ODK slack but in requested that I must have an invite. Please send me an invite for the ODK Slack. Thanks

11

(I don't manage the Slack.)

@yanokwa Can you send an invite?

12

Go to http://slack.opendatakit.org and you'll be able to generate an invite for yourself!

2 Likes
14

Hello Outreachy Applicants!

A number of you have already made significant contributions to ODK Docs. Thank you so much for your work.

If you have already completed at least TWO accepted and merged Pull Requests (a line edit and a completed issue), it is time to start thinking about what work you might want to spend your internship period doing. The idea is for the bulk of your actual internship time to be focused on one or two large projects, rather than a bunch of small PRs and fixes.

In the next few days, we would like for you to start a shareable document that outlines your specific interests with regards to an ODK project. You can do this with Google Docs (preferred), or if you don't use Google Docs - create a GH repo with a simple Markdown file. This doc should list:

  • what skills you have that are relevant to the ODK work you want to be doing
  • what skills you would like to learn or improve on
  • what specific deliverable(s) you would like to work on --- This is probably going to be based on one or more existing GH issues (like the screenshot automation, style guide testing, etc.), or something else specific that you feel would be of value both to yourself and the ODK community.

The doc needs to be shareable, and you need to share it with myself (adam.michael.wood@gmail.com, adammichaelwood on github), @ln, @yanokwa, and the other Outreachy organizers here in the ODK forum. These will be working documents. That is: we will iterate on them together. You don't have to get something perfect before you share it, just get something started.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask here.

If you have not completed at least TWO Pull Requests...
You are not too late. Follow the contribution guidelines laid out here and elsewhere, ask questions if you need to, and jump in.

6 Likes
15

Hello to everyone!

My name is Alessandra and I'm very interested in participating of OpenDataKit projects.
My english is not very good so I think it would be better not to participate of the non coding projects. :slight_smile:

I would like to know if beginners in python can participate of any coding project. I also would like to confirm if all the work will be done remotely (I live in Brazil).

Thanks. :slight_smile:

1 Like
16

Hi Alessandra -- I will leave your other questions to other folks, but yes, the program is 100% remote, so no problems there! :globe_with_meridians:

17

Check out the open issues and see what you feel you can accomplish.

It's okay to be a beginner in Python, as long as you have coding experience in another language.
But if you have very little coding experience at all, and you have trouble writing English, it's going to be difficult to contribute on this particular project.

18

Hi Michael!

Thank you for the answer! :slight_smile:

19

Hi Adam!

I'll check the open issues and see what I can contribute.

Thanks very much! :slight_smile:

20

Hello!

I am Parinishtha, a fourth year student of Architecture at IIT Roorkee, India, who is passionate about user experience and loves improving the usability of products. I have recently begun contributing to Mozilla's open design, last summers I worked with Amazon India, as an intern, trying to improve the experience for their customers. I also take up projects with volunteer organisations from time to time.

I am looking to apply for the non-coding profile, and want to focus on:

  1. Usability / User Experience Testing of ODK tools, recommendations for improvements;
  2. User interviews for the showcase
  3. Create “how-to” videos and/or screencasts

I aim to start contributing within this week, but I would really appreciate if I could get some specific suggestions on how to get started with the topics of interest mentioned above.

3 Likes
22

You can go on below post:

and below is Github link of oDK

Narendra

23

Thanks so much to everyone who joined the Open Data Kit community while considering Outreachy! We had and continue to have some absolutely terrific contributions from around the world. Huge thanks to everyone who has been involved: @sarahsharp and the Outreachy organization, the community members who reviewed pull requests, the mentors and all who checked the project out.

Congratulations to @Divya_Rani and @ankita240796 who will be starting their internships in December! They will both have blogs to share their learnings and progress with all of us and I can't wait to read them. @ankita240796 will be mentored by @adammichaelwood and @Divya_Rani by @wonderchook. @Ronald_Munjoma and @william1 will be backup mentors.

We received more solid applications than we expected and selecting interns was very difficult. Big congrats to everyone who completed their application! We know it's hard work to put together a good project plan and many were excellent.

I hope that everyone who discovered ODK through this process has had a good experience. We welcome and encourage your continued participation! It's people like you who make Open Data Kit the impactful project that it is.

6 Likes