As an org admin, your primary responsibilities are managing the GSoC program administrative requirements and helping your mentors effectively mentor. Below are some guidelines to help you accomplish both objectives.
Establish a Private Communication Channel
It is important for mentors and org admins to have a communication channel that does not involve GSoC contributors, so org admins can speak candidly with mentors. This usually takes the form of a private mailing list or IRC channel, but any agreed-upon medium will work.
Managing across Timezones
Org admins should have a list of mentors and GSoC contributors along with their timezones and preferred contact information and availability. This is essential for umbrella organizations, which sometimes have so many people spread across so many countries and time zones that it is impossible for an org admin to keep track.
GSoC is often the first time people ever have to collaboratively work with others across many timezones, so it is worth taking time in the beginning of the summer to figure out these details. The fact that Daylight Savings Time is different depending on where people are complicates things even more. Usually it is best to set times in UTC so that DST will not complicate things. The World Clock website (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/) is also a good resource for determining the time in a certain location.
Setting Expectations
As an org admin, you need to rely on your mentors to manage the day-to-day activities related to GSoC contributor projects. This means you should have a discussion before GSoC contributors are accepted–if possible before you even apply for GSoC–about how you are going to handle some basic logistical items that are essential for a smoothly running and effective program.
Set up-front guidelines on how GSoC contributors, projects and mentors are selected
Occasionally, you’ll find yourself with mentors for projects with no GSoC contributors and good project ideas with no mentors. Figure out up front how you plan to evaluate and accept GSoC contributors, projects and mentors. Make sure that your open source community concurs and the guidelines are clearly posted in your community GSoC documentation. See the chapter on Selecting GSoC contributors and Mentors for details.
Determine a schedule and format for regular GSoC contributor project updates
Regular GSoC contributors progress reports to the open source project community are a great tool for keeping your development community engaged and helpful to the GSoC contributors. It also helps provide documentation if there is any doubt about a GSoC contributor’s progress, and can help your community identify problem areas for newcomers. Weekly reports via a blog or mailing list post are best; at the very least ask for bi-weekly GSoC contributor reports to your community. Discuss report format and submission timelines before the GSoC contributors application period opens and make sure your potential GSoC contributors understand their reporting responsibilities.
Make sure the mentors understand they are primarily responsible for encouraging their GSoC contributors to submit regular reports.
Establish up-front guidelines for mentor time involvement
How often should mentors meet with their GSoC contributors? What happens if a mentor needs to be unavailable for several weeks during GSoC? Make sure the mentors understand expected time commitments before they are assigned to a GSoC contributor, and how to arrange for backup if they need to go missing for a bit.
Clearly communicate mentor GSoC administrative responsibilities
On the administrative front, mentors at the very minimum are responsible for submitting timely GSoC contributor evaluations at the midterm and final. Make sure your mentor team is clear about when they need to submit evaluations and what to do if they are not available to submit the evaluations.
Create a decision process for determining if a GSoC contributor should pass or fail
Unfortunately, at some point your organization is probably going to encounter a situation where you need to determine if you should fail a GSoC contributor at the midterm or final. Talk to your mentors before the GSoC program begins about criteria for passing and failing a GSoC contributor. Communicate clearly who makes the final decision about whether a GSoC contributor pass or fails.
Sorting Out Conflicts
At some point in your org admin career you are going to need to step in to help resolve conflicts. Sometimes these are mentor-GSoC contributor conflicts, cross-project conflicts or mentor-mentor conflicts; they may be something completely unexpected. Here are a few guidelines to help you find the best-approach for resolution:
- Get involved early, before things spiral out of control.
- Discuss the conflict privately and separately with those involved.
- Whenever possible don’t take sides, but rather attempt to function as a mediator.
- Remember that you are a senior representative of your open source community within the larger GSoC program community.
- Ask for advice from the GSoC program staff.
If you’ve done a good job of setting expectations with your mentors, conflict resolution should be fairly straight-forward.