Open Stack

On 07/30/2015 03:25 AM, Sylvain Bauza wrote:
> Le 30/07/2015 04:23, Stefano Maffulli a écrit :
>> On 07/29/2015 01:29 PM, Tim Freund wrote:
>>> I started a Google form to collect information.  What am I missing and
>>> what should I change?
>>>
>>> http://goo.gl/forms/qAr3N8rdYs
>> I would add business title below organization, so we know if we're
>> dealing with developer, operator, product/project manager, etc.
>>
>> I also collected the salutation (and gender), so we can address the
>> person in their favorite pronoun.
>>
>> I like the 'area of interest', which is more precise than what I used to
>> collect.
>>
>> We also asked in the past (but I wonder if we really need them):
>>
>>   - What is your level of proficiency with Free Software in general and
>> its development processes?
>>   - Have you ever attempted submitting patches to a Free Software
>> project? If so, please describe how it went:
>>   - Please summarize your professional experience, as a developer or
>> otherwise:
>>
>> and to set the expectations:
>>
>>   - What would you like to learn from this training program?
>
> Here, I just wonder if it would maybe be better to either ask for a 
> certain level of technical proficiency before the Training, or split 
> people in groups based on mutual skills ?
>
I really like these questions, they're insightful and I think it would 
be a great idea to split people into mutual skills. I think mentorship 
works well when you have a mentor and have someone someone at your same 
level who you can encourage and grow with. It would also be good to 
mention that the questions are just to determine technical skill 
placement in a group and not discourage people from attending the training.

>>> Concerning mentors:  should the automation automatically assign a 
>>> mentor
>>> based on student interest area and mentor load?  (Perhaps allow mentors
>>> to say how many students they are comfortable working with, and
>>> auto-assign up to that number.)
>> That's the biggest area of concern: we don't have a culture of mentors
>> already established so for all the people who expressed interest in
>> helping, they need to be trained to read this mailing list, be on IRC
>> (which channel?) and follow the trello board and more.
>>
>> I'm not sure how to best manage the volunteers who have expressed the
>> intention to help.
>
> I'd rather try to consider what mentors are able to propose, and give 
> that information to students so they could pick one, like we do for GSoC.
>
> Sometimes, picking low-hanging-fruits is really hard and leads to 
> confusion, I'd rather make a call to volunteers to see what they can 
> give time for mentoring.
>
> -Sylvain

Have any of the previous participants volunteered as mentors (or perhaps 
co-mentors)? It would be really beneficial to have some co-mentors that 
are not as experienced and completed the program. It would certainly 
take a load of current mentors. I'm not sure what the retention rate for 
the program is or if we keep track, but how does adding a question to 
the survey asking if they'd be willing to mentor or co-mentor someone in 
the future upstream training sound like a good idea? It would make the 
program more sustainable and encourage a culture of mentoring beginners.

--Cindy