Educational Experiences with F/OSS Development Projects: Helping the Inmates Take Over the Asylum

1
Educational Experiences with F/OSS Development
Projects Helping the Inmates Take Over the
Asylum

• Walt Scacchi
• Institute for Software Research
• University of California, Irvine
• Irvine, CA 92697-3425
• Wscacchi_at_ics.uci.edu
• http//www.ics.uci.edu/wscacchi

2
OSS Development Experiences

• USC System Factory Project 1981-1990
• Domain Large-scale software engineering
• Developed and delivered advanced SE tools in
  gt500K SLOC, 30K papers of documentation.
• Educated 2 of all CS M.S. and Ph.D. students in
  US during 1981-1988.
• Produced 8 CS Ph.Ds

3
OSS Development Experiences

• USC ATRIUM Laboratory Project 1993-1998
• Domain E-Commerce, E-Business, and Business
  Process Reengineering
• Developed automated tools, techniques and
  processes for process-driven EC and EB
  intranets/extranets
• Educated gt250 MBA students
• Results applied to Telecomm, Aerospace, IT,
  Health Care, Feature Film Production, and
  Military enterprises
• Received about 2M in external funding from
  enterprise sponsors

4
OSS Development Experiences

• UCI Graduate School of Management 1999-2004
• Domain Enterprise portals and content/course
  management systems
• Studied and reverse engineered requirements,
  specs, and architecture of GSMs EP/CMS
• Prototyped and demonstrated gt60 EP/CMS
• Educated gt 250 MBA students
• Students received gt1M in venture capital

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OSS Development Experiences

• UCI Institute for Software Research 1999-2005
• Domain Free/OSSD projects in (academic) research
  or (commercial) development areas.
• Four National Science Foundation grants for field
  study of OSSD processes, practices, and community
  dynamics
• Producing growling knowledge base of fastest,
  best, and cheapest ways to develop F/OSS systems
  in different settings.
• Funding at gt1.5M

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New OSS Development Projects

• Computer Game Research Grid 2003-2008
• Science Learning Games for Informal Science
  Education 2005-2006
• Computer Supported Cooperative Organizational
  Learning Environment (CSCOLE) 2005-?
• All projects are multi-disciplinary w/faculty and
  student participants.

7
Lessons Learned

• OSSD encourages reinvention as a learning mode
• Students will work hard to build software systems
  for domains they find intrinsically motivating.
• Students benefit professionally from their
  participation in projects that have application
  outside of the university.
• Faculty need to provide socio-technical
  leadership, and need to encourage students to
  work as a socio-technical interaction network
• http//www.isr.uci.edu/research-open-source.html