Can StudentWritten Software Contribute to Humanitarian FOSS Ralph A' Morelli, Heidi J' C' Ellis, Tri

1
Can Student-Written Software Contribute to
Humanitarian FOSS?Ralph A. Morelli, Heidi J.
C. Ellis, Trishan R. de Lanerolle, Jonathan
Damon, Christopher Walti

• Trinity College
• Accenture Corporation Hartford, CT 06109
  ralph.morelli_at_trincoll.edu

2
Humanitarian FOSS

• H-FOSS Free and open source software built to
  serve humanitarian purposes.
• Humanitarian (broadly defined) any non-profit
  activity that benefits society.
• Examples
• Sahana -- Disaster recovery software
• OpenMRS -- Medical record system
• VM -- Volunteer management software

3
Humanitarian FOSS Movement

• Premise 1 Quality humanitarian software can be
  built and given freely to organizations in need.
• Premise 2 The FOSS development model can
  successfully harness contributions of IT
  professionals.
• Premise 3 Computing students and faculty can
  contribute to FOSS as part of their educational
  goals.

4
Educational Motivation

• David Patterson (ACM) Nov. 2005 Computing
  professionals should help our neighbors (post
  Katrina).
• David Patterson (ACM) Mar. 2006 CS educators
  should get involved in the open-source movement.
• Our Question Can these initiatives be combined
  to
• Do good in the community.
• Help revitalize computing education.

5
The Crisis in CS Education
6
Sahana(http//www.sahana.lk)

• H-FOSS disaster management system
• Sinhalese for relief.
• IT management system for people and resources.
• History and Highlights
• 2004 started in Sri Lanka following Asian
  tsunami.
• 2005 deployed during earth quake in Pakistan.
• 2006 deployed during mudslide in the Philippines.
  
• 2006 Sourceforge project of the month (June).
• 2007 FSF Award for Social Benefit.

7
Trinity Sahana Project (http//www.cs.trincoll.ed
u/hfoss) Activities 2006

• Jan Trishan meets Sahana team in Colombo
• Spring Sahana independent study
• Spring Accenture--Katrina Shelter
• Summer Volunteer Management Module
• Jun National Conference on Volunteering and
  Service (Seattle)
• Aug Strong Angel III (San Diego)
• Fall Course with Trinity, Connecticut College
  and Wesleyan University (7 students)

8
(No Transcript)
9
Trinity Sahana ProjectActivities 2007

• Jan NSF C-PATH Proposal -- Can humanitarian open
  source software development help revitalize
  undergraduate computing education?
• Jan VM Module in Sahana 0.5 Alpha.
• Mar SIGCSE 2007 Presentation
• Spring Video Conference course
• Trinity, Connecticut College and Wesleyan

10
National Science Foudation CPATHH-FOSS and
Higher Education A Portable and Sustainable
Model?
Open Source for Humanity
11
Spring 2007 Application Programming Course

• 24 (male) students across 3 campuses
• Student Projects (10 projects)
• Sahana Hospital Management IS
• Darien, CT EMS Scheduling System
• Sahana Multi-Incident Reporting System
• Sahana VM Customization

12
Non-Traditional Educational Development
Environment

• Deadlines dont match academic calendar.
• Requirements come from real-world clients.
• Deliverables must meet industry standards.
• Collaborators are distributed globally.
• Beta testing is done by real-world clients.
• All of these provide challenges and benefits.

13
What the Students Learned

• Good documentation is important.
• We were forced to read and understand other
  peoples code.
• Things change Deadlines, specifications,
  database structure, etc.
• We had to find our place in a real world
  organizational network.
• Bottom line Our students seemed to enjoy the
  challenge and experience.

14
What the Faculty Learned

• Considerable planning and setup is required.
• Good system and open-source tools are critical.
• PHP, MySQL, PHPDoc, MySQLAdmin, etc.
• Students must be willing to experiment.
• Good faculty-student communication a must.
• Faculty must be comfortable with uncertainty.
• The community must support it.
• Bottom Line More work and more risk than a
  traditional software engineering course.

15
Summer 2007 H-FOSS Internship Program at
Trinity College

• Funded by Aidmatrix Foundation
• Five student interns and five faculty and staff
• Projects
• Sahana
• Refactoring VM Module
• Implementing requested enhancements
• OpenMRS (Medical Record System)
• Summer of Code Project

16
Future Plans

• Grow the project to other U.S. colleges and
  universities.
• CUNY, U of Hawaii, Yale
• Develop industry and humanitarian collaborations.
• Open Source for Humanity
• NSF CCLI Proposal to develop H-FOSS teaching
  methods and materials.

17
Results The Jury is Still OutDid We

• help students make a meaningful contribution to
  the H-FOSS community?
• Maybe?
• strengthen bonds between academia and industry?
• Some baby steps, perhaps.
• broaden interest in the computing discipline?
• Not yet.
• Did we enjoy the experience?
• Absolutely!

18
Questions???

• Email ralph.morelli_at_trincoll.edu
• Visit http//www.cs.trincoll.edu/hfoss