COVID19 Update by Google
Students, Google has sent us a communication regarding GSoC and the actual health world situation, there a few questions to know, read them and understand accordingly:
- Is GSoC still happening? Yes
- Will there be any changes to the timeline? Yes
- What happens if students can't access the internet anymore? Internet access remains a requirement to participate.
Google Summer of Code is a program designed for remote participants to communicate via online methods through the entirety of the program. In this increasingly confusing and disruptive time we are hopeful that GSoC can be a way for students to become part of your communities and for mentors and students to find some comfort in being part of the open source community and helping others. With many people in various forms of lockdown, the mentor-student connection can be incredibly important for folks.
Adjustments to GSoC timeline
A couple of adjustments have been made to the GSoC timeline to hopefully make things easier for you. We understand that these next few weeks are going to be "very dynamic" and people are making adjustments to their lives daily.
3 weeks to review student proposals (from 2 weeks)
We have added an additional week to allow mentors and org admins to review all of the proposals and to also help them determine their own possible time commitment adjustments. Our experiences with mandated work from home is that there can be an unexpected adjustment, even for people used to primarily working from home.
Student proposal review period is now March 31-April 20.
Extended Community Bonding period to 4 weeks (from 3 weeks)
We have also extended the Community Bonding period to allow for more flexibility for the students and mentors. The 4 weeks should definitely be used to get the student familiar with your community per usual but it also will allow the mentor and student to make some adjustments as they need for their particular situation. For example, if the mentor and student agree, the student can start coding earlier than the new June 1st date.
We just made these adjustments and they should now be reflected in the official timeline. Currently we are working on updating all of the various documents that had dates listed to reflect the new date changes (it may take us a day or two to get to all of them).
Internet Access
We've heard several concerns about Internet access during the pandemic. Working Internet access remains a requirement to participate in the program, as you'll need it to communicate between mentors and students, access source code, etc.
We hope that countries around the world will make sure their Internet services stay strong as it will be an important means of communication most folks have while in lockdown/quarantine situations.
This year brings additional challenges as some internet access points (such as Internet cafes) may not be accessible. If you are not confident that you'll be able to maintain acceptable internet access during the program, this may not be the right year to participate.
Important Upcoming Dates
These dates reflect the shifted schedule.
Now - March 31 18:00 UTC: Students will submit their draft proposals through the program website for you to give solid feedback on.
March 31 - April 20: Review all submitted student proposals with your org and consider how many you want to select and how many you can handle (ie. how many you have committed mentors for). Decide on the minimum/maximum number of student slots to request- do not request more than your org can handle - this could take students away from orgs who have excellent student prospects and need the slots.
April 21 18:00 UTC: Deadline to submit slot requests (Org Admins enter requests)
April 22 18:00 UTC: Slot allocations are announced by Google
April 22 - 30 18:00 UTC: Orgs select the proposals to become student projects. At least 1 mentor must be assigned to each project before it can be selected. (Org Admins enter selections)
April 30 - May 4: Google Program Admins will do another review of student eligibility
May 4: Accepted GSoC 2020 students/projects are announced
May 4 - 31: Community Bonding Period
May 31: Deadline to notify Google Admins of an inactive student that you wish to be removed from the program
June 1: Coding begins
June 29 - July 3: First evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
July 27 - 31: Second evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
August 24 -31: Students wrap up their projects and submit final evaluation of their mentor
August 31 - September 7: Mentors submit final evaluations of students
September 8: Students passing GSoC 2020 are announced
March 31 - April 20: Review all submitted student proposals with your org and consider how many you want to select and how many you can handle (ie. how many you have committed mentors for). Decide on the minimum/maximum number of student slots to request- do not request more than your org can handle - this could take students away from orgs who have excellent student prospects and need the slots.
April 21 18:00 UTC: Deadline to submit slot requests (Org Admins enter requests)
April 22 18:00 UTC: Slot allocations are announced by Google
April 22 - 30 18:00 UTC: Orgs select the proposals to become student projects. At least 1 mentor must be assigned to each project before it can be selected. (Org Admins enter selections)
April 30 - May 4: Google Program Admins will do another review of student eligibility
May 4: Accepted GSoC 2020 students/projects are announced
May 4 - 31: Community Bonding Period
May 31: Deadline to notify Google Admins of an inactive student that you wish to be removed from the program
June 1: Coding begins
June 29 - July 3: First evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
July 27 - 31: Second evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
August 24 -31: Students wrap up their projects and submit final evaluation of their mentor
August 31 - September 7: Mentors submit final evaluations of students
September 8: Students passing GSoC 2020 are announced
Student selection process
Google Summer of Code 2020
Liquid Galaxy project
We've been accepted by Google as mentoring organization
We've been accepted by Google as mentoring organization
- 1: Have selected one of our projects from the ideas page, presented your own proposal (tips on this later on this page), or your own idea for a project !
- 2: Have written a full Google docs proposal following our master document (make your own copy and modify).
Sharing it with our liquidgalaxylab@gmail.com account with full permissions for review.
Do not contact us to help in developing your proposal till it has real contents, we're not the ones to write it, but you.
We'll prefer this GSoC 2020 to have all the development contained on an Android or Flutter app, running on a tablet (not smartphone). If your core needs to run on the server and have a web application please consult your assigned mentor.
- 3: Have installed and available your own Liquid Galaxy system during the GSoC.
We have published a new manual for this !
https://www.liquidgalaxy.eu/2020/03/new-liquid-galaxy-installation-manual.html
The Liquid Galaxy project is based on a cluster of computers and displays, usually minimum 4 computers (3 computers, 1 server), 3 screens and one android tablet. Usually too we have a 3d joystick.
In some cases you'll be able to handle this using VMs instead of real hardware. Liquid Galaxy GCI students have created plenty of tutorials on how to this, you can browse them and reuse on this drive folder. When we say in some cases is because unless you have a really powerful pc, when you run 3 vms and data intensive applications the system will not perform well.
To later run the applications as needed, you'll need also an android tablet, but if you don't have access to one you can try using Bluestacks, that will emulate it on the same or other machine. Look for it running on this video by GCI student ITSZepan.
- 4: If you want to apply and be considered you must show us your skills and hardware. The student will have to install a full system and deploy a minimum of two of these apps: LGxEDU, Airmashup, Wikimedia or Fly over your Big Data. Look for the code on our Github.
After the doc is written nd the video recorded and both shared with us we'll study them and maybe a mail, conversation or hangout will happen with a senior mentor to clarify, regarding both technical viability and personal knowledge.
We say maybe, as we got too many proposals that have no sense and are declared spam.
- 5: Agree with our basic timeline for this years projects (including this next to your own milestones of your project proposal):
. Previous work for selection: steps 1 to 4.
. 1st month: have the main code developed and running on a tablet (prefered situation) or on a Liquid Galaxy server. This mean a 4th pc on the same lan that the basic 3 for the lg, that will held all the applications and databases required for your app. Never on the master node, as we want the lg installations to be clean.
. 2nd month: have all the code developed including all visualizations on the Liquid Galaxy. (On one of our world Liquid Galaxy LABs, or your own rig if away)
. 3rd month: have the application fully running and tested, including the launch from the Liquid Galaxy controller Android app, documentation in .md and code at your own Github forked to ours, and a 15 minutes minimum video presenting the application fully running.
SOME TIPS from past experiences regarding the presentation of the projects:
As students are presenting plenty of proposals, they fail usually in two serious aspects:
- THE PROPOSAL HAS TO BE FOCUSED IN TWO ASPECTS:
. DESCRIPTION OF THE APPLICATION TO BE DEVELOPED, NOTICING THE TECHNOLOGIES TO BE USED AND HOW YOU'LL USE THEM.
. AN USE CASE WITH DIAGRAMS
Next to a proposed development calendar.
Didn't taken a look at our videos or projects and 2019 ones as we need you are prepared for real for the proposal you're sending us. You're presenting to Liquid Galaxy and you need to be aware of what's our platform and how it works.
Some students think than with developing an Android app the proposal will be ok, and this is not correct. You need to explain us that how your app, web based or android/flutter based, will connect to a Liquid Galaxy and what kind of visualization will appear. This is the most important thing to showcase, the app is the backend, plus all other needed code and databases, the visualization is the result.
Your final proposal will be the one to upload to the GSoC platform, and will include the description of the project, the technologies to be used and the estimated code deliveries by dates. You will have always a mentor guiding you in the process.
Please contact us at liquidgalaxylab at gmail dot com with any question and follow GSoC portal rules and instructions to apply to the program. Good luck!
Slack note: Our Slack channel will be open for the announced by Google selected 2020 GSoC students on the first week of may.
LAST TIP: do not wait until the last week to present a proposal, earlier students tend to be the ones selected, because they're good and really willing to be with us this summer of code.
