I will like to be clarified whether returning GSoCers are expected to make new contributions to OpenMRS as part of the application process? If Yes can this be made from any project or should it be related to the project you intend on working on?
That’s correct. Any student applying for a second year of GSoC with OpenMRS needs to complete the same requirements as all other students, so is required to have a record of OpenMRS coding contributions. From “Expectations for Students” on OpenMRS.org – OpenMRS is an open source medical records system or EMR with a global community.
If you’re returning to do GSoC with OpenMRS for a repeat term, be just as thorough (or more so!) than first-time students. Don’t skip steps and work extra hard to impress your mentor(s).
and from the same page under “Application Requirements & Questions”:
You must have made at least one coding contribution to OpenMRS BEFORE submitting your proposal. Please include in your proposal all relevant issue numbers, pull requests, commit links, etc. for these contributions. If you don’t include this information, your proposal will not be reviewed. It’s not necessary for your pull requests need to be merged. We just want to see that you’ve made some effort to learn the basics about OpenMRS.
These coding contributions can be made on any official OpenMRS community code. Often GSoC projects are completely new ideas so there are not existing bugs to work on. However, if your desired project is to improve existing code, it would probably help strengthen your application if your contributions were related to that project. Please note, however, while this may help your application, previous contributions to that specific application/module/etc. is not an absolute requirement.
Hope this helps!
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