Congratulations to the 16 students selected to work with OpenMRS during Google Summer of Code 2015! We’re very excited to have you as part of our community, and look forward to the work you’ll do together with your mentors and the greater OpenMRS community.
Please read this entire post carefully. After reading this post, there are several steps you must take immediately. Failure to perform any of these tasks before the end of the community bonding period on 24 May will cause you not to begin as a student, and you will not receive your initial payment from Google.
- Today: Sign in to your OpenMRS e-mail account. You now have an OpenMRS e-mail address. Your e-mail address is in the format username■■■■■■■■■■■■, where username is your OpenMRS ID. Log in to http://webmail.openmrs.org/ to access your OpenMRS e-mail. We will use your @openmrs.org for all official communications about the program, so check it every day. If you’d like to forward your @openmrs.org e-mail address to another one, please read the support article at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957. Sign in to your email account today and open a help desk case if you have problems. Complete this task today.
- This week: Introduce yourself on OpenMRS Talk in the appropriate topic in the “GSoC” category. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your interests, your selected project, and why you find OpenMRS interesting. Complete this task this week.
- Next week: Get your blog ready. You must post a blog entry every week during GSoC. Start now so you get in the habit of writing at least one post every week. You don’t have to create a new blog for GSoC; it’s OK to use an existing one. See the relevant topic in the “GSoC” category of OpenMRS Talk for details. Complete this task next week.
- Contact your mentor immediately. Set up a schedule and plan for communication with your mentor each and every week, and stick to it. Make sure your mentor has identified one or more backup mentors if she or he is not available. Prepare a detailed project plan (week by week) with milestones with your mentor and post it on the OpenMRS Wiki. Complete all these tasks before the end of the community bonding period on 24 May.
- Be prepared to submit a weekly status report form. We’ll post more information about this on OpenMRS Talk before the coding start date. The status report is very short but very important; it helps us to ensure your project is on track and things are going well. If you miss filing 3 status reports, you’ll be removed from the program, so remember to add this to your weekly schedule!
Once again, congratulations! We’re proud of you, and hope you are just as proud to be part of our family of so many wonderful people!
If you have any questions about participating in GSoC, or just want to chat with your fellow students, use “GSoC” category here on OpenMRS Talk. We look forward to hearing from you!
Michael Downey - @michael OpenMRS Worldwide Community Manager GSoC Co-Administrator, OpenMRS
Suranga Kasthurirathne - @surangak OpenMRS Community Manager, Asia-Pacific Region GSoC Co-Administrator, OpenMRS