GSoC 2016 students: Congratulations & next steps

Congratulations to the 10 students selected to work with OpenMRS during Google Summer of Code 2016! We’re very excited to this excellent group of @GSoC2016students 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 22 May 2016 will cause you not to begin as a student, and you will not receive your initial payment from Google.

  1. This week: Introduce yourself on OpenMRS Talk in the appropriate pinned topic at the top of the #community:gsoc category. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your interests, your selected project, and why you find OpenMRS interesting. We will use OpenMRS Talk for all official communications about the program, so check it every day. Complete this task in the next week, by the end of Friday 29 April 2016.

  2. In two weeks time: 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 pinned topic at the top of the #community:gsoc category of OpenMRS Talk for details and to post your URL. Complete this task by the end of Friday 6 May 2016.

  3. Contact your mentor immediately. Set up a schedule and plan for communication with your mentor each and every week, and stick to it. Remember, we’re an open source project, so all your OpenMRS communication should be in public forums such as IRC/Telegram or here on Talk. 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 in the appropriate category on OpenMRS Talk, with the #gsoc2016 tag. Complete all these tasks before the end of the community bonding period on 22 May 2016.

  4. 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 are impressed by your accomplishments so far, and hope you are just as pleased to be part of our community of so many wonderful people!

If you have any questions about participating in GSoC, or just want to chat with your fellow students, use the #community:gsoc category here on OpenMRS Talk. We look forward to hearing from you!

Suranga Kasthurirathne - @surangak GSoC Administrator, OpenMRS Community Manager, Asia-Pacific Region

Michael Downey - @michael Director of Community, OpenMRS

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