Re: [boost] [Summer of Code] An overview of Boost participation in GSoC 2006

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-10-21 11:37:54

Janek Kozicki wrote:
> Joaquín M_ López Mu_oz said:     (by the date of Thu, 19 Oct 2006 19:29:47 +0200)

couple thoughts on this...

>> http://boost.org/more/boost_soc_06_overview.html
> 
> Great report, thanks :)
> 
> == Re: 174 applicants, 10 accepted (5.7%).
> 
>> Google initially requested that organizations submitted the maximum
>> number of projects they felt they could cope with, and we got funding
>> for exactly what we aimed for, so the limiting factor lies entirely on
>> Boost's side.
> 
> You mentioned that there is a limited number of mentors (10 mentors
> participated). Since you've written that mentors did not complain about

The limited number of mentors was at least in part driven by our 
lateness in getting started with the recruiting and evaluation process. 
  We will be more ready next year.  In addition, Google has said they 
are going to move the organization approval process back to Feb/Mar 
timeframe, so there will be a bit more time to get organized next year.

> lack of time spent on mentoring, then perhaps next year a single mentor
> could be allowed to mentor two projects, if he feels that he can
> fullfill the task?

I'd say this is a very bad idea based on the results of other SOC 
projects.  Many 2nd year organizations reported a very high dropout rate 
for mentors and thus had to reduce the number of projects in year 2. 
Much of this seemed to be related to mentors handling multiple students 
being way to busy. Among the folks I talked with at the SoC mentor 
summit, it seemed clear that 1 to 1 was really the best way to go.  In 
addition to that, I believe for the evaluation phase we really want to 
have more mentors so we can give submissions and applicants all the 
attention they deserve.  It was a *huge* struggle for the mentors to 
handle those 174 submissions....

Jeff