Outreachy Round 10
About
This year the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is recruiting an intern for Round 10 of the Outreachy Program taking place from May 2015 till August 2015. This was made possible through a partnership and generous support from Mapzen. This is part of HOT's larger goal to foster further diversity in its community, as well as provide everyone the chance to have a starting point.
Successful Applicants
From the 25th of May, four highly motivated and enthusiastic students began their internship, which ran for three months until the 25th of August. They worked on a number of key open-source projects within the community, such as improving the help documentation of the HOT Export Tool, testing the usability of the HOT Tasking Manager and creating a QGIS plugin for the highly anticipated OpenAerialMap (OAM) project.
Develop a QGIS plugin for OpenAerialMap
Mentor: Cristiano Giovando (cristiano.giovando@hotosm.org)
Student: Tássia Camões Araújo (weekly blog)
Improve HOT Export Tool Help Documentation
Mentor: Mhairi O’Hara (mhairi.ohara@hotosm.org)
Student: Arushi Vashist (weekly blog)
Usability Testing of HOT Tasking Manager User Interface
Mentor: Blake Girardot (blake.girardot@hotosm.org)
Student: Rekth (weekly blog)
Round 10 Review
The interns presented their work to the community on the 1st of October 2015 followed by a Q&A session. The presentation can be viewed at the dedicated HOT YouTube page:
Date | 1st October 2015
Time | 1400 UTC
Arushi
Presents 1400 - 1415 UTC
Q&A 1415 - 1425 UTC
Rekth (Blake)
Presents 1425 - 1440 UTC
Q&A 1440 - 1450 UTC
Tassia
Presents 1450 - 1505 UTC
Q&A 1505 - 1515 UTC
Both the interns and their mentors worked hard during the internship period, and have provided invaluable feedback on their experiences and thoughts for improvements. Please see below for the links. I would urge those thinking of applying to the Outreachy program both as a student and a potential mentor to read these.
Develop a QGIS plugin for OpenAerialMap
Improve HOT Export Tool Help Documentation
Usability Testing of HOT Tasking Manager User Interface
Important Dates
- Participating organizations announced: February 17th, 2015
- Applicants get in touch and make contribution to at least one project: February 17th to March 24th, 2015
- Application system opens: March 3rd, 2015
- Application deadline (19.00 UTC): March 24th, 2015
- Accepted candidates announced: April 27th, 2015
- Internship runs from: May 25th to August 25th, 2015
Getting Started
Visit the Outreachy website for information on how to apply [Outreachy](https://www.gnome.org/outreachy/). The main places that HOT discuss things are on our mailing list and IRC:
- Subscribe to our Mailing List here.
- Connect to OpenStreetMap IRC and select #HOT from the popdown menu.
- Voice your interest, ask questions and read information on specific projects below.
As the interest from candidates is coming in, we are getting requests for how they can start to contribute to their selected projects listed below. We have now compiled a list of items that we would like the candidates to add to their application, along with and most importantly a completed task that is to be a small contribution to the project:
- A short paragraph explaining why you are applying and what involvement, if you have had any, in open source projects.
- A simple resume showing previous activities and experience. And please feel free to include work that are not necessarily open source related.
- A draft outlining a proposed time schedule of your availability for the project, incorporating the expected 40 hrs per week from the 25th May to the 25th August.
- The completed task that was set out by the project mentor.
Please remember that you may and are encouraged to ask for help from the project mentor while completing the task. Everyone has moments when they get stuck, and it is better to work through it together and see what can be accomplished.
Applying
Please submit your application for the project via the Outreachy website by the 24th March 2015 19:00 UTC. When submitting your application make sure you select "OpenStreetMap" from the organisation list:
Project Ideas
This page contains a list of finalised ideas that have have been selected for the current Outreachy program:
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Suggested By
Mhairi O'Hara (mhairi.ohara@hotosm.org)
Summary
The HOT Exports home page provides some help information on how to get started, but new users could really benefit and get mapping a lot quicker if there was more detailed information, that is clear, direct and extremely easy to follow step by step.
Skills Required
Attention to detail, organised, good written English, basic knowledge of Export Tool ability to communicate with open source community, JQueryJavascript library, HTML.
Possible Mentors
Mhairi O'Hara (mhairi.ohara@hotosm.org)
Notes
The HOT Exports Homepage would benefit from updating the 'How to Get Started' section, perhaps linking to a more detailed page for those that need more assistance. Something along the lines of what has been done for the Visual Tag Chooser help page, which is listed on the Homepage at the bottom under the Expert Functions. This help page contains screen shoots of the steps, which is always helpful to a new comer to the tool. The help pages for the rest of the Expert Functions on the Homepage ---> Preset Files, Tag Transform SQL Files, Translation Files, and New Upload will also have to be addressed.
Comments
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Suggested By
Cristiano Giovando (cristiano.giovando@hotosm.org)
Summary
OpenAerialMap (OAM) is an open source platform offering a simple way to host and provide access to aerial imagery. Its purpose within HOT is to facilitate sharing of aerial imagery after a disaster for humanitarian response mapping. The goal of this project is to promote OAM to other communities of potential users outside of HOT. This will be done by creating informational material, making presentations, demonstrating use case examples, introducing the project on public fora, mailing lists and social media. The selected intern should be familiar with open source technology, mapping and aerial imaging. More details about the OpenAerialMap project can be found at https://github.com/hotosm/OpenAerialMap.
Skills Required
Excellent writing, demonstrated ability to engage through social media, interest in drone/UAV technology, knowledge of remote sensing principles.
Possible Mentors
Cristiano Giovando (cristiano.giovando@hotosm.org)
Notes
before applying for this project, please provide two examples of communities or organizations that would benefit from the OpenAerialMap project. Describe what features of OAM would address functional needs in their current workflows or specific use case scenarios. Send your examples along with a short motivation statement of why you are interested in OAM to cristiano.giovando@hotosm.org.
Comments
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Suggested By
Blake Girardot (blake.girardot@hotosm.org)
Summary
The goal of this project is to create and deploy 3 self-paced, short courses focused on learning to map 3 specific OSM features correctly according to HOT guidelines. The courses will consist of video and text content, with student evaluation modules and will award OpenBadges for each specific skill learned at the completion of a course. The Moodle Online Learning Management System will be used to present the courses.
Skills Required
Technical writing, graphic design, online course design and tools, OSM mapping, basic video editing.
Possible Mentors
Blake Girardot (blake.girardot@hotosm.org)
Notes
Moodle is a free, online Learning Management system enabling educators to create their own private website filled with dynamic courses that extend learning, any time, anywhere. These courses are not intended to be very basic how to map courses, they will be targeted at mappers with some experience mapping. Their goal is to make sure mappers know exactly how to map, tag and validate challenging or vital map features, not teach basic mapping. Course outlines and design should be completed before the project begins by the mentors in consultation with the Training, Community and Activation WGs. The editor of choice for these courses is JOSM. A person very experienced with Moodle could, time permitting, help us to customize our Moodle installation as well.
Comments
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Suggested By
Althio (althio.forum@gmail.com)
Summary
* Review content and improve organisation on the website (guides, sections).
Skills Required
Documentation writing, knowledge of OSM basic mapping and HOT activities desirable, web design.
Possible Mentors
Althio (althio.forum@gmail.com) and Nick Allen (nick.allen.54@gmail.com)
Notes
Comments
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Suggested By
Althio (althio.forum@gmail.com)
Summary
* Improve translation, easiness to contribute, delivered quality
Skills Required
Computer-aided translation [CAT], documentation writing, basic knowledge of crowd-sourcing and open projects.
Possible Mentors
Althio (althio.forum@gmail.com) and Nick Allen (nick.allen.54@gmail.com)
Notes
Comments
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Suggested By
Althio (althio.forum@gmail.com)
Summary
Images are now a big task in LearnOSM. They are very important for tutorials and guides. They take up a lot of memory space. Sometimes they need to be localised, sometimes they don't. Some of them are outdated or not used anymore but still in the repository folder.
Some actions for this project:
Skills Required
Documentation writing, graphics software, web design, attention to details.
Possible Mentors
Althio (althio.forum@gmail.com) and Nick Allen (nick.allen.54@gmail.com)
Notes
Comments
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