Slide 1

Engaging Students in the Free Open Source Movement Through

Civic Engagement

Trishan de Lanerolle, Ralph Morelli, Ingrid Russell* Sarah Thayer, Rachel Foecking,

Myles Garvey*Trinity College, *University of Hartford

October 3rd 2008

Slide: 2 The Humanitarian-FOSS Project © 2008 GHC 2008 Oct-03-08

Agenda

• The Humanitarian FOSS Project

• “App Trac” and Software Development

• Humanitarian FOSS Summer Institute

• My Experiences with “App-Trac”

• My Experiences with “OpenMRS”

Humanitarian FOSS Project

Trishan de LanerolleHumanitarian FOSS Project

Trinity College


Educational Motivation• David Patterson (ACM) Nov. 2005, (post Katrina):

Let’s help our neighbors!

• David Patterson (ACM) Mar. 2006:

Join the open-source movement!

• Our Question:

Will students building software for the community help revitalize computing education?


NSF/CPATH Grant

• CPATH: Revitalizing Undergraduate Computing

Education.

• Collaborators: Trinity, Conn, Wesleyan (TCW).

• Goal: Getting students involved in building open source

software to help society through:

– TCW video conference courses.

– Summer internship program 2008/9.

– National and regional workshops for faculty.

– National symposium on computing curriculum.


• Introducing new concepts and methodologies

• Attracting a new demographic

• Bringing Together Town and Gown

• Contributing to Society

• Portability and Sustainability

Educational Objectives


Portable/Sustainable Partnership

ComputingDepartments

• Teach computing• Build FOSS• Gain skills and opportunities

IT Corporations• Host interns• Fund and advertise• Volunteer expertise • Recruit students

HumanitarianCommunity

• Acquire software.• Host interns• Teach volunteerism

The Hum

anitaria

n

FOSS

Project


Teaching Experiments

2006 2007Fall

Sahana Group Study(3)

• 2006-2008 – 100+ students, 5 universities, 5 courses

Sprin

g

Sum

mer

Fall

Application programming course (25)

AidMatrix Summer Institute (5)

2008

Sum

mer

Sprin

g

Fall

H-FOSS summer Institute (13)

Group study (6)

AidMatrix Summer Institute

•CS 0 course(14)

•Software Engineering course(12)

•R. McDonald Project(4)

•Group study (4)

•Software DevelopmentCourse(20)

•Group study (4)


Beyond the lab…


Why Free and Open Source?

• Four Freedoms– Freedom to run the program.

– Freedom to study how the program works.

– Freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

– Freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole

community benefits.

“Free” as in “free speech” not “free beer”. – Richard Stallman


FOSS Values

•“Mozilla is … a global community and public benefit

organization dedicated to improving the Internet experience

for people everywhere. We work in the open through a

highly disciplined, transparent and cooperative process…”

•“Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative,

consensus based development process… We consider

ourselves … a community of developers and users.”

•“Linux is a free … operating system originally

created … with the assistance of developers

around the world.”


Today: Openness Everywhere“Software is just the beginning … open source is doing for mass

innovation what the assembly line did for mass production. Get ready for the era when collaboration replaces the corporation.” -- Thomas Goetz, Wired, 11/2003


Disaster Management

• Sahana: A web-based IT system developed in response to the 2004 Asian Tsunami.

• Deployments: Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia, Peru, China, India, NYC…

• Free Software Award for Social Benefit (2007)

• Trinity Connection: Trishan de Lanerolle, CS ‘04

• Our Contribution: Volunteer Management Module– Volunteer registration, assignment, reporting, etc.

– Designed and built by Trinity students in collaboration with industry and community experts.

www.sahana.lk

Sahana means relief in Sinhalese


Our Volunteer Management Module


OpenMRS - Medical Record System

• Medical record system for developing countries.

• Deployed: Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa.

• Developed by Partners in Health and the

Regenstrief Institute.

• Supported by World Health Organization, Center for

Disease Control, and other health organizations.

• Trinity Connections: Christian Allen, CS, ‘00 and

Giovanni Capalbo, ‘08.

• Our contribution: Touch-screen toolkit


Our Touchscreen Module


Other Examples

• “Our work is driven by a philosophy on software

freedom that aims to spread and bring the benefits of

software to all parts of the world.”

• Zulu for Humanity

• Martus is a secure software application designed to

gather, organize and back up human rights information

for social justice organizations

• Greek for witness.


Ronald McDonald House

•Delivered the software on May 9, 2008 where it is now in productive use.

•Installed a copy at Ronald McDonald House in Savannah, GA on May 22, where it is also in productive use.

•Developed RMH Homebase, a web-based volunteer scheduling and database system for the Ronald McDonald House in Portland, ME.


Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford

• Track tutoring applications.

• Released on Sourceforge as free application for

anyone to download and use.

“App Trac” and Software Development

Ingrid RussellDepartment of Computer Science

University of Hartford

Slide: 21 The Humanitarian-FOSS Project © 2008 GHC 2008 Oct-03-08Slide: 21 The Humanitarian-FOSS Project © 2008 GHC 2008 Oct-03-08

Project Overview

• Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford (LVGH)• Non-Profit organization that helps people with literacy

problems

• LVGH Issues• Student Sign In

• Application Tracking

• Data Integration between Applications


Software Development Class

• Assigned to address LVGH’s problem via a project

• Ran parallel to Software Development Topics

• Class broken up into four development teams• Each consisted of 3 - 4 students

• One team leader chosen for each team


Site/Client Visit• Became Familiar with:

• Staff and daily operations in the lab

• The hardware and software on the machines

• The overall problem first-hand

• Outlined general ideas for the problem and how it would be addressed

• Client Provided• Sample Reports

• Database Outlines

• Sign off on Requirements


Requirements Document• One requirements document per team

• Each requirement document included functionality, features, and use cases

• All four documents were merged into one


Design/Implementation

• Students used merged requirements document• Each team produced a design based on the model-

view-controller (MVC) pattern• One overall template design constructed from all the

teams’ designs• All collaborated on how database would be designed


Design/Implementation (Cont…)

• Each team member was assigned a specific task• Based on their background and strength• Chosen by team leaders• Broken up into

• Model Coders• GUI Coders• Database Coders

• Each team independently produced a different implementation having the same functionality promised by the requirements document.


Final Submissions• Each implementation had its own strength

• Flexible in design and very module• User-Friendly interface• Login screen designed with ease in mind• Caution about database as well as other problems kept in

mind• Not all features completed, but most functionality working• Each used as prototype for HFOSS Summer ’08 Project


Humanitarian FOSS Project Summer Institute 2008

Sarah Thayer, Trinity College


Overview

• Who we are

• What we did

• Why we did it

• Why it’s important


Who We Are

• 4 Countries: U.S., Nepal, Bulgaria, Ecuador• 5 Schools

– Trinity College– Wesleyan University– Connecticut College– University of Connecticut– University of Hartford

• 13 interns• 16 mentors from Boston, Chicago; Washington, D.C;

Buenos Aires, Argentina; Seattle; Colombo, Sri Lanka• All levels of experience


Summer Projects


Summer Projects: Sahana, OpenMRS

• Developed Volunteer Management and Volunteer Credentialing System.

•

• Structured Numeric Support

• Image Import Module


Summer Projects: POSIT & ALPACA

• InSTEDD: Teaching machines to detect the spread of disease as soon as possible

• ALPACA Light Parsing And Classifying Application (ALPACA)

• a classifying tool designed for use in community-oriented software as well as in Academia.

• Portable Open Search and Identification Tool

• phone-based tool for:– search and rescue

missions– scientific field work– other custom applications

• built on the Google Android platform.


Summer Projects: AppTrac

• A web-based kiosk system – monitors usage of literacy software to provide a good

evaluation for student needs– provides an administrative tool for organizing users and

instructional periods• Designed for Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford,

a nonprofit English-literacy organization


Why We Did It• "Working in the field of Computer Science gives me the

opportunity to help people, which is one reason why I am so interested in this field of study”

• “Because my main goal in life is to help disadvantaged persons, and I was curious at how software development can factor into that dream”

• “I was fascinated by the new challenge of organizing my thoughts in a way that a machine could understand, and the satisfaction of seeing the result in a fully functional program”

• “Open source development allows for experience that can usually only be gained in the industry, and this experience is hard to come by as an undergrad”

• "I've already learned more than I could've ever imagined”


Thoughts about the Institute

• “All the development teams projected a warm home-like feeling, and learning from others really brought a new perspective to the field of Computer Science for me”

• “The best part was how well we all got along and the flexibility of working hours. I'm satisfied with the work we did. For a first shot at a ‘real’ application, I think we did a pretty OK job”

• “I'm happy that I had the opportunity to expand my abilities as a programmer”

• “We all learned the basics of a flow of development, but at a much faster pace. To actually work on a project that was going to be used in the real world was quite motivating and inspiring, creating an experience I had not found anywhere else”


Why It’s Important

• Computers are losing the appreciation for their original function as tools (not toys)

• Use computers to help humanity• Put more faith in computers and programmers• Recruit more computer science students at the

undergraduate level– Make CS more attractive

– Aim: to help the world (what better goal?)


Have a blast helping humanity!

2008 Summer Interns and Faculty Sponsors, after the final presentations

Thanks to:- HFOSS- NSF- Mentors and advisors

My Experiences with “App-Trac”

Myles D. GarveyDepartment of Computer Science

University of Hartford


Overview

• Spring ’08 Experiences• Summer ’08 Experiences• Overall Experiences and Afterwards


Spring ’08• Learning Through Lecture

• Development Cycles

• Requirement Documents, Use Cases

• Design Techniques: UML Diagrams, MVC Architecture

• Implementation• How to base off Requirements Document• Database set up and management

• Code of Ethics and Legal Issues

• Learning Through Practice• Applying the theory to the practice

• Working with a client

• Deadlines

• Team Work

• Debugging

• Testing

• Unexpected Events


Spring ’08: Afterwards

• Deeply inspired by the class– Learning experience much different than before

• Passion to pursue continuation of App-Trac Development

• Passion to learn more on Software Development


Summer ’08

• Lessons Through Lecture– First three weeks HFOSS had “lecture time”.– Learned from tutorial based mini-projects

• PHP

• Java Server Pages (JSP)

• The Spring Framework

• Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)

• MySQL

– Inspiration for independent reading• Extreme research within JSP and the Spring Framework

• Further study in design concepts

• Lessons Through Practice– Meetings with Clients– Rapid Prototyping– Organization– Documentation– Final Presentation– Aiming for Deployment


Overall Experiences

• Extreme amount of information and experience in a short amount of time– Capability to learn languages at a fast pace

• Bonding and working with team members• Public Speaking and Presentation• Organization• Skills required for a real-world job• Many more found no where else!


Afterwards

• Skills acquired from both spring and summer– Provided foundations that can be applied to other projects

– Served as a motivating catalyst for further pursuing Software Development

• Now using skills in current projects• Reassured confidence in myself and the field of

Computer Science

My Experience with OpenMRS

Rachel FoeckingDepartment of Computer Science

Trinity College


OpenMRS

• OpenMRS is an electronic medical records system for developing countries.

• It lets doctors record medical information about a patient during an appointment.

• It is free and open source software


Image Import Module: Overview

• OpenMRS currently has no support for medical images

• Various people are working

on giving OpenMRS the ability to upload, edit, store, and view images

• This module takes care of uploading and editing images within OpenMRS


Image Import Module :Goals

• Give a general way for users to upload images in OpenMRS and associate them with an observation

• Allow users to crop and rotate the image

• Provide a rudimentary way to display the images


Image Import Module: Workflow

• The user specifies patient information and picks an image to upload

• The image file itself is saved and a thumbnail is created

• The user is then allowed to crop or rotate the image and edits are saved as XML


Image Import Module: Future

• Make the module more general

• Add more options for image editing

• Improve image viewer, make larger images easier to work with

• Figure out a better way to store image metadata


Learning Experience

• Came into the program with a basic knowledge of Java and HTML

• Learned more during the summer than the entire year in classes

• Interactions with students at the various colleges we worked with—Wesleyan, Connecticut College, University of Hartford, University of Connecticut


Challenges Overcome

• Toughest challenge was figuring out the Spring framework and how to develop for OpenMRS

• Making a design choice when you are not a core developer

• Communication with the developers

• Development Environment (Slow reload and deploy)


Looking Ahead: Community Building

Our Website: http://www.hfoss.org


THANK YOU!

Questions?

www.hfoss.org

www.hfoss.org/symposium09Apply for a 2009 Internship!!!


What they say…“Through HFOSS I’ve learned that Computer Science does not need

to be separated from the basic human needs, since a good piece of free software can help save lives and resources”

“Most of the programs students write are just exercises that have been solved many times…, I think students get a real satisfaction out of working on something that potentially will have thousands of users that they will never meet….”

“We’re trying to destroy the ‘computer science is just programming’ myth by bringing in not only real-world problems, but real world organizations who are trying to solve these problems”

“ Open Source software development allows for low or no-cost highly customizable software products that can be used to support many causes who have limited financial means”

“Wow. I really got to look at how computer science can relate to humanitarian efforts. I really loved delving into a world I’d barely seen before: Open Source…”


Looking Ahead: Community Building

Our Website: http://www.hfoss.org