Google Summer of Code/Administrators

Read below the responsibilities of Wikimedia's organization administrator in various phases of the Google Summer of Code program. Note: Contents in this page follow the timeline of the previous round which might be different next year, but the process of the program will more or less remain the same.

After the program is announced

middle of October - middle of January

1. Recruit two organization administrators. As the timeline and process of both Google Summer of Code and Outreachy programs are similar and require coordination, it is recommended to have the same administrators organizing them. 
2. Create Google Summer of Code/20XX page on MediaWiki.org. Add ideas for possible projects, administrators contact information, and link to the application process steps. Also, in Phabricator, create a corresponding milestone or request permission to create one if you don't have already.
3. Add latest round to Template:OPW
4. Select ideas for possible projects from the outreach-programs-projects workboard or by reaching out to mentors on the mailing lists. See example here. Task description of chosen projects should meet the listed criteria.

Mentoring organizations application period

middle of January - early February

1. Apply to be a mentor organization. Visit the official program site to learn how to apply. Re-use application data from previous year.
2. Monitor steps from section above. Select or refine project ideas, update them on Phabricator & MediaWiki.org page. 

end of February - middle of March

1. Request for help with mentoring projects (example) on the Wikitech-l & Wikimedia-l mailing lists.

OPTIONAL: Host an information session for applicants. For one of the previous rounds, we used YouTube for the live broadcast and IRC for a simultaneous discussion (more details).

Student application period

Before the deadline: end of February - middle of March

1. Suggest next steps in the process to both students and mentors. Make sure students follow both the official and Wikimedia's application process guidelines. Remind mentors to review student proposals on Phabricator and give them feedback.  
2. Answer students and mentors queries. They might approach you via various communication mediums (Zulip, emails, Phabricator, IRC). Be prompt in your replies.   
3. Provide a group communication tool to interns and mentors In the few recent rounds, we have encouraged the use of Zulip for Q&A; check one of the previous streams.
4. Optional: Review student applications. Verify that students have followed all the application process steps.
5. Provide relevant feedback on the proposals submitted on Phabricator -- Ideally, 1-2 weeks before the deadline, so that students have time to work on the feedback.
6. Report any potential plagiarism (applicants who copy and paste text, images, or concepts from another person or source without clearly citing and marking that source) to Google as per Google's guidelines.
7. If there isn't enough time for the student to work on your feedback (or to create a new proposal), leave a comment stating that their chances of getting accepted are low. A sample comment:

   Welcome! Thanks for your interest in this project. The GSoC application deadline is very soon, which isn't quite sufficient to complete our application process, so I'd like to frankly let you know that your chances of acceptance are very low. But we do understand that the application process is a good learning experience, so if you still wish to draft a proposal, we'd be happy to support you. You can also contribute to Wikimedia besides these programs. If you're interested, we can share some resources with you on getting started. 

After the deadline: early April - early May

1. Ask mentors to review applications mentors. Encourage them to follow the selection process tips and report to you their score. A new process requires organizations to submit project slot requests in priority order. If this remains unchanged, recommend mentors follow a rubric designed to rank proposals in the previous round.
2. Announce results on Wikitech-I & Wikimedia-I mailing lists once they are out. You could also send emails to accepted participants & congratulate them. See email examples one, two.
3. Optional: Send emails to rejected participants. Encourage them to continue contributing outside of GSoC and re-apply the following year. See example messages.

Internship period

early May - end of August

1. Engage students in your community. Prepare a list of small tasks to help students get familiar with the community practices and processes. See example here. 

end of May - end of August

1. Suggest next steps in the process to both students and mentors. Encourage students to write weekly reports, work towards accomplishing milestones in their project timeline, communicate regularly with mentors, and submit evaluations on time. Encourage mentors to continue providing guidance to students during this time. 
2. Facilitate the process of selecting mentors for attending the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit. See for example.

OPTIONAL:

• Host IRC chats or virtual meetups with students. Allow students to learn and share their work with fellow participants and request feedback. 

• Share students' weekly reports with the community. See example here.
• Add students blog feeds to Wikimedia planet.

Wrap-up

end of August - late October

1. Suggest next steps in the process to both students and mentors. Ensure no pull requests are remaining to be merged and deployed in production and documentation both on-wiki and in the code is complete.  
2. Add students projects to the Google Summer of Code past projects page. 
3. Archive the corresponding milestone project in Wikimedia Phabricator (select the milestone, select "Manage" in the left bar, and select "Archive Project" on the right).
4. Update Google Summer of Code/20XX page on MediaWiki.org: Add {{historical}} on top. Remove "Stay up to date with the progress on projects through the bi-weekly reports of interns" from top and move to "Accepted projects" section. Potentially summarize the round on top instead.
5. Add this round's projects to Google Summer of Code/Past projects

OPTIONAL:

• Write a blog post for Wikimedia and/or Google Open Source blog. Include information about participants, projects they worked on, what they accomplished, etc. At the very least, announce on wikitech-l & Wikimedia-l mailing list.
• Host a lightning showcase and invite students to share the projects they built with the community.   

Additional notes

• For the sections listed below, do not miss any email reminders from Google as they will contain information about important deadlines.

Resources

• Read the pages in the "Org admin" section of the GSOC mentoring manual.
• Read announcement emails and messages from the 2020 edition.
• Read lessons learned from the previous editions.
• Read lessons learned from the 2017 edition.