CPATH CB: Collaborative: Can Humanitarian Open-Source Software Development Help Revitalize Undergraduate Computing Education?

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TITLE: Can Humanitarian Open-Source Software Development Help Revitalize Undergraduate Computing Education?PI: Ralph Morelli (ralph.morelli@trincoll.edu)This community building project creates a diverse community of individuals from academic computing departments, social service organizations, and computing and IT corporations, to test the hypothesis that humanitarian free and open-source software development (H-FOSS) can help revitalize undergraduate computing education. The project will capitalize on two contemporary interests that are under served in computing curricula: the open-source development model, as a way to teach software engineering; and, service-learning, as a means by which students and faculty can contribute to the surrounding community. A software development version of the Habitat for Humanity model will be investigated: instead of building houses, students and faculty will learn computing by building software systems that benefit humanity. To combat the computing-is-coding myth, community-based summer and academic year internships will demonstrate that computing is working together with other people to design and develop solutions to real problems. By engaging students and faculty from participating schools in summer institutes, credit courses, spring-break community-help projects, and an academic curriculum workshop, the project will develop a portable and sustainable educational model that attracts socially engaged students to the computing discipline, bridges the divide between town and gown, and builds truly useful humanitarian software.