Zikula Blog

With our experiences from last year, and some knowledge gained from the 'veteran' projects in GSOC, we'll be refining our application process this year. If we get accepted, of course!

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This year, I'd like to see an improved quality to the applications we receive.  Last year, it was nice to receive so many applications, and many of them were well thought out, however in the time period allotted for the applications process it was hard to refine the best applications in time.

This year, we encourage everyone interested in a Zikula project to do some or all of the following:

1. Talk to the project mentor beforehand about the project - formulate your ideas by using the mentor to find out what is expected.  New ideas and expansions to the scope aren't a problem, but it's always best to know that you and the mentor think the same way.
2. If you don't have a specific project in mind, or want to suggest one of your own, talk to our organization administrator (that's most likely going to be me).
3. For coding projects, be ready to submit a patch to implement a feature or fix a bug report in our trackers.  Doing this will firstly impress us, and secondly allow us to evaluate your abilities.  Little or no experience of coding is not a barrier to participation, but proving yourself at this early stage will be important - we need to know you have started to familiarise yourself with the project.
4. Follow the guidelines for an application (which we'll publish near the GSOC).  Different projects might ask you to consider different scenarios.
5. Install Zikula on a public website, and link it in your application, so we know you've had a chance to look the software over.
   
6. Lastly, talk with our community.  The best projects in GSOC this year were those that posted a topic in our forums early on asking for suggestions.  Our community is friendly, so take advantage of their expertise and experience!

If you do all these things you'll be right at the top of our list when it comes to picking applications.  This year, GSOC will be slightly smaller, so quality will be essential if you are really serious about GSOC this year.

GSOC is a great programme and can give you vital experience of Open Source and software development in general.  We'll ask you to post regular updates on our blog, so you'll get lots of exposure, all of which looks good on a CV.