1. Making a Single Project Plan

• Applications are solicited and processed by our intern supervisory team. Interested researchers can submit proposals using our Proposal Worksheet
• Based on the project needs, a primray supervisor is selected as project lead
• Meet with project owners to develop a charter using the Charter Worksheet
  • Must list all deliverables in detail
  • All deliverables must have a timeline
  • Communication expectations for both our team and project owner are detailed

2. Making a Semester Plan

• Once a single project charter has been completed, generate:
  • List of all technical skills required
  • Student time estimates per skill set
  • From all charters selected for a semester, generate a list of all needed skills
  • Generate “roles” based on collections of skills that students could be expected to learn in a single semester
  • For information about how to create these roles, check out our Position Descriptions

3. Build Your Team!

• Advertise! Advertise! Advertise!
  • Visit classes in Humanities & SS
  • Visit campus cultural and academic organizations
  • Attend job fairs
  • Bring handouts that include what the students will learn and project snapshots
  • Check out our Advertising Samples
• Hire as diverse a group as possible
• 2-4 CS students, 3-6 humanities & SS students
• 50/50 graduate and undergrad
• Incentivize returners

4. Develop the Skill Sets

• First two weeks in summer and first 3-4 weeks in the academic year are dedicated to training. We use the following training schedule:
  • Day 1: Getting Started - Note - This workshop requires preparation ahead of the students arrival, click the link for more information.
  • Day 2: Introduction to Command Line
  • Day 3: Basics of Versioning with Git
  • Day 4: How the Web Works
  • Day 5: Project Specific Training (any skills needed for their roles not already covered) such as:
    • Model-View-Controller and Designing for Content Management Systems
    • Creating your own web page templates (PHP or Python/Django)
    • SQL
    • Python/Django/Eve/Flask
    • Jekyll
    • PHP
• Students train as a group
• Training sets up many of the tools they will use on their first project
• Students are paired or grouped, try to ensure at least one returner or CS student per project to act as mentor
• Select a “training project” for each student team that will introduce skills

5. Hack!

• Student deliverables are broken down into specific tasks with real deadlines
• Meet with student teams at least once/week to assess progress
• Bi-weekly meetings with project owners to demonstrate deliverables or designs
• Code reviews once per month to discuss student style

6. Launch the Projects

• Project officially launches when all deliverables from charter are met to both parties satisfaction
• No pressure to launch! - If either side of the team does not feel the work is ready for launch, it is moved into the next work cycle
• If the patrons request features not originally in the charter, the project launches in Phase 1, with Phase 2 planned for next work cycle to address additional requests
• During the launch preparation, students test their work by installing their code on a brand new instance
• Code is available through Github
• Must have a detailed Readme