Hello,
I've discussed with several of you a plan for how to restructure the
openFIRST Project such that things don't get bogged down with one
central point of authority while at the same time there's a definite
go-to person for each area. The conclusion we reached is that the
project should organised as follows.
There are a number of teams, each team has a coordinator who works with
everyone on the team to make sure the goals of the team are being
followed, that people aren't duplicating effort, etc. If/when a quick
decision affecting the whole project needs to be made it may fall to
the coordinators to do it and coordinators should know the answer to
questions about their area or at least who to ask to get them.
The teams are (where someone's already opted to be the coordinator his
name and e-mail is listed; we'd like to have each person being the
coordinator for at most one area):
Development - Jamie - ja...@op...
Internationalization - Guilherme - gui...@op...
Validity
Testing
Accessibility
Administration - Tim - ti...@op...
Evangelism
Support
Here's a brief description of what each team does:
Development - the development of modules to be distributed (actual
coding is done only by FIRST students; the coordinator is most likely,
but not necessarily a FIRST student).
Internationalization - translates project documents, distributed
modules, etc. into languages other than English (translation for
distributed modules must be done by students; translation for other
areas is not necessarily done by a student; the coordinator may or may
not be a FIRST student)
Validity - ensures that markup, CSS, Javascript, etc. used throughout
the project comply with the respective standards (for work on
distributed modules this must be done by students; for other areas it
is not necessarily student done; the coordinator may or may not be a
FIRST student)
Testing - pretty self explanatory; not just for the distributed modules
(this is open to everyone; the coordinator may or may not be a FIRST
student)
Accessibility - responsible for ensuring that the site, modules, etc.
work for those who are faced with disabilities such as blindness, poor
vision, and those accessing openFIRST materials through a medium other
than a conventional web browser (such as those using a PDA/cell phone
browser, screen reader, braile output device, etc.) (for work on
distributed modules actual code changes must be done by students but
discovering issues is open to everyone; the coordinator may or may not
be a FIRST student and would ideally have access to some devices other
than the conventional web browser)
Administration - responsible for handling all server side stuff,
projects that aren't distributed (such as FIRST Blogs), etc. (this
isn't student only, it is strongly encouraged that the coordinator be
someone who has been with the openFIRST Project for a long duration and
therefore is most likely not still a FIRST student though ideally will
have been one in the past)
Evangelism - tasked with getting users/volunteers/generally spreading
the word about the project. (anyone and everyone can be part of this
group; the coordinator may or may not be a FIRST student)
Support - responsible primarily for supporting the shipped modules
using Bugzilla, e-mail, forums, and potentially other means (anyone may
be a member of this group; the coordinator may or may not be a FIRST
student)
So, if you'd like to opt to be a coordinator, first and foremost make
sure you have the time and skills to do it effectively, and then pick
your area and let me (or preferably this list) know what it is.
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