HFOSS - Interview with Clif Kussmaul

The interviewee for this video is Clif Kussmaul who is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Muhlenberg College. He uses a five steps USABL model in which students use FOSS, study it as a worked example, add minor enhancements, build larger components, and finally leverage FOSS for other purposes.

You can read more regarding what Clif Kussmaul has accomplished by checking out the list of position statements. Once again you can either watch the video or read the notes below.



This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

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What's the big picture opportunity in connecting education and open source?

• students get to see bigger projects and more realistic projects sooner
  
• they don't have to wait until a capstone project which most of the times get thrown away
• early in their curriculum they can write small things that can benefit a bigger project

What specific projects or courses are you working on that make the link between open source and education?

• they get involved students with open-source in two courses: the software engineering course and the capstone course
  
• in the software engineering course, students have to use open source tools, make small additions, fixing bugs
• some students end up using other projects to leverage and simplify problems
• half of the students in the capstone course end up taking on an open-source project
  

Do you have any advice on how Mozilla could best engage with educators and students?

• get started people in small ways
• a browser can sound a really complicated thing for people
• plugins can be easily written and don't sound so intimidating

NOTE: Modified to add license note