GSoC Mentor Organizations | Application Guide

October

• Mentoring organization (you) to form an Organization Admin Team (ideally 2+ people needed)
• Tweet/blog/forum or IRC announcement(s)
  • Sample post(s): [Project name] is planning to participate to GSOC

October – November

• Recruit mentors and begin project idea discussions (2+ mentors needed for each project idea)
• Tweet/blog/forum or IRC announcement(s)
  • Collect project ideas and recruit mentors
  • Explain to potential candidates the timeline and how to get prepared

December

Create/update web pages: View Jenkins’ page here

1. Create project GSoC webpages:
   1. Project ideas page – to strengthen your application include at least 10 viable project ideas (example)
   2. Guidelines for GSoC contributors (example)
   3. Guidelines for mentors (example)
   4. Guidelines for organization admins (example)
2. Create a public chat/discussion channel(s) for GSoC if one is not yet available
3. Create a project application template
4. Tweet/blog/forum or IRC announcement(s)

January

• Submit mentoring organization application to Google

If accepted — Congratulations! Proceed to February
If declined — It happens. Try again next year!

February

Host weekly office hours:

• Office hours 1: What is a GSoC “project”? What does each entail? What are the available project ideas planned?
• Office hours 2: Guidelines & expectations for GSoC prospects. Q&A. Discuss the Code of Conduct, discussion channels, helpful resources, etc.
• Office hours 3: Project ideas. A walk-through of each project idea. Q&A. [Note: The # of office hours here depends on how many project ideas the project offers]

Mentors are to review and provide feedback to prospect proposal drafts in the weeks preceding the application start date.

March

• GSoC contributor application begins
• Mentoring org continues to host office hours mainly for Q&A and provide tips/guidance

April

• GSoC contributor application ends
• Mentors to rank proposals
• Internal discussions between org admins and mentors to select winning proposal(s)
• Org admin to submit proposal rankings to Google via the GSoC portal

May ☀️ Follow Google’s timeline from here on out

• Community Bonding Period | GSoC contributors get to know mentors, read up on documentation, and get up to speed to begin working on their projects
• Coding begins
• Org admins continue to hold weekly/biweekly office hours for GSoC contributors & mentors. Purpose: For project progress updates, to raise issues about roadblocks encountered, etc.

Midterm and end-term

• Make sure that midterm and final evaluations are complete and submitted to Google per their deadline.
• (Recommended) organize a public presentation by mentees of the project’s progress, lessons learned, and their final outcome.

And there you have it. We wish you all the best of luck in your Mentoring Organization application!