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Pricing   (Content)

authors and that you must also license the new modified code as GPL. At no time are you permitted to change the license terms.

The GPL license ensures you have full access to the source code. This gives peace of mind about security since nothing is hidden in the code. It improves security since there is no need to reverse engineer the code to find potential security issues, in fact this open-ness enables world wide peer review. Lastly it makes it easy for anyone to modify or tweak the software to their own particular requirement

Generated on February 1, 2009.

GSoC Interview: Carlos Mauro   (News)

2. What attracted you to the Google Summer of Code as a programme, and PostNuke as a project?

I looked at Google Summer Code as a great challenge. But I do not dare. Until this year, if I did. I applied to several projects related to the topic of usability. And because apply to PostNuke some years ago I work as freelance. Develop some portals for small businesses in my country using postnuke and other CMS. PostNuke is attractive because this was installed in a single attempt. I was surprised. So I think support.

3. Tell us about your project, and how you hope it can benefit PostNuke?
I'm copying what we present in my proposal:

The criteria for the evaluation usability are:
Comparison of controls on Good Practices or patterns Usability on the Web.
Include improvements within the Framework.
Create a guide to improve and documenting findings to the community PostNuke.

a. Usability
To improve the usability of Postnuke i will work graphical interfaces suggested some of the modules and the framwork which are used in the forms. Attempts to put in these modules some good practices and standards for Web usability.
I will Work with what is necessary XHTML, CSS, Ajax whether it is possible to implement and methodically.

b. Accessibility and conformance
For the accessibility i take the the Guidelines and techniques(6). After the programing process. I will make a list for test usability. I will Choose 6 to 7 cms users to test usability with the corrections. The proceeds will help create iterations for each test.

c. Maintainability
Maintenance may accelerate taking intoaccount that at the end of the draft the conclusions will be made in the form of best practices for Web usability postnuke. I will help in the incorporation and supporting of usability guide line in other modules PostNuke.

In the forums I will clarify the tasks of the project and also its scope.


4. What do you personally hope to gain from participating in the Summer of Code with PostNuke?
Many, many experience in knowing more about how a community of developers interested in do make a good product. Learning from good programming practices and especially knowing more about web usability. Of course Social Recognition.
I want postnuke as a milestone in the renewed Internet.

5. Can you see yourself contributing your talents to Open Source projects following the SoC? Will you continue to work with PostNuke in some capacity after the programme has ended?
The GSOC ends after a month of my graduation from college. I hope to finish that time almost all my tasks in the project. I would like to leave a module to test usability. I feel a duty to contribute to the community. I am confident that the project can achieve more significant improvements in its next release and then create or generate support the development of future lines. It should not be discouraged postnuke which has short market ... we see the top, be with them and then jump to heaven.

6. Is there anything else you’d like to say now, as the programme begins?
I would like to see other issues as the framework and its implementation in business or insert google app into the framework. I would like to make a strategic planning for IT postnuke. Devising strategies to make the best CMS, simply: Easy.

Not only is needed to schedule some things to achieve a well-accepted product.Need to know that is what the user wants in the next 5 years and venture into that vision. So I count on your support to work with postnuke .... And of course do my project as realistic as possible in these 3 months in the hope that is of benefit to all.

Lastly, thanks for your time – we in the PostNuke team are excited about the Summer of Code, so thank you for taking part and choosing PostNuke!

We are going ... postnuke to make the Best CMS, the easiest. GEN a social network that seems to make FaceBook a grain of sand in our seas.
I will continue reviewing more documentation and adjusting the project to postnuke with the help of my mentor Steffen Voß and I hope all of you ...

Generated on April 27, 2008.

Development Update, 2008-01   (News)

.8 Final: the next step after RC3
Since the release of RC3, already a lot of bugfixes have been committed to the repository. The developers have agreed to address all new features to the .9 tree, where the two major changes (UTF-8 and gettext, see below) are already in active development. This should result in much shorter release cycles (and earlier release dates) also, and give module developers much more clarification on what to change in order to make their module work under the new major release. If needed, an final bugfizing weekend may still be organised for .8 final.
The upgrade from .764 installations on certain systems has been improved, by increasing the memory_limit to 64M. However, this only works for php version 5.2.1 and above.
Upgrading to .8 together with some 3rd party modules may raise problems when the modules upgrade process is not failsafe for .8 or if the upgrade function uses core functions of modules that are not available yet. Therefore the upgrade of 3rd party modules in general is avoided by following a white list of core modules.
Most site-specific data can already be easily overridden using the /config and /themes directories. The Multisites module however still needs some futher thought on the best way of running multiple sites from a single install. One method having multiple unrelated (i.e. non table sharing) sites of a single install would be to have config/site1, config/site2 etc., this will be postponed to a next release.
The Tour module is now in a state where it can be translated to other languages as well. Just translate the templates and put them in a subdir with the appropriate language abbrevation, all within the pntemplates directory.

MultiCategorization introduction and issues since
As earlier announced, a last fix for supporting MultiCategorization has been added to the core just before the release of RC3. Since those changes, another small fix was then required to be fully backwards compatible. On the module-devs list, the devs have discussed a lot on how to solve these issues. Chances are great that if the new (already committed) patches do not solve the problems, MultiCategorization might be postponed to later versions in order to fully test the new features.
For more information on MultiCategorization, visit this thread in the forum.

DOM extension to use correct paths in JavaScript
Some javascripts, eg. the lightbox, need to know the path to the system and the entrypoint as well (which can be configured in the settings), otherwise they may fail in case of short urls being enabled. Since dynamic javascript creation might be a performance problem, some inline javascript is added to the pagevars to extend the DOM:
- document.location.entrypoint: will be set to what is configured to be the entrypoint
- document.location.pnbaseURL: will point to the result of pnGetBaseURL();
Any ideas on how to make his more unobtrusive are very welcome!

PostNuke Upgrade Distribution
In previous articles and posts, the term '.8 upgrade pack' was used to represent a full .8 package, including 3rd party modules, to upgrade to .8 from an existing .764 installation. However, the term 'upgrade pack' is not quite correct and misleading, because it implies to be an upgrade package with changed files only, while the main parts remain as-is. The transition between .764 and .8 requires a complete exchange of all files, so the so called upgrade package is a complete distribution.
Now it remains what modules should be in an upgrade distribution, to be able to fully upgrade an existing .764 installation, including new versions of 3rd party modules. These include Downloads 2.2, pnMessages, Polls 2.0, bbcode / bbsmile, Weblinks, EZComments and MultiHook at least. This might need some additional testing with certain versions also.

Core changes and additions in the .9 tree
Mark has already overhauled some core API methods and calls. All systems modules are now using the Renderer Class instead of pnRender. Also, a first pass has been committed in changing all pn* function calls to new object method calls. For example, pnModGetInfo is replaced with ModuleUtil::getInfo and pnSecGenAuthKey is replaced with SecurityUtil::generateAuthKey.
For those who did not know: A class pnCompat.php still includes most oldstyle API calls for backwards compatibility.

GetText and Default DB Charset
Bernd is progressing rapidly on integrating gettext in de development tree, and has added po-files for all core modules. The required PHP version for .9 has already been set to a minimum of 5.1.6, and since version 5.0, MySql supports different character sets and corresponding collating orders. To run an application in UTF-8 (unicode) it is not sufficient to change the character set for PN; we needed to set the database encoding (actually server and client) to UTF-8 as well.
A user who wishes to run his site in multiple languages, needs to decide the database encoding at installation time. The default is UTF-8, because the current iso-8859-1 is restricted to too few language combinations. UTF-8 is a 'no-worry' setting because it will work with any language (as long as it is UTF-8 encoded.
This change is $PNConfig['DBInfo']['default']['dbcharset'] = 'utf-8';

To cache or not to cache, that's the question
Also discussed on the devs-list is the current (and future) state of output caching within PostNuke. Why should any application repeat the same processing tasks on a item that hasn't changed?
Not caching anything is fine if one has got infinite resources to throw at a site (and even then there are limits). But in reality there are finite resources and you need to take steps to ensure that those resources are effectively used. One method for that is not wasting precious resources repeating the same tasks time after time.
The key is effective cache management. Currently we put too much load onto the module to handle it's own caching. Once you then add component (Renderer) caching and page (Theme) caching into the mix things become complex. This is another thing that needs reviewing.

Generated on March 2, 2008.

Bug-Fixing Weekend - A Review   (News)

started with 65 bugs and 20 patches. After a brief evaluation some of them were moved to .81 or .9 and we started fixing the rest.

Saturday afternoon we still had the number of 65 bugs - because the testers were as busy as the programmers. And even all through the Sunday this number followed us.

All in all we were able to fix ~50 bugs and we are down to 44 open bugs - some of them are partly feature requests and thus are postponed till later versions. The is no priority 5 bug - only 2 upgrade related priority 4 bugs are left. They are regarded as showstoppers and are assigned to Mark West who will fix them in the next few days. So if you want to test wour modules with .8 - pick up the latest SVN version.

While most programmers tried to fix .8 bugs some others worked on their modules: Marco Kundert is in his last throes of his work on pagemaster - a full port of pagesetter to .8 techniques. Jörn and I worked on the next version of "Content". It has pretty much grown but as Jörn fixed some issues in pnForms along the way, we can not release this version before we have either a new RC or a final of .8.

The team is currently discussing if we need another RC or if this is going to be the final. It is only a matter of weeks unt

Generated on January 15, 2008.

PostNuke - A Year in Review   (News)

Following on from that, we had the release of Milestone 3 in February, which we used to clear up many bugs in the .8 codebase.

Next, we saw the first release of Scribite, development of a high quality WYSIWYG solution for PostNuke sponsored by the German PostNuke Foundation (read about the latest, 2.0 release here). We also had the appearence of several 0.8 only modules - MultiHook, pnUpper (now renamed to MediaAttach) and Publish. More and more modules taking advantage of .8 technologies were developed throughout the year, and there is an ever increasing selection of modules ready to run with .8 when we release the final version next year.

PageLock, for managing concurrent edits of a page was introduced to PostNuke .8 in March. The PostNuke Recovery Console made an appearence in May, as a .8 replacement for the Swiss Army Knife. At the end of May, CoType (which our Docs team is using to author the new PostNuke .8 documentation) was released to the public.

Unfortunately, in June we hit the well publicised problems with the NOC, which continued for a couple of months and hit the development of .8, delaying RC1 until July. However, RC1 met with a good response and many bugs were fixed.

In August, a new Steering Committee was elected, and Jorn's new Content module (which just hit the 1.0 release) was announced. The 4th Annual pnMeeting convened in Osnabrück during September and there were many interesting talks and discussions held by the 30 or so attendees.

In October we had our first bug fixing weekend, followed by further problems with the NOC, forcing November to be a quiet month. However, on December the 12th we released RC2, which we wish to test over the Christmas holiday in preparation for RC3 or a final release early in the New Year.

So what's to come? I'll leave that for articles to be published in the New Year, but at the very least you can expect the release of .8 final, the unveiling of our new name and the rebranding which goes with it, further development of .9, and some results from our documentation project.

Finally, all that remains is to wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year. Thanks for your continued support!


Simon Birtwistle [HammerHead]
PostNuke Steering Committe

Generated on December 27, 2007.

A quick module 'til the end of 07 ?   (News)

generate it. Different validations call attention to incorrect or missing elements, so that always runnable modules are produced.

The module is completely separated from its technical realisation, the whole development cycle can happen on an abstract level. When new versions are released, pressing a button is sufficient to update a module.

This preview version only provides necessary means and should really be taken for a preview. There is much planned and there are also some messy bugs, but with some excercise one can do work of weeks in ten minutes already :-)


Download
Examples


You can find further information on the project homepage as well as in the application itself.

Have fun and a nice Christmas

Generated on December 21, 2007.

What's going on?   (News)

holidays there was not much acitivty in the SVN but now that both Mark and SVN are back we are fixing the remaining bugs for the RC2.

2. A name for the rebranding has been chosen. The Postnuke Foundation is currently in the process of trademark- and domain registration. The legal stuff seems to take some time. It won't contain a P or a N - so if you plan any new modules you shouldn't call them pnThisAndThat.

3. Speaking of module development:

a) Axel Guckelsberger of the Steering Committee just presented his diploma thesis: Modulestudio will not only revolutionize the way of programming Postnuke modules. It is way ahead of other similar systems. There will be a free version available but this will be a limited version.

Modulestudio, Google Video

b) Jørn Wildt started the work on the content module we discussed some months ago here and at the pnMeeting. This module is simply called "Content" and it uses all the new stuff in .8. The principle behind "Content" is that you first choose the layout of the article you want to write (1 column, 2 colums, whatever you like) and then you place blocks of content inside this layout with a smooth javascript interface. These blocks can contain text, images, videos, Google Maps aso. More blocks can be included as plugins.
http://noc.postnuke.com/projects/content/

c) As Jørn Wildt ceased work on Pagesetter ("I does all I need and it runs with .8") German programmer "Kundi" has picked up this work. He completely rewrites Pagesetter in order to remove Jørn's Guppy form framework and to include .8's Form framework, workflows aso. His first release will do everything that Pagesetter 6.3 does and it will be able to import from Pagesetter. Kundi is currently looking for a nice new module name. Any suggestions?

d) Robert Gasch works on a shopping module which won't be GPL - I was able to take a preview and it looks very adult and I think it will be worth it's money.

e) The last time I looked at pnUpper it was kind of a niche module that I never really had any use for. Axel Guckelsberger is currently turning it into a full fletched media library for the central storage of any kind of media to be used in other modules. Thus he renamed it to MediaAttach.

MediaAttach

4. Now that the NOC seems to be kind of stable again we hope to have time to replace it with a less complicated software. We ar

Generated on November 20, 2007.

Looking for Documenation Project Team Members   (News)

Potential candidates check list:



A well-rounded understand of PostNuke. You need not be an expert in
everything PostNuke, but you should be able to effectively administer, adapt
and modify a PostNuke site.


Able to reasonably read and write in English, as far as it pertains to
PostNuke documentation writing. The key is reasonable; You do not have to
master English writing, as content is more important over style.
Contributing author's English will be edited for clear and concise grammar
and usage.


Able to work with a team. This may mean adjusting personal styles and
viewpoints to the teams objectives. This also means to possess the ability
to collaborate and construct ideas as a group member.


Must have the time to work on such an extensive project. Yes, we offer
flexible hours.


Must be able to commit. Must be willing to commit. Also commitment is
essential. And before I forget, we need someone who is going to commit to
this project.



Benefits:



Long hours and no pay


Getting to contribute to the PostNuke project


Having your name associated with PostNuke (Hey, you can put it on your
resume)


Development of friendship and camaraderie




Are you still interested? Well, if you are please send me a Private Message
here
on this site.


Include:



Your name and PostNuke Handle (Nickname)


Experience with PostNuke and related


Your motivation for this project


The amount of time you can give per week. Average.


Any relevant information, you feel we should know about.


Any spacial skills (related to this project) i.e. Technical Writer




Even though, we would like to accept all candidates to this project, we
cannot. It is our intention to keep this project small enough to be
manageable, yet large enough to be effective. I will be selecting only a few
for final review and selection by the Steering Committee. Thank you in advance
for your consideration to this project.



David Pahl -- Documentation Project Lead

Generated on October 6, 2007.

Development Update, March 2007   (News)

Dot 8 evolving: language files progression and legacy functionality
Thanks to the testing of the community users (yes, YOU!), some legacy functions (residing in /includes/legacy/ have been updated by Simon to solve some bugs. This is another proof that we do need everyone to test the releases and help not only yourself to make this release a success! The following files have also been marked 'deprecated', with an accompanying comment in the DocBlock: admin.php, backend.php, banners.php, error.php, modules.php, print.php and user.php. These files shall be removed in the next (post-dot8) major release.
The overhaul of language files has also applied to the Groups, Theme, Users and Profile modules. These modules now have better multilingual options and (by using the pnML function), making it a lot easier to translate the package and showing better logic in grammar for localisations. Furthermore, lots of open bugs have been solved and the templates have been revised also. For example, the emails sent by the Users module can now be adjusted by just editing a template!
David Nelson has offered to completely review the language files for dot8, and we all have to thank Olaf Fichtner for helping revamp the current language constants. The PostNuke Languages Project is actively following the development!
Important change in the language strings is the use of the _CREATEDBY / _CREATEDON and the _UPDATEDBY / _UPDATEDON constants. For better support in other languages, these are replaced by the following:

'_CREATEDBY', 'Created by %username%'
'_CREATEDON', 'Created on %date%'
'_CREATEDBYON', 'Created by %username% on %date%'
'_UPDATEDBY', 'Last updated by %username%'
'_UPDATEDON', 'Updated on %date%'
'_UPDATEDBYON', 'Last updated by %username% on %date%'

and can now be accessed through the normal pnml plugin in the templates.

System modules: pnForm and PageLock
Jørn has moved the pnForm framework to it's own module location within the system directory. Major reason for this is to properly save some pnForm specific javascript and style files. Usage of the module should be quite the same. In addition, some new context menu plugins have been added. These plugins create a popup menu to be used as a right-click context menu. More information can be found in the added files in the pnForm plugin directory, and at the pnForm Wiki Pages.
Also introduced by Jørn is a new system module. The PageLock module is a module that helps enforcing single user access to a specific page, by blocking access to other users when one has it open.
Example: User A opens article X for editing. This is registered on the server. User B tries to open article X for editing too. But as soon as the article editing window is opened, it is overlayed with a transparent dark film and a box in the middle tells the user "Sorry this page has been locked by user A - please wait or come back later".
Functionality: The lock is maintained by an Ajax plugin that keeps pinging the server as long as user A keeps the editing page open. When user A closes the window then the pinging stops and the lock times out. If user B chooses to wait then his page keeps pinging the server for the release of the lock (also Ajax) - and when that happens he gains access to the page. The module can be used on all pages that edites a single item - articles, user data, news items, book pages, permissions settings - you name it.
To use this system, a module author has to use API calls in their own code for adding or releasing a block: pnModAPIFunc('PageLock', 'user', 'pageLock', ...) and pnModAPIFunc('PageLock', 'user', 'releaseLock', ...). To see al this in action, grab the latest nightly snapshot and play around with the HowtoPnForm module: edit a recipe in one browser, and try to edit the same in another browser.

ValueAddons modules: Members_List and EZComments
The Members_List module has been revised by Mark West, with some added configuration options. It is now possible to set the number of (allowed) registered users, and some new blocks (featured user last seen and last x users) have been added. Check out the latest nightly build to see the functionality and options.
Mark has now finished the integration of categories into the user side of the Reviews, Pages, FAQ and News modules. This way, migration of .7x categories into the new Categories module is now supported and can be tested by our users who want to upgrade their .7 site to .8.
Finally, there have been added configuration options for categorization and category titles in the permalinks with these modules.
One hot issue at the moment is the increasing amount of spam that is on lots of websites at this moment. More and more features are to be found on the internet to prevent spam showing on your site. Akismet / Bad Behaviour are one of these. As some already know, Akismet has been applied in EZCommnents for a while. For testing purposes, Mark has implemented a bad behaviour (http://www.bad-behavior.ioerror.us/) function also for testing purposes (as Steffen has found that this could also be a good application). It does need some code hacking to pnApi.php at this moment, so only advanmced users willing to help integreating this feature are invited to test this and report any iussues to the EZComments tracker at the EZComments NOC project page.

Core and API: ThemeUtil and Categories
The pnTheme system has now been converted to the ThemeUtil class. With this conversion, all occurences in the core were updated too. Both the old and the new file are loaded in pnInit for backwards compatibility, but the old file (onTheme) and its functions are now marked as 'deprecated' and will be removed in the next major release.
Also added to the new ThemeUtil is a getModuleStylesheet method which contains the logic from the modulestylesheet plugin. You can do PageUtil::addVar('stylesheet', ThemeUtil::getModuleStylesheet('modulename')) to include the value of pnModGetVar('modulename', 'modulestylesheet') or style.css (in this order) or PageUtil::addVar('stylesheet', ThemeUtil::getModuleStylesheet('modulename', 'special.css)) to include the special.css file in your rendered page.
While unnecessary for correct functioning of the website, one is now allowed to turn off session regeneration completely. This is added because it may be helpful with a couple of undecided bugs in the tracker at the moment.

Module Development: information for 3rd party Devs!
Axel introduced a very nice application called EasyDist. This allows you to create your own PostNuke package easily. You can find it at modulestudio.de. It is still in a very early stage, but you should get the idea. This is all still in development fase and is just for testing purposes at this moment.
A preliminary for the (automatic) creation of packages using EasyDist is that module authors package their modules in a standard way. Right now, there are different file structures in the ZIPs or TGZs the authors distribute. We came to the conclusion that the preferred file structure inside the archive should be - modules - MyModule - pnuser.php etc so that an unpacked archive could be copied inside the pnroot. More information is in t

Generated on March 21, 2007.

Google Summer of Code 2007: This Year We Want to be Part of the Party!   (News)

Program Schedule and Deadline Dates

March 5: Mentoring organizations can begin submitting applications to Google
March 12: Mentoring organization application deadline
March 13: Google program administrators review organization applications
March 14: List of accepted mentoring organizations published on code.google.com; student application period opens
March 23: Student application deadline
Interim Period: Mentoring organizations review and rank student
proposals; where necessary, mentoring organizations may request further
proposal detail from the student applicant
April 2: List of accepted student applications published on code.google.com
Interim Period: Students learn more about/integrate with their project communities
May 28: Students begin coding for their Google Summer of Code projects;
Google begins issuing initial student payments
Interim Period: Mentors give students a helping hand and guidance on
their projects
July 9: Students upload code to the Google Summer of Code project
repository; mentors begin mid-term evaluations
July 16: Mid-term evaluation deadline; Google begins issuing mid-term
student payments
August 20: Students upload code to the Google Summer of Code project
repository; mentors begin final evaluations; students begin final program
evaluations
August 31: Final evaluation deadline; Google begins issuing student and
mentoring organization payments


This schedule is subject to change and taken directly from Google. For the latest schedule please see Google SOC 2007 Wiki

PN Project Goals
The general goals of Google are recognized and extended with our own goals. In short, we want to improve the innovation within the project by offering students the opportunity to propose PostNuke related topics. We aim to offer students an inspiring environment to do research, access to field experts, the ability to create proof-of-concepts and the opportunity to create working functional tools that can be used with PostNuke.

There is a limited list of program goals defined below. Please keep in mind this is an initial list of subjects we would like to shoot for and the final projects are open for discussion. It's important to understand we need guidelines for project proposal evaluation otherwise we'll end up with all nice initiatives, but no choice between the individual project.

The following are a few examples of the types of projects we'd like to see during the SOC 2007.

Here are a few suggested project examples:



Version management of content. Add features to PN, either via hooks or extensions to DBUtil, to allow control of versions of content items. Additionally add workflow processes via the existing workflow module
Translation management. Currently a translation of a content item is an entirely different and un-related item. A project to introduce a method of translating content while keeping the the relationship to the original item (and hence related content e.g. comments, ratings etc.).
Loudblog rewrite based on PostNuke's API
A second project could be the implementation of a better language system + the import of the old system.
OpenID Implementation
Universally implemented content versioning such that it's possible to revert back to old versions of specific content items. DBUtil contains a feature called object-logging which basically gives you the ability to log all changes to objects as they are altered (and even revert back to old versions of an obejct), but a proper GUI with some nice administrative features would be nice.
Integration of the categories system with the nested-set algorithm. The current implementation is path-based which works and carries with it some proper semantic information, but for performance reasons integrating the nested-set algorithm would probably be a good idea.
Implementation of additional features to the category system on the GUI side. This could be advanced AJAX controls, a better user-side editing system, etc.
Integration with Lucene and other search engines ideally through a generic search-engine interface which can then be extended to other backend systems.
A proper universal web services interface for PN.
A proper test suite including a performance testing framework.
A proper data import/export system with the ability to generate multiple data formats (CSV, XML, etc.) including a proper control GUI.


Project Organization
There will be two program guides (admins) that will provide all mentors and students with help and guidance throughout the project. The structure will be flat so there won't be a lot of red tape in the process. The mentors are expected to work closely with each student to accomplish each project's goal and objectives.

For each accepted project into the SOC program there will at least one mentor and one student. Along with the one-to-one support the student will have access to the developers list so they have access to the entire team to bounce ideas off of in the process.

Overview of Mentor Selection Process
The general "criteria" for mentors are:


Mentor is familiar with the PostNuke project and API.
Mentor is expected to work well with others.
Mentor should have knowledge about the topic he/she is going to mentor.
The mentor is responsible for working directly with the student.


Note, before volunteering you should be aware there is a time commitment. We estimate it will take at the minimum 3 to 5 hours per week of your time over a 3 month period. Mentors should also expect to encounter cultural and time zone differences making this a challenging experience on many different levels especially since this will be a virtual mentor/student experience.

Expectations
Commitment to the goals/objectives of your project, your time, mutual respect, and open communication.

Remember when you were a student -- you were there to learn. This is the same thing -- students are here to learn and may not be experienced in working on a team, and will less likely have experience working with someone virtually so as a mentor you're expected to introduce the student to the protocals of this environment.

Students, remember, no question is stupid, don't expect to know everything, and if in doubt ask! Communication is key in a virtual environment and never take anything for granted especially in text based communication since things can often be mis-read or interpreted.

If you are chosen a mentor then what do you get? You get to contribute to a great project, experience working on a virtual team with an international team of great/inspiring people.

Team/Mentor/Student Communications
This is most likely the most important part of the process -- communication is key especially in a virtual environment. And communicating/sharing will be important to the success of each project. So students are expected to put together a weekly report -- it doesn't have to be anything fancy -- just an email updating your mentor about your progress and any problems you working on or having. Mentors are expected to take the lead in solving any problems that might arise with timing, language or cultural barriers. Note, the default language for the program is English so all mentors and students are expected to be able to communicate clearly and effectively in English. When disagreements or conflicts arise within a project team members are encouraged to resolve disputes amongst themselves. If they can't resolve it between themselves then you can ask a program mgr to get involved to mediate the dispute.

Project Tools & Support
You will have access to the following software tools:


The PostNuke NOC (Network Operating Center) where all project related
resources will be housed
Google Project Page (including wiki)
Mentor Application from Google
Developers Mailing List



Student Info
Google provides some time to allow the student to familiarize themselves with the project and tasks. During this time the mentor can prepare the stucture and any documents that will help the student in the goals and objectives of the project.

Some examples include:


Action/Tasks planning so the student will have a clear idea of milstones
for the project.
Provide the student with your communication expectations - i.e., how can
the student communicate with you, skype, instant messenger, email etc.
Review time committments and goals/objectives for the project.
Model good behavior -- take the lead when you see the student needs the
extra encouragement and guidance.

Generated on March 7, 2007.

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