MentoringCommunity

MentoringCommunity

Status

Introduction

Many of the Ubuntu users are novices. While #ubuntu and the forums are useful to get questions answered, they are not the best environments in which to learn. We would like to discuss the creation of a mentoring program to allow more experienced members of the community teach/guide newer members on a more personal level. This mentoring can take place within teams (e.g., the doc team, MOTU, etc) and can span the breadth of participatory opportunities.

Rationale

Experience tells us that we get quite a number of inquiries from volunteers (through the various mailing lists or at the chatroom) asking for details on how to join an existing project/team. Most of the time, those inside the channel or replies in the list in an instant would point the person to a certain webpage or wiki that has different information to what was expected. These willing volunteers would prefer to talk/correspond with someone in particular in a personal level. The contact (or mentor) meanwhile guides the volunteer (or mentee) to the right information to get him started on the team. We also expect the mentor to not just teach the mentee but at the same time inspire him to participate more in the project in the future.

Scope and Use Cases

Implementation Plan

Initially, this can be as simple as a wiki structure to allow mentors and mentees to find each other. The page should be structured in a way that encourages users to write a concise description of the areas in which they are seeking/willing to participate in a mentoring relationship. This page should not become a place to ask questions or hold discussions.

We may also need a volunteer from the community to become the coordinator of the mentoring efforts (leaders on the spec aren't necessarily leaders for the effort).

User Interface Requirements

Most of the work here can be done in the wiki, but this may need reviewing if we still need such because it may have been already written in some entries. Some teams may not even need to have a mentoring program.

Outstanding Issues

UDU BOF Agenda

Brain dump notes:

  • Look a mentor.debian.org to see how it works and relates to the "MOTU experience"
  • We don't like titles like Mentor, everyone can and should be a mentor anyway, no need to have title-chasing.
  • Among teams, the "defacto leader" types make good natural mentors.
  • Dedicated mentors a good idea?
  • IRC voice or other way to mark those who are subject matter experts.
  • Responsibility Table - Pointing out specific mailing lists and channels for teams.
  • Regional mentors in LoCo teams.

  • Do not structure it so rigidly, just "let it flow" instead of bogging down stuff with process. (Will this scale?)
  • Better to have a set of guidelines or best practices than having people waste time.
  • Peer review of mentoring.
  • Things like the #ubuntu channel aren't condusive to a healthy mentoring environment.

UDU Pre-Work

  • Check exiting channels that focus on helping the community
  • Observe usage patterns of ubuntu-users ML

Discussion

There are several different Mentor communities being discussed:

Inspiration

Newsforge article on the need for mentors in the Linux community: http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/09/13/1816200&tid=35

Fedora Core's Mentor programme: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mentors

Discussion of why the Fedora Core Mentor programme isn't working well: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-mentors-list/2006-March/msg00000.html

Discussion of mentor/mentee communication: http://www.archivesat.com/Fedora_project_mentors/thread473707.htm


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UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/MentoringCommunity (last edited 2008-08-06 16:31:49 by localhost)