Neel Mehta
Open source solutions provider Red Hat Inc. has expanded its Professors“™ Open Source Summer Experience 2011 that took place in late July in Raleigh, N.C., announcing today it has decided to schedule several POSSE activities throughout the 2011-2012 North American school year.
Now in its third year, POSSE is a higher-education faculty program that immerses professors in the culture, tools and practices of open source communities. Red Hat, a member and catalyst in the Teaching Open Source community and sponsor of POSSE workshops and programs, helps teach educators how to enable students to participate in open source-related projects. This year“™s higher-education faculty members have committed to teaching open source in dialog with Red Hat for one or both semesters in the 2011-2012 academic year.
“POSSE 2011 was especially productive and enjoyable for the cohort because we intentionally had a mix of POSSE alumni experienced in teaching open source and faculty members completely new to it,“ said Jared Smith, Red Hat employee and leader of The Fedora Project. “We applaud the courage of the POSSE cohort in trying something new, and believe the sorts of learning experiences they“™re creating will produce graduates with the ability to adapt and innovate in today“™s changing world.“
The POSSE 2011-2012 School Year Experience includes both coursework on how to teach open source software and hands-on activities contributing to an open source project. Red Hat assists professors in their goals of translating open source work for a classroom setting by offering support including regular online group check-ins, a series of online open content modules on community participation, meetings at major academic conferences and individual coaching.
