Hello! If you're on some of the Public Lab discussion lists, especially the dev list, you may have seen a lot of chatter recently about Google Summer of Code, a program where Google funds students to work the summer on open source coding projects. This year, Public Lab was accepted (as we were in 2013 and 2014) and we've been helping prospective students choose projects from our Ideas page (thanks, @liz!).

Now it's time (Google asks students to post from the 14th-25th) for students to post their draft proposals as research notes, here. We ask this because it helps us see all the proposals together, but also because it's an easy way to check that all students have a Public Lab account, and know how to use the Public Lab site -- which several of them will be working on.

Google will be asking students to upload their final proposals as PDFs, but we expect students to take this opportunity to post their drafts for feedback. They don't have to be complete -- just post them and ask for input, and you'll be able to edit and refine your post as you go. There's a template available here for what we ask in your proposal.

Also, read over recent discussions on the plots-dev list to incorporate into your drafts!

Proposal drafts

So if you're a prospective student, please post your proposal here, using the Post a response button below.

If, on the other hand, you're a community member interested in how PL software features are progressing or being planned, we invite you to leave your feedback and comments (and encouragement) on the students' proposals, which should appear in a list below as they are posted.

Thanks, everyone, and here's looking forward to a productive summer of code! #gsoc