Public Lab has received support for students to work on Public Lab software projects via [Google's Summer of Code program](https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com) -- 2017 is our fourth great year of open source coding! In 2017 we also joined the [Rails Girls Summer of Code](https://railsgirlssummerofcode.org/) program. 

This is a key way that we are able to develop our collaborative platform (this site) as well as [other Public Lab coding projects](/wiki/developers).

2017's program has wrapped up; [Rails Girls Summer of Code](https://railsgirlssummerofcode.org) ends at the end of September. **Please see (and update) our [Ideas page](/wiki/gsoc-ideas) to start preparing for 2018 -- it's never too early!**

## Ideas page

Want to get involved? Read over our [Summer of Code Ideas Page](/wiki/gsoc-ideas) and provide input over there. 

### Links

* Starting in 2017, we began using tags to organize content, such as #soc-2017
  * [Call for proposals](/notes/warren/02-28-2017/call-for-proposals) and [wrap-up](/notes/warren/09-07-2017/wrapping-up-google-summer-of-code-2017-at-public-lab)
* [GSOC 2016](/wiki/gsoc-2016) program, projects, students and mentors
* [GSOC 2015](/wiki/gsoc-2015) program (application only), projects, students and mentors
* [GSoC 2014](/wiki/gsoc-2014) program, projects, students and mentors
* [GSoC 2013](/wiki/gsoc-2013) program
* [GSoC 2013 mentors & proposals](http://publiclab.org/wiki/gsoc-2013-mentors-and-student-proposals)

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## Questions

[questions:soc]

## Activities

[activities:soc]

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### Mentoring

What does it mean to be a mentor? 

Mentors **check in with a student at least once per week** roughly from May-August, and offer some project management guidance and encouragement... while relying on the [plots-dev list](/wiki/developers) and the `@publiclab/reviewers` group on GitHub to provide code-specific input, so that we share the burden of specific technical support. 

This means that **to be a mentor you don't necessarily need to know how to code** -- we need mentors who know Public Lab's community and practices well, and who can encourage students to speak up when they get stuck, and to ask the community for input and testing of their work. Students often get stuck when they don't know how something should look, or how a feature might be used by the community -- contextual info!

If you're interested in being a mentor, email the developers list or jeff@publiclab.org -- and read over our [software outreach resources](/software-outreach) to get an idea of how we work!

Some more resources on mentoring:

* our [Summer of Code workflow](https://opensource.googleblog.com/2016/12/google-summer-of-code-2016-wrap-up_21.html)
* read [different ways to mentor in this post](/notes/warren/11-08-2016/help-public-lab-s-software-grow-by-joining-a-supportive-team) -- we need various types!
* read about [what reviewers do day-to-day on Public Lab code projects](/wiki/developers#Reviewers)
* read about [our commitment to modularity](/notes/warren/01-18-2018/software-outreach-modularity-is-great-for-collaboration), very important in how we ask contributors to work
* read over our [software outreach strategies](/software-outreach)
* http://write.flossmanuals.net/gsoc-mentoring/ also has a lot of resources on mentoring, though not specific to Public Lab 


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### Communication

We do occasional chat or video sessions, and mentors rely on each other quite a bit, in [the chatroom](/chat) and [on the plots-gsoc list](/developers). 

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### Updates

[notes:soc]