This page is the OSPP Mentor Guide. Please read and understand this guide carefully.
Participating in the event means you have agreed to the OSPP Mentor Participation Agreement.
❗️ OSPP 2025 will no longer provide project completion remuneration to mentors.
🚨Warning: Mentors cannot participate in the event as student developers. If this situation is discovered during the event, the organizing committee will cancel their eligibility and will not issue remuneration or certificates for either role.
If you have any questions, please contact the organizing committee: org@summer-ospp.ac.cn.
1. What is OSPP
☀️ Introduction to the Open Source Promotion Plan
The Open Source Promotion Plan is a summer program organized by the Open Source Software Supply Chain Promotion Plan of the Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2020. It aims to encourage university students to actively participate in the development and maintenance of open source software, cultivate and discover more outstanding developers, promote the vigorous development of excellent open source software communities, and assist in the construction of open source software supply chains.
The program collaborates with various open source communities, providing project development tasks for the development and maintenance of important open source software, and is open for registration to university students worldwide. Students can independently choose projects they are interested in, apply, and after selection, carry out development under the guidance of project developers (community mentors). Based on the project's difficulty and completion, participants will receive a remuneration and a completion certificate.
📍 Event Schedule
2. How to Become a Mentor
Project mentors should be active developers in the community🧑💻, generally Maintainers, Committers, or Contributors related to the project.
Mentors are recommended from within the community. When the community contact person adds project and mentor information to the system, an invitation email 📧 will be sent to the mentor, who can click the link in the email to log in to the system for identity verification.
Mentors with existing accounts can log in with their original account and complete identity verification 🪪.
Each mentor can guide at most one project.
Mentors must log in to the mentor system and complete identity verification after the community liaison submits project information. The verification deadline is May 7, 24:00 UTC+8. Projects without completed mentor verification will not be published on the website.
OSPP 2025 will no longer provide project completion remuneration to mentors.
🚨Mentors cannot participate in the event as student developers. If this situation is discovered during the event, the organizing committee will cancel their eligibility and will not issue remuneration or certificates for either role.
3. Mentor Responsibilities and Participation Process
*All processes will be operated in the system, with the default time zone set to Beijing Time (UTC+8).
🔍 Prepare Project Details
Mentors should prepare specific project details and have the community liaison submit them through the community account. The details include project name, project description, project notes, project difficulty, technical field, programming language, project output requirements, project technical requirements, and project repository, etc. The project details should be clear, requirements precise, and difficulty-appropriate to help students better understand the project.
OSPP encourages and prioritizes development projects, focusing on fundamental software projects such as operating systems, compilers, and key projects related to the RISC-V ecosystem.
Project Name: The project name should clearly and directly reflect the project's technology and target tasks.
Project Description: Provide the project's relevant background, existing work, current deficiencies, improvements needed, and final objectives to be achieved.
Project Difficulty: Set based on project requirements, scale, technical difficulty, estimated development workload, and resource limitations.
Technical Domain, Programming Language: Specify the technical field and programming languages involved.
Project Output Requirements: Clearly define what students need to accomplish and the expected outcomes.
Project Technical Requirements: Present requirements from perspectives such as programming language, technology stack, and development experience.
Project Completion Repository: Use the existing project repository of the community, not a new empty repository.
Estimated Work Hours: Provide an estimated reference for development hours based on project difficulty, output requirements, and student skill level.
Project Notes: Include related reference materials for the project itself, such as books, papers, blogs, and links to related projects or issues.
🪪 Logging into the System for Identity Verification
Mentors are recommended from within the community. When the community contact adds mentor information to the system, an invitation email is sent to the mentor. They can click the link in the email to log in and verify their identity.
Mentors must log in to the mentor system after the community contact submits project information to complete personal information and identity verification by the deadline of 24:00 on May 7th, UTC+8. Projects without mentor identity verification cannot be published on the official website.
Mentors with existing accounts can log in using their original account and complete identity verification.
💬 Communicating with Students
During the student application phase, mentors should communicate with interested students, answer their questions, provide directional guidance, share relevant technical materials, and assist students in formulating project proposals.
Mentors should consider the students' professional level and age, communicate in a friendly and patient manner, and encourage students to work independently and actively.
Mentors are not allowed to pre-select students, make private commitments regarding selection outcomes, or require students to start development work early. Development work and PR/MR links submitted by students before the announcement of selected projects will not be recognized for project completion review.
📖 Application Review
During the mentor application review stage, mentors must review all applications and select one project application through the system before the deadline of June 16th. Mentors may modify their choice in the system within this period.
Projects that pass mentor review will enter the community review stage.
The quality of the project application is the primary standard for evaluating student applications, and the project application will be published simultaneously with the list of selected students on the official website.
🧑💻 Project Development
Mentors guide students in using common community communication tools (email, IRC, mailing lists, etc.), community code management platforms, and other tools, helping students adhere to community norms and integrate into the community.
During project development, maintain regular communication with students to monitor their progress, ensuring they complete the project as planned. It's recommended to communicate at least once or twice a week.
There is no mid-term evaluation. The community and mentors can conduct phase evaluations of student outcomes independently. If during development it is found that the student's actual performance deviates significantly from the expectations, the mentor has the right to apply to the organizing committee to terminate the project. If a student cannot continue due to special circumstances, they must apply to the mentor, community, and committee to terminate the project.
Remind students to complete development work, submit PRs/MRs, and fill in the PR/MR links and project final report in the system by September 30th.
❗️Important Notes
Can mentors pre-select students or have students start development early?
🙅♀️ NO. Project selection results can only be confirmed after review by mentors, the community, and the organizing committee. Prior to the official announcement by the committee, the selection status of students is uncertain. Therefore, mentors are not allowed to pre-select students, make promises privately, or require students to start development early. Any development and PR/MR submissions made before the announcement will not be recognized for final review.
Can mentors assist students with development?
🙂↔️ Mentors must not guide students in code development, help debug the project or submit PRs/MRs on behalf of the student.
✍️ Project Review by Mentors
The period from October 1 to October 31 is for the final audit by mentors and also the phase for merging student PRs/MRs. Mentors should drive the acceptance of student contributions by the community.
Mentors must review the final outcomes according to the project completion standards by October 31 and fill in mentor comments based on the review results template in the system.
❗️Project Review Criteria
Mentors refer to the following aspects for project review, filling in mentor comments per the review results template, and submitting them in the system:
The project needs to be submitted to the open-source community repository in the form of PR/MR and merged.
All PR/MR must be completed by the student within the specified time. The git email used by the student for submissions in the community repository must match the email used during registration.
Whether the project development progress and outcomes meet the planned proposal and objectives outlined in the project application.
Evaluate whether the project output meets the goals and requirements of the project.
List the contributions made to the community.
Evaluate the running status of project outputs.
Evaluate the completeness of the project-related documents.
For R & D projects, whether the report provides the corresponding test verification results.
Other aspects that the community and mentor believe need to be evaluated.
📍 Organizing Committee Final Review
The organizing committee organizes expert reviewers to assess the project outputs and provides a final evaluation conclusion (pass or fail) based on the synthesis of mentor reviews.
After the announcement of the final review, mentors with approved projects can download, sign, and upload the signed version of the mentor participation agreement electronically scanned copy and fill in the bank details in the system.
🤩 Annual Outstanding Student Selection
Mentors should recommend candidates for OSPP Annual Outstanding Students based on student participation during the final evaluation stage and provide the reasons for the recommendation. The organizing committee will review and confirm the final outstanding student list based on community recommendations.
5. Organizer Statement
The organizers hold no claims to intellectual property rights over student-developed outcomes during the event.
Intellectual property outcomes are determined by the community based on the community's development contribution guidelines with students (e.g., signing a Contributor License Agreement).
Privacy Rights:
The organizing body will process personal information provided during registration and subsequent event interactions to manage the event (including verifying eligibility, participating in the event, and sending notifications related to the event).
Non-personally identifiable information will be used in aggregate for statistical purposes; the activity participation names created during registration will be publicly displayed on related websites, documents, and materials, and will be shared with the organizers to facilitate communication, answering questions, and review processes. Student submissions and contact information (email and activity participation name) will be shared by the organizers to manage the event.
The organizing body may publicly disclose your participation in the event and the event's outcomes, including the names and content of accepted projects and the code you generated during project work. The organizing body may display your information, including activity participation name, project summary, and final project materials, on related websites (including but not limited to the OSPP official website, WeChat official account, etc.).
During the event, participants can access, update, delete, and restrict the processing of their personal information in their project documents. If you wish to edit such information after the event concludes or oppose processing or exporting it, contact the organizing body through official contact channels (website, email, WeChat official account).