Cookbook
This is the OpenHatch cookbook -- a catalog of tools and events that we have found useful for growing and improving tech meetups and open source software projects, with materials and instructions for how you can replicate and adapt them for your community!
Introductory Programming Workshops
Curriculum for running an introductory programming workshop for women and their friends. Primary materials are for teaching Python, but we also have resources for Ruby on Rails (via Railsbridge) and Scala (forthcoming).
Project Nights
A simple way to bring new people into your local tech meetup group (e.g. a Python user's group) is to run a project night. All you need is a venue (preferably with food), a few experienced developers who are willing to answer questions and mentor newcomers, a sign to mark part of the venue your "Beginner's Corner", and friendly verbiage in the marketing copy for the event (we've found that many people find "project nights" less intimidating and macho than "hack nights"). Here is a blog post describing Boston Ruby's successful replication of Boston Python's project nights.
Free Software Contribution Workshops for Students
Newcomer Inclusion Contests
Build-It Days
- Playtest your docs
- Make a screencast of somebody setting up a devel install of your project and put the video on your Get Involved page!
Bitesize Bugs
Community Metrics
Notes from a CLS 2012 session on community metrics, including a mind map of all (?) the community metrics one might track
Ubuntu's three-column Trello workflow for tracking package uploaders
Notes from Asheesh's session on running surveys
Gentoo tracking GSoC student retention using a spreadsheet plus regular check-ins with mentors
A/B testing of Wikipedia revert messaging to avoid discouraging new contributors
Automated Learning Tools
- (TODO: trypython/tryruby/codecademy/codingbat/etc)
- OpenHatch Training missions
- Mission suggestions
Diversity Statements and Codes of Conduct
- Dreamwidth's diversity statement
- ThinkUp's developer guide: "Welcome! You are a programmer! The ThinkUp project eagerly welcomes new contributors from all communities, even if you don’t think of yourself as a programmer. (Yet!)"
- Geek Feminism Wiki's example Code of Conduct for conferences
If you have any questions on how to run a successful event or use these materials effectively, or are otherwise interested in open tech community outreach, please sign up for the OpenHatch Events mailing list.
All of these materials are both free as in beer and free as in speech to use. If you do use them, though, we at OpenHatch would love to hear about how it goes, either on the Events mailing list or a guest post on our blog!