Finalizing your GSoC proposals (and some other notes)

[Sean Lip]

Hi GSoC applicants,

I hope your proposal writing is going well. As we're getting close to the GSoC submission deadline (in less than a week), I just wanted to leave a note to advise you not to wait on reviews, but instead to continue finalizing your proposal while waiting for a review. This is because, if you wait for the earlier sections to be fully finalized before working on the later sections, you almost certainly won't finish your proposal in time. This particularly applies to proposals that are still stuck on the WHAT sections.

Please feel free to ping oppia-gsoc-discuss@ if you need a review, but bear in mind that reviewers are quite busy. They will try to get to your proposal, but in the meantime you should still make your best effort and not be blocked on them. (Note also that the criteria for WHAT is not "does it pass the reviewer's eye" -- it is quite possible that the reviewer you're corresponding with is not going to be the same as the one taking a look at the proposal in the selection phase -- but whether it actually results in a good, clean experience for the end user, which you should be able to make an independent judgement call on.)

Also, please don't forget to actually submit your proposal on the GSoC site! If you submit it here on this mailing list but not on the official site, we won't be able to accept you -- the system won't allow us to do so. Make sure to not leave submission to the last minute, otherwise you run the risk of technical difficulties.

Additionally, some of you are already members of Oppia coding teams. I just wanted to let you know that it is fine if you need more time to finish up your proposal -- if you need to adjust your other commitments, please let the corresponding team leads know and clearly document your revised availability/timelines (e.g. in the team minutes) so that they can plan accordingly. (More generally, when working in a team, it is totally fine to take some time away ... as long as you communicate it clearly, and ensure that sufficient context is handed over so that the expectations are clear on all sides!)

Finally, I just want to wish you all the best with the proposal submissions. We look forward to reviewing them in due course :)

Thanks,

Sean (one of the Oppia GSoC admins)