Localized open source collaboration in software engineering education

Involving computer science students in open source software projects provides opportunities for them to contribute to real products with more authentic scope than typical computer science assignments. However, the environment of collaborating with external, distributed teams also poses unique challenges and may distance students from the potential for valuable, direct contact and mentorship from software professionals. In addition, while the technology industry continues to grow, smaller communities have a vested interest in growing a culture for collaboration between students and local software developers. We formed a local open source organization to collaborate on a product by combining efforts from students and professionals. This paper describes the localized free and open source software (LFOSS) organization and reports initial findings from software engineering students´ involvement.