Computing project ideas#

Open source#

Program office#

OSPOs are a new trend. At least one observer suggests OSPOs are the new MOOCs

Two US universities announce an open-source program office

The OSPO will develop partnerships with both communities and enterprises, ensuring that the benefits of open-source applications extend across the state and beyond. In partnership with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the OSPO will provide guidance to entrepreneurs on topics such as open-source software licensing, and it will explore ways to support campus entrepreneurship programs. In addition, students from Madison College and UW–Madison will participate in paid open-source development internships, and businesses and other organizations will have opportunities to work with these interns to address real-world challenges.

Situational Awareness#

DSA#

distributed-situational-awareness is the idea of increasing our awareness of issues within distributed systems. Use of digital technology to increase individual/collective awareness of various societal issues. See Salmon et al (2022)

e.g. from Bridle (2022)

In this way, recognition of environmental change is encoded into indigenous history and knowledge. Most of us do not have access to have such extensive cultural memory banks: we are dependent upon the short attention spans of our contemporary knowledge-making technologies. All too often, this blinds us to deeper, longer changes in the world around us. Climate change is a clear example of this: an alteration to the world occurring at such inhuman scales of time and geography that we struggle to fit it into conventional narratives, let alone respond effectively. (p. 115)

Our tools of data gathering, measurement, recording and viewing can also be used to increase our awareness and broaden our capacity for attention (p. 118)

References#

Bridle, J. (2022). Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence. Penguin UK.

Salmon, P. M., & Plant, K. L. (2022). Distributed situation awareness: From awareness in individuals and teams to the awareness of technologies, sociotechnical systems, and societies. Applied Ergonomics, 98, 103599. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103599