ABSTRACT Open Source Projects in Programming Courses

One of the main shortcomings of programming courses is the lack of practice with real-world systems. As a result, students feel unprepared for industry jobs. In parallel, open source software is accepting contributions even from inexperienced programmers and achieves software that competes both in quality and functionality with industrial systems. This article describes: first, a setting in which students were required to contribute to existing open source software; second, the evaluation of this experience using a motivation measuring technique; and third, an analysis of the efficiency and commitment of students over the time. The study shows that students are at first afraid of failing the assignment, but end up having the impression of a greater achievement. It seems also that students are inclined to keep working on the project to which they contributed after the end of the course