A capstone course where you contribute to a real open source software product as a developer, working in sprints alongside a team to deliver working software over a full semester.
The Welcome module orients you to the course and helps you select a project:
- Welcome Presentation — a short video and slides introducing the course structure and expectations
- Product Abstracts — descriptions of the available client-based projects you can join
- Pre-Registration Survey — submit your project preferences early so teams can form
The Resources & Information module provides materials you'll reference throughout the semester:
- Developer Handbook — the Developer Handbook is your primary guide for development practices, workflows, and expectations
- BLA3DE — a structured activity for learning about your assigned product's Background, Landscape, Architecture, Data, Dependencies, and Environment
- Scheduling 1:1 Meetings — guidelines for constructive feedback sessions with your Tech Lead
- Conference Travel Stipend — information about travel support for open source conferences
- Excellence — a semester-long assignment for students aiming for A-level performance
The semester follows a two-week sprint cycle. The Sprint Structure & Expectations page explains how sprints work and what's expected of you as a developer — read it early.
Each sprint runs Monday to Monday. Your core responsibilities each sprint:
- Pick up issues from the backlog and deliver working code
- Raise PRs by the end of Week 1
- Respond to code review feedback in Week 2
- Submit a Sprint Close report at the end of each sprint
- Project Pre-Registration — confirm your project assignment
- Team Formation & Onboarding — set up your development environment, meet your team, complete BLA3DE
- Sprint 1 includes a Team Working Agreement checkpoint, a Peer Code Review good practice, and your first Sprint Close
- Sprint 2 includes a Team Outing checkpoint and Client Demo & Feedback 1 (bonus)
- Sprint 3 includes a Team Retrospective checkpoint
- Iteration 1 ends with Milestone 1 and a Performance Evaluation — Iteration Check-Up
- Sprint 4 includes Client Demo & Feedback 2 (bonus) and a second Retrospective
- Sprint 5 includes a Poster Presentation Draft checkpoint for the SSE Undergraduate Showcase
- Sprint 6 is the final development sprint
- Iteration 2 ends with Milestone 2 and a second Performance Evaluation
The final phase shifts from development to delivery and reflection:
- Team Presentation — present your work to the class
- Working Software Submission — deliver functional, merged software
- Excellence — demonstrate growth beyond baseline expectations
- Retrospective #3 — final team reflection
- Performance Evaluation — Final Review — comprehensive semester evaluation
This repository holds the source materials used to build and deliver the course through Canvas. Students access course content through Canvas directly — this repo is the behind-the-scenes source.
assignments/ Assignment definitions (Markdown + YAML metadata)
content/ Long-form course content and page text
files/ Static files distributed through Canvas (PDFs, presentations, videos)
issues/ GitHub Issues for instructor course management
quizzes/ Quiz definitions (Markdown + YAML metadata)
modules.yaml Canvas module structure and ordering
course-info.yaml Per-instance course configuration
If you spot an error or have a suggestion for improving course materials, feel free to submit a pull request.
For course administration (creating new instances, provisioning tooling), see ADMINISTERING.md.
This work © 2026 by Open Source with SLU, the open source program office of Saint Louis University, is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.