Melange
Applying to be a Mentoring Organization
The Organization application period is a very important time period for an Organization Administrator. The primary Organization Administrator submits the organization application to the contest and if accepted, ensures the organization's homepage on the Google Code-in website accurately and effectively represents the organization.
Please note: Only organizations that have participated in past instances of Google Summer of Code are eligible for acceptance as Mentoring Organizations for Google Code-in.
Submitting an Organization Application
The organization application is filled out on the Google Code-in website. To create a new organization application, go to the homepage login and click on the red Register as an Organization button. If you want to edit an existing organization application before the submission deadline, go to My Dashboard, click on My organization applications, and choose your organization from the list.
- Choose an "Organization ID". Make sure that your Organization ID is descriptive of the name of your project. For example, "The Apache Software Foundation" could be "apache" or "asf". Please do not choose a Mentors' name, or something only a project insider would understand.
- Your "Organization name" should be the full, formal name of your group, e.g. Google Open Source Programs Office or The Linux Foundation. Please be complete.
- For "Organization description", please provide an overview of your organization that will be publicly displayed on its profile page should the organization be accepted. Here is an example:
- "Google is a proud user and supporter of open source software and development methodologies. As a company, Google contributes back to the Open Source community in a variety of ways, including source code, Project Hosting on Google Code, and our student programs Google Code-in. For more information on Google's open source activities, visit developers.google.com/open-source."
- Be sure to include tags on your application. By entering tags such as programming languages and the version control system your project uses such as "Python" or "git", and descriptors of what your project does, such as "HFOSS" or "games", it makes it much easier for appropriate Students to find your organization in Melange.
- Choose your organization's license from the drop-down menu.
- Include a mailing list email address if appropriate.
- If you have a group list that you have set up for GCI you may wish to include that address in the Notifications email, all notifications (task update statuses, etc will go to this address).
- Please provide a URL for your organization's website. This will appear on the contest site.
- If you have and IRC Channel, Feed URL, Google+ page, Twitter, Blog page or a Facebook page that you would like to include on your organization's homepage on the Google Code-in site this fill them in here. If your organization does not use IRC or you use forums instead of mailing lists, enter this information in these fields.
- If you have participated in GCI before please check the Veteran organization box.
- As part of this process, you have to specify a backup administrator. Please have their username available as it is required when filling out the application. They will need to have already registered as a Mentor and completed their profile.
- Please review the Mentor Organization Participant Agreement and, if you agree to the terms therein, click the "I have read and agree to the terms and conditions" check box. Make sure that all of your Mentors understand that they are also bound by these terms.
- Clicking the Submit button submits the application, and brings up the Questionnaire section of the application. If you left off a required field (backup admin, license, etc.) you will receive an error message at the top of the screen and the section you need to fix will have red text around it explaining the problem. You may need to scroll up or down to find it.
- Fill out all of the Questions on the "Submit Application" page and then click the Submit button at the bottom. Data saved successfully will appear at the top of the page highlighted in a yellow box. Your Application has now been submitted to the Contest Administrators.
- Link to your tasks page. This is one of the most important parts of your application as it lets us see what type of work you plan to have the students work on for Google Code-in. Please be sure to include at least 5 tasks from each of the 5 categories. This is similar to the Google Summer of Code Ideas page. A link to your bug tracker is not sufficient.
- You will be able to edit your submitted organization application from your dashboard until the application submission deadline. Go to My Dashboard -> Managed organizations -> click on your org name. After the deadline, you cannot update your application. Should your organization be accepted, you will be able to update much of the information you submitted via updates to your organization profile. Contest Administrators do not look at the applications until after the deadline has passed.
Since the application can be edited at any time before the application deadline, there is no reason to wait the very last second to submit your application. So please don't.
How do I know if our organization has been accepted?
You will receive an email - sent to the email address indicated in your profile - from the Contest Administrator notifying you whether or not your organization was accepted. Emails will be sent at the time specified in the contest timeline for the announcement of accepted organizations.
Creating an Organization homepage
You will receive a direct link to the Edit profile page for your organization in the email you receive announcing your acceptance into the contest. Please note that your organization will not appear in the Mentoring Organizations details list linked from the homepage until you have completed all the required fields in the organization profile form. Alternatively, you can edit your organization homepage by going to My Dashboard -> Edit organization profile -> click on the name of the organization whose profile you want to edit from the list -> edit the profile and Submit.
Much of the information you entered when submitting your organization's application to the contest will pre-populate to the organization profile page. The information requested is also largely self-explanatory, but here are some tips for filling out this page:
- Short name: Please choose a short name for your organization that will be used at places where there is not enough space. E.g. Google for Google's Open Source Programs Office or PSF for the Python Software Foundation.
- If there are fields that you are unsure of how to answer (and they are not required), feel free to leave them blank for the time being. The Contest Administrator will send more information about these fields as contest progresses.
All the accepted organizations will be listed on the Google Code-in homepage only after the Organization Profile has been submitted.
Who can see which sections in Melange after my Organization has been accepted?
All information you enter in the Public Info is publicly available. Only Organization Administrators can see:
- Student's Organization scores
- Mentor emails
- The Proposed Grand Prize Winners/Finalists
Designating Organization Administrators and Mentors
Anyone who wants to be an Organization Administrator or a Mentor must have first registered themselves on Melange with a Google Account.
Organization Administrators
The default Organization Administrator is the user who submitted the organization's application. You can invite more users to be Organization Administrators if they have created a profile in Melange for the current year's contest. My Dashboard -> Invite Org Admin -> Click on the Organization name -> Enter the username of the person you would like to send invitations to and enter the message you would like to send those you are inviting to be Organization Administrators.
Mentors
Because Google Code-in involves working with young students, Melange is designed so that Organization Administrators must accept a person as a Mentor before they can become a Mentor for the Organization.
To invite Mentors that you know the usernames of, My Dashboard -> Connect Users with (Org Name) -> Enter the username of the person (people) you would like to send invitations to and enter the message you would like to send those you are inviting to be Mentors.
Click on the Organization name -> Enter the "email or username" of the person (people) you would like to send invitations to, enter the message you would like to send those you are inviting to be Mentors and designate the role (Mentor or Org Admin) and hit "Submit."
Accepting a Mentor
You may have people that wish to be Mentors that request to be a Mentor before you have the chance to invite them to be a Mentor. To see these requests, My Dashboard -> See Organization's connections. Go to the Seen By Org column and sort by "No." These No's are all of the people who would like to be Mentors (or Org Admins) that you have not invited yet. Select the person you wish to designate and a new page opens where you can designate the person with No Role (you don't think they should be involved in GCI with your org), Mentor, or Org Admin. Then click "Submit" and the user will receive a notification that they have been accepted as a Mentor.
How does a Mentor resign? How do I fire a Mentor?
The Mentor informs their Organization Administrator that they no longer wish to be involved with the contest. The Organization Administrator then sends a request via e-mail (outside of Melange) to a Contest Administrator to have the account of a former (resigned or dismissed) mentor deleted from Melange.
How do I resign as Organization Administrator?
First, contact the Contest Administrators to notify them you will be leaving and that your Backup Administrator is aware of the change.
Send a request to melange-soc-dev@googlegroups.com requesting to resign as a Mentor and have your account deleted from Melange.
I administer an umbrella organization. How do I identify my sub-organizations?
When creating your task list (for more information see the Creating Tasks chapter in this manual) be sure to designate the sub-organization that the task is for in the task title. Your organization homepage should have information describing the sub-organizations for students to reference.
Loading an organization logo into Melange
If you don't like how your logo displays in Melange from the logo you gave during the application period, and cannot fix the problem on your own, please send an email to melange-soc-dev@google.com.