ORCA’s goals are to (1) produce impactful, accessible, open source research tools by (2) training tomorrow’s workforce in marketable open source skills. This page describes how we at ORCA achieve these two goals. In short, by drawing on the latest research on openness, we work with stakeholders to design research and industry products that are open to more people from more backgrounds while creating environments in which students are more likely to learn valued workplace skills.
Here at VERSO, we focus on open source in all its incarnations. But, while some see open source as an end in and of itself, we primarily view open source as a means for addressing crucial problems related to greater transparency, innovation, and inclusion.
It is in this light that funders turn to open source to address increasing concerns that research and its products aren’t getting into the hands of those who need it most. For example, the US National Science Foundation created the Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program to “ensure broader and more diverse adoption of open-source products…and a more focused route to technologies with broad societal impact.” Likewise, the Sloan Foundation’s Better Software for Science program funds open source because “academia often fails to leverage best practices for software engineering from industry or…to realize the full potential of software in advancing discovery.”
Underlying these programs is a desire for greater research translation — that is, making research sufficiently accessible and applicable to other contexts that people in other fields, companies, governments, etc. can effectively implement, mature, and scale up those research advances. Research often does not get translated into other fields or into practice for several reasons: a university may lack financial resources, lack local innovation ecosystems, or may incentivize fundamental (i.e. theoretical) research significantly more than applied research. Insufficient translation means that taxpayer funds often do not benefit taxpayers, feasible solutions don’t get implemented in practice, and important issues go unexplored altogether. Consequently, significant need exists for greater research translation and the knowledge of how to translate research.
This lack of translation intersects with something else we see in industry and academia: students often emerge from college without needed (“real”) workplace skills. Insufficient programming skills manifest as shortages of programmers which, in turn, makes it harder for companies to adopt the latest technologies. On the other hand, engineering graduates often lack “professional skills,” like communication and teamwork skills. This has been so much the case that it eventually motivated the engineering accreditation body ABET to require universities to teach engineering students these skill in order to receive accreditation. Governments are concerned here, too, with even militaries providing significant funding for education and outreach activities.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, though; for centuries (literally), students have learned how to become valued contributors to an occupation on the job rather than in school. Indeed, this still happens today in open source software; engineering students often contribute to open source projects as evidence that they can “do real work.” This and other examples have led engineering educators and others to turn to project-based learning in which students kinda-sorta “learn on the job” while being in the classroom. Often, these students work on real projects under the tutelage of instructors, mentors, and even recent students. Indeed, a growing body of work demonstrates that giving students legitimate (i.e. real) tasks to work on, ones that affect other people and that could actually go into practice, can spur student learning toward becoming valued members of an occupation and is often more mearningful for students. While not the only way to learn, researchers generally agree that students need work grounded in reality to learn an occupation. So is there a way we can train students in what they’ll need to do in the workforce — legitimate work, work that makes an impact — while they’re still in school?
Good news! Work that makes an impact sounds a lot like translation work, doesn’t it?
[!Important] ORCA addresses the need for research translation by intentionally shepherding projects with high-impact potential toward greater accessibility through open source practices.
(That was a mouthful, wasn’t it? Let’s take things one at a time.)
ORCA works with researchers and local businesses to identify projects with “high-impact potential.” Not all research can or should be applicable to other contexts immediately. Fundamental research has great benefits (and is pretty fun, too). Nor does all research have potential to significantly impact other fields. But when research is ready — when we have evidence that an artifact is sufficiently advanced that other fields of science or industrial applications might benefit from it — then we jump. A great example is the Interactive Management App Project, a project that started from an established (see: very old but still widely used) research method. Most research advances carry a degree of risk, of course. Yep, some will fail, and we’re okay with that, because if even a few methods for solving hard problems succeed, we can make a significant difference in the lives of people.
Once we’ve found a promising research artifact (like a new method or tool), we “intentionally shepherd” its progress toward “greater accessibility.” To really make any research product open, we can’t just expect something to go viral because it exists somewhere in some form on the internet. Artifacts only become truly open when we (a) create information, (b) share information, and (c) make information accessible about our artifacts. Given how difficult each step is alone, ORCA does not assume that a researcher can slap a little documentation on their tool at the end and call it good. Instead, it helps to design for accessibility by working closely with stakeholders from the start. That way, we know what information stakeholders (multiple!!) value, how best to communicate that information to diverse audiences, and how to integrate it into the final product. To us, this is intentional shepherding toward accessibility.
Fortunately, we don’t have to create a new process for doing this every time: here’s where open source comes back in!
[!Important] ORCA trains students in workplace practices through internships that task them with producing accessible open source research artifacts.
One of the best ways for students to learn software development is by doing software development, including open source practices. ORCA creates a structured environment in which they can learn to “do software development” by (a) giving them real tasks to work on, (b) real practices to use, and (c) multiple resources.
Students work on real tasks, here open source research and industry artifacts. This has several advantages. First, it means students have an actual customer they’re working for, someone to hold them accountable and who creates a social incentive for students to complete their assigned responsibilities. It also means these tasks have real applications, with all of the real-world complexities, details, and messiness that differentiate work outside of school from work in school. And to boot, rather than disappearing into the ether as student projects do at the end of most semesters, these projects will live on online in perpetuity. This creates something students can point future employers to. They can show someone “I created this code that’s part of a real open source project!” as evidence of their programming competencies.
ORCA interns do all of this through open source practices. They design and build tools, create timelines, contribute code, debate changes, revise and modify what they create, debug when things go wrong, all in teams called ORCA “Pods” (cute huh?). This benefits the students by giving them practical experience in technical skills, sure. But also, that these practices are open souced adds extra value because it gives them access to resources that closed source development often doesn’t have access to. We give them resources for getting started, resources covering programming basics it would be nice if more schools actually taught, and home-grown resources for real roles like employees and team leads. And while ORCA makes use of open source design and programming practices to make research artifacts accessible, but it also means students can ask each other for help, asynchronously show each other what they’re doing, make changes on their own schedules, learn from communities of expert open source programmers, and integrate what they learn back into something that has a real impact. This is why they work in consistent teams over time. These aren’t short-term projects where teams form and disband like in classes, but instead are long-term projects where relationship building, communication, socioemotional skills, and management are just as important as their technical skills. Combined, these technical and “professional” skills are what makes ORCA internships special to students and prepares them for the real world of work.
ORCA internships advance students toward being able to do the following:
ORCA internships produce research artifacts that are:
ORCA’s daily operations are run by Kendall Fortney, Director of VERSO, an experienced industry designer and program manager. Kendall receives strategy and community assistance from John Meluso, VERSO Postdoctoral Fellow, an expert in management and organizing in open ecosystems. Kendall and John design and operate ORCA with consultation from an advisory committee of teaching and research professors across the fields of computer science and business.