Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects operate transparently, providing excellent educational opportunities for computing students to acquire and practice both technical and softer skills that are in high demand. Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects are FOSS projects that broadly but intentionally aim to improve the human condition. This paper analyzes data from five years of a two-semester capstone experience in which students consider a number of FOSS and/or HFOSS projects and choose one to engage with. Findings support assertions that projects with humanitarian goals are preferred by both women and students with lower confidence in their software development and teamwork skills. The data analysis is suggestive that African American, Black and Hispanic (ABH) students may also show preferences for projects with humanitarian goals. An exploratory analysis of pre-course survey data adds additional insight into how gender, race/ethnicity, student confidence and perceptions of community may influence project selection, helping to identify important directions for further investigation. Collectively the results presented here reinforce suggestions that incorporating HFOSS, or more generally computing with social value, holds potential for broadening participation in computing.

Braught, Grant, and Farhan Siddiqui. Factors Affecting Project Selection in an Open Source Capstone. In ITiCSE '22: Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Vol. 1, 358-364. New York: ACM, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3502718.3524760

Grant Braught is a professor of Computer Science at Dickinson College.
Farhan Siddiqui is a professor of Computer Science at Dickinson College.

For more information on the published version, visit ACM's ( Association for Computing Machinery) Website. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3502718.3524760

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