The open source development context is an important and instructive one. But it's not easy to introduce it to undergraduates. Individual class projects tend to be too small to be genuinely instructive. Realistic projects tend to be too complicated for class use.

This talk will describe a sophomore-level class project at Purdue-Fort Wayne that tried to bridge this gap by building a small generic "collector's database." The instructor served as architect and coordinator. All students in the class received points when milestones were met. But individual students also received marks when their code contributions were accepted. We will discuss the successes and difficulties of the project, and ways such projects might serve to broaden knowledge of, and participation in, public open source projects.