Open Source Assignments for Non-Programming Classes – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

" ... The idea of open source hardware was something I discovered by coincidence while peer reviewing a conference proposal. How can you have open source hardware? So I Googled it, and apparently, you can. It means that the process of creating the hardware is made available to others ... Soon after this, I was in conversation with the folks working on Game Changersat Coventry University, UK, and they mentioned that they plan to ask students they are working with to make their games open source. As in, anyone reading about the game could easily reproduce it. This got me really excited – it would make it easier for my own students to be inspired by what others had done, to feel comfortable hacking it (something we already try to do as a step before designing something from scratch), and would give them insight into how others are creating theirs. Then I thought that it might also be a good idea for my own students to present their games in an open source manner ... Aside from making it easier for me to assess and reuse student games as examples for future semesters, I think this process could be pedagogically beneficial as students learn to make explicit their design process and highlight the most important aspects, the essence, of their game. It may help them focus and reflect. It may help them improve the clarity of their game instructions. I hope it helps them self-reflect in general ..."