Office Hours

Pattern Summary

Offer a regular, scheduled slot of open 'office hours' where students, faculty and staff can drop in for support with their open source projects.

Problem / Challenge

Students, researchers and faculty need guidance to identify the appropriate solutions to challenges on their open source work.

However, they may have questions that they feel are too inconsequential to justify booking a formal OSPO consultation.

Without a low-barrier, predictable way to access support, these questions go unanswered and their problems compound.

Context

A university with diverse departments of varying levels of OSS expertise and needs.

There is inconsistent awareness about the role of OSS standards in improving scientific quality and reproducibility; OSS license management; and compliance with institutional and IP policies.

An OSPO has been established.

Forces

Members of the university community may be unaware of the OSPO or hesitant to approach it through formal channels.

OSPO staff time is limited.

Solution

Schedule a recurring slot of office hours that is open to students, faculty and staff who need support with their open source work.

Practical considerations include:

• Schedule: Choose a regular cadence (e.g. weekly or fortnightly) and a consistent time and location (physical, virtual or hybrid) so that the slot becomes easy to remember and plan around.
• Format: Office hours should follow the drop-in format and be informal. No booking or agenda is required.
• Promotion: Advertise office hours on the OSPO website, in newsletters, on mailing lists and through departmental channels.
• Follow-up: For questions that cannot be resolved within the session, refer attendees to an individual consultation or to other university services.
• Metrics and Service Improvement: Track attendance and common themes to refine the timing, format and development of OSPO services over time. Attendance figures can also be used to track the growing reach of OSPO.

Resulting Context

Students, faculty and staff have a predictable, low-barrier route to open source guidance and further support from the OSPO.

The OSPO builds visibility and relationships across campus.

Recurring topics raised at office hours can inform the development of workshops, documentation and other services.

Attendance can be unpredictable. Some sessions may be empty while others are oversubscribed.

Known Instances

• Georgia Tech Open Source Program Office, Georgia Institute of Technology
• University of California Open Source Program Office Network

References

• POSE proposal development supported with office hours by the Georgia Tech OSPO
• Information on Coworking/Office Hours offered by the UC OSPO Network

Related Patterns

• Individual consultations
• Template for 1:1 Campus Consultations

Contributors & Acknowledgement

• Ciara Flanagan — CURIOSS, 0009-0005-3153-7673
• Laura Langdon — University of California OSPO Network, 0000-0001-7044-7295

A note on AI use: In addition to working from Deep Dive transcripts, capturing learning from our community discussions and other patterns from our members, this pattern was drafted with the help of AI. As a small organization, tools like this help us turn rich conversations into written resources without losing the ideas along the way. As always, there were plenty of human eyes reviewing, editing and improving the content before this pattern made it to publication. Thanks go to our community for the insights. If you do spot any errors, please let us know so we can correct them!