Identifying a project & first actions - Pace & position in syllabus

Currently, the first contribution happens in week 3 - however, getting to know a project, how and with whom to communicate, understanding the contribution process, etc. can take a lot of time, as well as a lot of trial and error. Should we get students started on this earlier?

From the discussion at opencraft/documentation/mooc-floss!1 (comment 499363282):

Me:

It might be helpful to do this earlier -- explaining the licenses, economic models, etc. could fit in the topic of the first week? And people could then start picking a project, say hi in the forums/IRC, reading about the project (which would be helpful context in week 2 if we added a trivial contribution to make there). And maybe here we could get into the meaty part, of picking an actual contribution to make, which will then likely take several weeks to prepare & get reviewed?

Marc:

Makes sense, but IMO could be too much content for week 1 ? Here one does not have to find a contribution yet, just a (list of) place where they can see that they understand the language

Me:

My main concern here is that if we wait until late into the course to find a project and start doing contributions, it will be very hard for students to get their work merged. Socializing with the project, getting to know its maintainers and community members, its rules and processes, its objectives and requirements for contributions -- all of this takes time, as does getting reviews and addressing them. Do you see a way to start on these points earlier in the course? That would make it more concrete, and avoid having to discover everything at once towards the end, or being blocked on getting reviews.