There is so much going on with Ruby Mendicant University that it's hard to keep up with it all.   But since I feel a key responsibility of mine is to keep folks informed of our progress, I'll do a quick brain dump on some of the interesting happenings so far.

Selections

At the time of writing, 69 students have been accepted into RMU.   A small number of submissions were initally declined, but upon recieving feedback, those students worked hard and resubmitted, earning them an invitation.   That means that at least so far, anyone who took the time to write code and think about the problem has been accepted!   There are four submissions currently in my "to review" queue, though I expect that number to grow because we started open requests to take the exam this morning.  The submission deadline is June 20th at 00:00 UTC, or when we reach 120 accepted students, whichever comes first. 

Once exam submissions are closed, I will begin to assign people to sessions.   The priority order is relatively straightforward:  First I will place people with hardships in their desired sessions.  Then I will process everyone else's preferences by a first-come first-serve basis using the timestamp from when ther acceptance form was submitted.   I may do some rejiggering of the ordering as I see fit, especially if it means avoiding any scheduling conflicts for people, but for the most part, I'll try to use this fair measure.

Pilot Program

While the program still officially starts in September, we are going to do a dress rehearsal in August by running a full length session using my experimental schedule and materials.  Here's the email I sent out that sketched out a rough outline of how RMU might run:

I'm thinking the general structure of RMU will be three projects, each
running a week (but with some overlap), a final exam similar in size and
structure to the entrance exam, and an individual or group project that
I approve for each participant.

**In order to gain alumni status, participants are expected to
satisfactorily complete any two of the three assigned projects, the
final exam, and make some headway on their individual project.**

The individual project is really open ended, it can be anything you are
interested in that is Ruby related. But it must have some measureable
results, and you are strongly encouraged to keep me updated throughout
the course of the session about the issues you're running into. This is
where we'll spend a lot of our 1-1 time, during the office hours.

As far as actual group sessions, we'll have tightly time boxed meetings
in the "least damaging" time slot we can find across time zones. Not
everyone will be able to make it to all the meetings, and that's okay.
I will reserve a large chunk of time for office hours during the off
days, so that those who missed a session can get caught up and ask me
any questions they may have. We can also keep in touch asynchronously
throughout the program via mailing list.

So, attendance to sessions is not mandatory, but sharing your progress
is. We'll do the best we can to work this out so that RMU fits into
participants schedules, and does not dominate their available free time.

Here is a sample schedule that I'm playing with, let me know what you
think:

== Project Dates:

Project 1 (August 1st -> August 8th)
Project 2 (August 6th -> August 13th)
Project 3 (August 8th -> August 15th)
Final Exam (August 15th -> August 22nd)
Individual/Group Project (August 6th -> August 22nd)

== Overall Schedule

August 1st: Commencement (Review entrance exam, project 1 start)
August 6th: Meeting 1 (project 2 start, individual project acceptance)
August 7th: Office Hours
August 8th: Meeting 2 (project 1 review, project 3 start)
August 13th: Meeting 3 (project 2 review)
August 14th: Office Hours
August 15th: Meeting 4 / Exam released (project 3 review)
August 20th: Q&A with an Expert Rubyist
August 21st: Office Hours
August 22nd: Final Exam Due
August 29th: Alumni Meeting + Retrospective.

This schedule may change completely before September, but the students seem generally enthusiatic about the structure so far.  I've even lined up our first guest host for Q&A, to be announced in a few weeks.

Community

I created a mailing list and IRC channel for accepted students, half expecting it to be a ghost town.  Boy was I wrong.   The mailing list has been abuzz with the creation of ad-hoc focus groups, plans to hack on open source projects, introductions from people literally all over the world, and lots of other great stuff.

This is no longer just a training program, it's an intentional community that's shaping up to be a wonderful environment for Ruby learning.  We really feel like we're building a completely new approach to online education and studying.   More on that later, but so far, the enthusiasm and the followthrough on turning that energy into something productive has been amazing.

While most of the discussion is being done through our semi-private channels as people get to know each other a bit, there is also #rmu-public on irc.freenode.net for those who have questions or suggestions about RMU.   Please do stop by if you get a chance!

Donations

A good number of folks have been emailing me asking if they can donate to RMU, even though I closed the donation drive.  Since my initial funding request was just to cover the initial content creation, and because I don't know how much time or effort it'll be to run the course itself, I am not accepting donations currently.   The good news is that the pilot program will give us earlier insight into that, and I should be able to open up donations again around September 1, 2010.   If you want to be notified of when the donation drive goes live, you can give me your email address and I'll contact you.   Don't worry, I won't spam you beyond a single message with a link to where you can donate.

I am overwhelmed by the community's generosity.  Thanks to all those who donated, and all who have offered since the funding drive closed.

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That's all for now.   It's now time for me to participate in an in-person training program, The Compleat Rubyist with David and Jeremy.  You can follow us on twitter to get some live updates from the event.   Otherwise, expect to see some more RMU news soon.