Incubation, Aquisition, & Professional Development Process

Apereo's incubation process provides a scaffolding for the formation of new projects and communities of interest through their critical formative stages.  The process places great emphasis on effective mentoring processes for new projects, software communities and communities of interest.  If you are interested in becoming an incubation mentor, please contact ed@apereo.org  

More information on Apereo's Incubation:

• Apereo's Process: Unlike many open source programs that focus primarily on technical readiness, Apereo recognizes that successful higher education projects emerge from a unique combination of research, teaching, institutional collaboration, and long-term community stewardship. Designed specifically for projects originating within or intended for, colleges, universities, libraries, and research organizations, the process emphasizes open governance, community formation, intellectual property stewardship, transparent development practices, and organizational sustainability alongside software quality. Through structured reviews, experienced mentors, pre-incubation activities that help validate community interest, and clear graduation criteria, the process enables promising academic innovations to evolve into sustainable, community-led open source projects capable of serving institutions around the world for years to come.
• Apereo's Incubation Workflow is an assessment worksheet used by projects throughout the Apereo Incubation process to evaluate their readiness and maturity as they progress toward graduation as an official Apereo Project. It provides a structured framework for assessing the technical, governance, community, legal, and sustainability practices that contribute to a healthy and enduring open source project. More than a checklist, the workflow helps project teams identify strengths, prioritize areas for improvement, and document their progress over time. By emphasizing openness, collaboration, transparency, and shared responsibility, the worksheet supports continuous improvement while helping projects demonstrate that they have developed the community, processes, and organizational maturity needed to become sustainable members of the Apereo ecosystem.
• The Higher Education Open Source Assessment Tool (HEOSAT) helps colleges, universities, research organizations, and open source communities evaluate the maturity, sustainability, and long-term health of open source software projects. Inspired by proven community assessment frameworks and adapted specifically for the higher education ecosystem, HEOSAT provides a structured, evidence-based methodology for assessing governance, community engagement, development practices, documentation, security, licensing, sustainability, and organizational readiness. Rather than serving as a compliance checklist, the toolkit helps projects identify strengths, prioritize improvements, and track their progress over time—enabling project leaders, institutional stakeholders, and mentors to make informed decisions that strengthen project resilience, increase community participation, and improve the likelihood of long-term success.
• Incubation Glossary of Terms: Common terms and language used by Apereo and throughout the Incubation process.