Google Season of Docs is happy to announce the 2023 program results, including the project case studies.
Google Season of Docs is a grant-based program where open source organizations apply for US$5-15,000 to hire technical writers to complete documentation projects. At the end of the six-month documentation development phase, organizations submit a case study to outline the problems their documentation project was intended to solve, how they are measuring the success of their documentation project, and what they learned during the project. The case studies are publicly available and are intended to help other open source organizations learn best practices in open source documentation.
The 2023 Google Season of Docs documentation development phase began on March 31 and ended November 21, 2023 for all projects. Participants in the 2023 program will also answer three followup surveys in 2024, in order to better track the impact of these documentation projects over time.
Feedback from the 2023 participating projects was extremely positive:
“I would strongly recommend engaging with a technical writer who is genuinely passionate about open-source initiatives. A writer who asks probing questions, encourages leaders to think innovatively, and is eager to learn in unfamiliar domains can be incredibly beneficial."
- – Digital Biomarker Discovery Project
“Having a dedicated resource under the banner of GSoD helped as it allowed the team to focus on core activities while leaving out the worries related to the stacking documentation challenges behind, to be taken care of by the writer."
- – Flux
“We made significant improvements to nearly half of the p5.js reference and laid the groundwork for a team of writers currently working on documentation. Along the way, we engaged a broad cross-section of the community and strengthened bonds among core contributors. "
- – p5.js
Take a look at the participant list to see the initial project plans and case studies!
What’s next?
Stay tuned for information about Google Season of Docs 2024—watch for posts on this blog and sign up for the announcements email list. We’ll also be publishing the 2023 case study summary report in early 2024.
If you were excited about participating in the 2023 Google Season of Docs program, please do write social media posts. See the promotion and press page for images and other promotional materials you can include, and be sure to use the tag #SeasonOfDocs when promoting your project on social media. To include the tech writing and open source communities, add #WriteTheDocs, #techcomm, #TechnicalWriting, and #OpenSource to your posts.
By Erin McKean, Google Open Source Programs Office
