Introduction

Welcome to Season of Docs!

Season of Docs icon

Supporting open source documentation

Current phase:
Results announced timeline.

Season of Docs supports documentation in open source by:

  • Providing funds to open source organizations to use for documentation projects
  • Providing guides and support for open source organizations to help them understand their documentation needs
  • Collecting data from open source organizations to better understand documentation impact
  • Publishing case studies from open source organizations to share best practices

Season of Docs seeks to empower open source organizations to understand their documentation needs, to create documentation to fill those needs, to measure the effect and impact of their documentation, and, in the spirit of open source, share what they've learned to help guide other projects. Season of Docs seeks to bring more technical writers into open source through funding their work with open source projects and organizations.

How does it work?

Season of Docs operates as a grant program. Accepted organizations will receive between US$5,000 and US$15,000 to use for a documentation project.

  • Open source organizations submit project proposals. Organizations should review the organization proposal guide before creating their proposal. Project proposals include a proposed budget, timeline, and metrics.

  • Accepted organizations hire technical writers directly. The Season of Docs grants will be disbursed in two payments; 40% upon hiring a technical writer, and 60% after receiving the final evaluation and case study. For more information on receiving grants, please visit our grants for organizations guide.

  • Interested technical writers can signal their willingness to participate by contacting organizations through their project pages and by adding themselves to the Season of Docs technical writer directory. We encourage interested technical writers to work with organizations to create project proposals.

  • Organizations submit their final evaluations and case studies by the program deadline. Final evaluations and case studies outline what the organization and technical writer learned during the project.

  • At the end of the program, the Google program administrators publish the final evaluations and case studies. Google program administrators will also follow up with the organizations at intervals to ask followup questions about the project metrics.

The timeline shows the details of the steps involved and the key dates.

Participants and roles

Below are the primary groups of people who take part in Season of Docs and the role each group plays in the program:

  • Organization administrators are members of the participating open source organizations who act as the principal Season of Docs contact for their organization. The organization administrators submit the organization’s application to take part in Season of Docs, handle the paperwork, and are responsible for submitting the final evaluation and case study. See the administrator guide and responsibilities

  • Technical writers are not direct participants in Season of Docs. For information on how technical writers can participate in Season of Docs, please see the Tech Writer guide.

  • Google program administrators are program managers within Google who run the Season of Docs program.

Next steps