Malte,
I have a number students doing exactly that this semester. They get to use the best tool, learn practical things that will be very usefull in their professional carrers and they are adding things to openACS.
No many other toolkits (only opensource) give you the opportunity to teach how systems work inside. The best way to build bridges is building them (well in bridges you don't usually "throw the first one away" 😊
Quite empowering for students is if they get to work with other student/profesionals from overseas. University projects like these should try to cooperate in this sense.
