Bitesized issues
Taking a page from the way OpenDS publishes a bite-size issues list to encourage new committers and project members, it seems like it would be a good practice to start singling out outstanding issues uPortal which are small enough in scope for a relative newcomer developer to get his or her feet wet.
Towards that end, there is now a "component" in Jira named "Bitesized". Issues tagged with that component show up here.
in uPortal 2
Unresolved "bitesized" issues in uPortal 2: