Title: Achieving Equilibrium: Use of Multiple Spaces and Media by FLOSS Workers to Improve Work-Life Balance

Authors: Aditya Johri, George Mason University, and Hon Jie Teo, New York College of Technology

Abstract: Participants in FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) projects are atypical in their collaborative practices given the high demand for virtual work. Through a study of workers from two organizations working on FLOSS projects we identify the boundaries, in terms of productivity and quality of life, of virtual work and actions workers take in order to find a work-life balance. We found that although workers valued the flexibility of working from home, they had difficulty focusing on their work for sustained time periods and often felt isolated. This motivated them to use coworking spaces – physical spaces used as work space by workers not on the same team or even the same firm – as a critical part of their space ecology. In conjunction with their media ecology – a mix of communication technologies including IRC – the space/media mix allowed them to balance their work and personal lives. We draw implications for better supporting FLOSS and virtual work practices through design of media/space and work practices.

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Title: Examining the Impact of Adopting Open Source Principles Inside Organisations

Authors: Noel Carroll, Lorraine Morgan and Kieran Conboy, LERO & NUI Galway

Abstract: Open Source software (OSS) has been highly prevalent in both practice and research. Given the value and effectiveness of OSS development to date, practitioners are keen to replicate these practices inside their respective corporations. This application of OSS practices inside the confines of a corporate entity has been coined Inner Source Software (ISS). While ISS presents many benefits, little is known about the opposing tensions that arise as a result of transitioning from a closed to an open software development environment. Such environments are increasingly under pressure to embrace more open and collaborative principles internally, while simultaneously managing operations in a tight and controlled manner. As part of this study, we conducted 20 interviews with international ISS expects across 15 global organisations. We uncover 13 core tensions that arise from the adoption of open principles in closed software practices. Based on these emerging results, we present new insights on the implementation of strategies to overcome competing tensions from openness in software development. We present some recommendations, which also call for fundamentally new research directions.

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Title: An Investigation into Inner Source Software Development: Preliminary Findings from a Systematic Literature Review

Authors: Henry Edison, Noel Carroll, Kieran Conboy and Lorraine Morgan, LERO & NUI Galway

Abstract: Given the value and effectiveness of open source software development to date, practitioners are keen to replicate these practices inside their respective corporations. This application of open source practices inside the confines of a corporate entity has been coined inner source software development. However, while organisations have found ways to directly benefit from revenue streams as a result of leveraging open source practices internally, the current research on inner source is scattered among different areas. Thus gaining clarity on the state-of-the-art in inner source research is challenging. In particular, there is no systematic literature review of known research to date on inner source. We address this challenge by presenting a systematic literature review that identifies, critically evaluates and integrates the findings of 29 primary studies on inner source. Case study approach is the common research approach undertaken in the area. We also identified 8 frameworks/methods, models and tools proposed in the literature to support inner source, as well as a set of benefits and challenges associated with inner source. We envision future work to perform deeper analysis and synthesis on the empirical research on inner source software development.

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Title: Developing sustainable Open Science solutions in the frame of EU funded research: the OpenUP case

Authors: Eleni Toli, Electra Sifacaki, Natalia Manola, Tony Ross-Hellauer, Edit Görögh, Michela Vignoli, Viltė Banelytė, Paolo Manghi, Saskia Woutersen-Windhouwer and Yannis Ioannidis

Abstract: Open Access and Open Scholarship have revolutionized the way scholarly artefacts are evaluated and published, while the introduction of new technologies and media in scientific workflows has changed the “how” and to “whom” science is communicated, and how stakeholders interact with the scientific community and the broader public. The EU funded project OpenUP is connecting people, information and tools and provides a knowledge hub and a validated framework for the review, assessment and dissemination aspects of the research lifecycle, under the prism of a gender-sensitive Open Science.

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Title: Sustainable digitalisation through different dimensions of openness: how can lock-in, interoperability, and long-term maintenance of IT systems be addressed?

Authors: Björn Lundell and Jonas Gamalielsson, University of Skövde

Abstract: Lock-in, interoperability, and long-term maintenance are three fundamental challenges that need to be addressed by any organisation involved in development, use and procurement of IT systems. This paper clarifies fundamental concepts and key dimensions of openness and provides examples of work-practices and recommendations for achieving sustainable digitalisation through addressing the fundamental challenges. Specifically, there are three main contributions. First, the concepts open standard, open source software, and open content are clarified and elaborated. Second, the associated three dimensions standard, software, and content are elaborated through examples of how different combinations along the dimensions can enable and inhibit sustainable digitalisation when IT-systems are developed and procured. Third, work-practices used by public sector organisations in specific projects for development and procurement of IT-systems are elaborated with the view to discuss how the three fundamental challenges are being addressed and provide guidance for how organisations can achieve a sustainable digitalisation.

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Title: A Wikia census: motives, tools and insights

Authors: Guillermo Jimenez-Diaz, Abel Serrano and Javier Arroyo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Abstract: Understanding the Wikisphere phenomenon is undoubtedly of great interest. Most of the studies focus in Wikipedia and its generalization to other wikis requires an enormous amount of work in terms of selecting and retrieving the data. To facilitate the analysis of other wikis we developed a set of tools to collect and create a census of Wikia, one of the largest and most diverse repository of wikis, which hosts more than 300,000 wikis. In this work, we carry out a preliminary quantitative analysis of the census, emphasizing on the differences between active and inactive wikis. Additionally, we provide the wiki research community with the census and the scripts employed to retrieve the data, facilitating others to reproduce or reuse it.

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Title: Lessons Learned on Data Preparation for Geographic Information Systems using Open Data  

Author: Jun Iio, Chuo University

Abstract: The use of geographic information systems (GISs) has become widespread in data-driven industries, and they are utilized to visualize various kinds of spatial data using mappings. In addition to the large amount of available open-source GIS software, various types of data (e.g., boundary data for administrative regions, numerical data for individual areas, and data representing the objects on a map) are provided by local governments as open data. However, in many cases, the data have been inadequately maintained. Thus, advance preparation is required to utilize the data effectively. This paper discusses the work required to utilize open data by considering the case studies of Hachioji-city, Tokyo, Japan.

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Title: Interpolating Quality Dynamics in Wikipedia and Demonstrating the Keilana Effect

Author: Aaron Halfaker:Wikimedia Foundation

Abstract: For open, volunteer generated content like Wikipedia, quality is a prominent concern. To measure Wikipedia’s quality, researchers have historically relied on expert evaluation or assessments of article quality by Wikipedians themselves. While both of these methods have proven effective for answering many questions about Wikipedia’s quality and processes, they are both problematic: expert evaluation is expensive and Wikipedian quality assessments are sporadic and unpredictable. Studies that explore Wikipedia’s quality level or the processes that result in quality improvements have only examined small snapshots of Wikipedia and often rely on complex propensity models to deal with the unpredictable nature of Wikipedians’ own assessments. In this paper, I describe a method for measuring article quality in Wikipedia historically and at a finer granularity than was previously possible. I use this method to demonstrate an important coverage dynamic in Wikipedia (specifically, articles about women scientists) and offer this method, dataset, and open API to the research community studying Wikipedia quality dynamics.

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Title: The Many Hats and the Broken Binoculars: State of the Practice in Developer Community Management

Authors: Hanna Maenpaa:Helsinki University; Fabian Fagerholm:Helsinki University;
Myriam Munezero:Helsinki University; Tommi Mikkonen:Helsinki University

Abstract: Open Source Software developer communities are susceptible to challenges related to volatility, distributed coordination and the interplay between commercial and ideological interests. Here, community managers play a vital role in growing, shepherding, and coordinating the developers’ work. This study investigates the varied tasks that community managers perform to ensure the health and vitality of their communities. We describe the challenges managers face while directing the community and seeking support for their work from the analysis tools provided by state-of-the-art software platforms. Our results describe seven roles that community managers may play, highlighting the versatile and people-centric nature of the community manager’s work. Managers experience hardship of connecting their goals, questions and metrics that define a community’s health and effects of their actions. Our results voice common concerns among community managers, and can be used to help them structure the management activity and to find a theoretical frame for further research on how health of developer communities could be understood.

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Title: Understanding Organization and Open Source Community Relations through the Attraction-Selection-Attrition Model

Authors: Georg J.P.Link:University of Nebraska at Omaha; Debora Jeske:University College Cork

Abstract: Organizations increasingly engage with open source communities. Extant research identified the benefits to organizations for engaging with open source and documented how open source communities operate to accommodate organizational engagement. The complexities involved in what attracts organizations to specific communities, how they choose to engage, and how subsequently the organizational-communal engagement shapes the community and organization are not yet well understood. In this paper, we explore how the Attraction-Selection-Attrition Model supports the study of how communities attract, retain, and lose members, and how these aspects relate to organizational-communal engagement between organizations and open source communities. This conceptual paper provides an introduction to the ASA model, having briefly outlined the lack of research connecting ASA and open source communities. Following this, the paper outlines how existing research related to the ASA model may be effectively related to existing open source research, resulting in several questions for future research.

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