TY - Generic T1 - The under-appreciated role of stigmergic coordination in software development Y1 - 2010 A1 - Bolici, Francesco A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - Coordination KW - FLOSS KW - Stigmergy AB -

Coordination in software development teams has been a topic of perennial interest in empirical software engineering research. The vast majority of this literature has drawn on a conceptual separation between work and coordination mechanisms, separate from the work itself, which enable groups to achieve coordination. Traditional recommendations and software methods focused on planning: using analysis to predict and manage dependencies. Empirical research has demonstrated the limits of this approach, showing that many important dependencies are emergent and pointing to the persistent importance of explicit discussion to managing these dependencies as they arise. Drawing on work in Computer-Supported Collaborative Work and building from an analogy to collaboration amongst insects (stigmergy), we argue that the work product itself plays an under-appreciated role in helping software developers manage dependencies as they arise. This short paper presents the conceptual argument with empirical illustrations and explains why this mechanism would have significant implications for Software Engineering coordination research. We discuss issues in marshaling clear positive evidence, arguing that these issues are responsible, in part, for the under-consideration of this mechanism in software engineering and outlining research strategies which may overcome these issues.

ER - TY - Generic T1 - Asynchronous Decision-Making in Distributed Teams (Poster) Y1 - 2008 A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Allen, Eileen E. A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea KW - Decision-Making KW - FLOSS JF - Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work CY - San Diego, CA ER - TY - CONF T1 - Cross-repository data linking with RDF and OWL: Towards common ontologies for representing FLOSS data T2 - WoPDaSD (Workshop on Public Data at International Conference on Open Source Software) Y1 - 2008 A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS KW - FLOSSmole AB - This paper provides an approach to the problem of integrating data from multiple research repositories for FLOSS data. It introduces semantic web technologies (RDF, OWL, OWL-DL reasoners and SPARQL) to argue that these are useful for building shared research infrastructure. The paper illustrates its point by describing parts of an ontology developed for the integration and analysis of project communications drawn from FLOSSmole, the Notre Dame archive and direct collection of data. RDF vocabularies provide a way to agree on things we agree about as well as a way to be clearer about ways in which we disagree. JF - WoPDaSD (Workshop on Public Data at International Conference on Open Source Software) ER - TY - Generic T1 - eResearch workflows for studying free and open source software development T2 - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) Y1 - 2008 A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - eResearch KW - FLOSS KW - Workflow AB - This paper proposes a demonstration of eResearch workflow tools as a model for the research community studying free and open source software and its development. For purposes of background and justification, the paper first introduces eResearch as increasingly practiced in fields such as astrophysics and biology, then contrasts the practice of research on free and open source software. After outlining the suitable public data sources the paper introduces a class of tools known as scientific workflow frameworks, specifically focusing on one---Taverna---and introducing its features. To further explain the tool a complete workflow used for original research on FLOSS is described and the agenda for the live demonstration is outlined. JF - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) CY - Milan, Italy, 7-10 September N1 - Slides from the presentation at the Oxford eResearch Conference of lessons learned in replicating research in eResearch workflows. ER - TY - Generic T1 - eSocialScience for Free/Libre Open Source Software researchers T2 - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science Y1 - 2008 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea KW - eScience KW - FLOSS AB - This abstract presents a case study of the potential application of eScience tools and practices for the social science research community studying Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development practices. We first describe the practice of research on FLOSS to motivate the need for eScience. After outlining suitable public data sources, we describe our initial efforts to introduce eScience tools for FLOSS research, potential obstacles and how the use of such tools might affect the practice of research in this field. JF - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science CY - Manchester, UK, 18-20 June ER - TY - Generic T1 - Group Maintenance in Technology-Supported Distributed Teams T2 - Proceedings of the Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management Annual Meeting Y1 - 2008 A1 - Scialdone, Michael J. A1 - Li, Na A1 - James Howison A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - FLOSS KW - Group Maintenance AB - Are geographically-distributed teams which exhibit high levels of group maintenance between members successful? We answer this through content analysis of emails from two Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) teams. Our results illustrate that the groups utilize low levels of organizational citizenship behaviors and high levels of positive politeness actions. JF - Proceedings of the Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management Annual Meeting CY - Anaheim, CA, 9-13 August ER - TY - Generic T1 - Social dynamics of FLOSS team communication across channels T2 - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) Y1 - 2008 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - FLOSS AB - This paper extends prior investigation into the social dynamics of free and open source (FLOSS) teams by examining the methodological questions arising from research using social network analysis on open source projects. We evaluate the validity of data sampling by examining dynamics of communication centralization, which vary across multiple communication channels. We also introduce a method for intensity-based smoothing in dynamic social network analysis. JF - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) PB - Springer Boston CY - Milan, Italy, 7-10 September SN - 978-0-387-09683-4 ER - TY - ABST T1 - Taverna Demo Screencast Redux Y1 - 2008 A1 - James Howison ED - Wiggins, Andrea KW - Data Management KW - FLOSS AB - This is a shortened version of the Taverna Demo screencast by James Howison. It was edited by Andrea Wiggins for use in a data analysis lecture for the IST 400/600 course on Science Data Management. The reduced version is just over 14 minutes long and omits some of the more technical discussion to focus on the tool demo for a general audience. ER - TY - ABST T1 - Taverna Demonstration Screencast Y1 - 2008 A1 - James Howison KW - Data Management KW - FLOSS AB - A screencast prepared for the Irvine workshop on FLOSS data repositories. ER - TY - Generic T1 - Towards a data and workflow collaboratory for research on Free and Open Source Software and its development (Poster) Y1 - 2008 A1 - James Howison A1 - Squire, Megan A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - eScience KW - FLOSS KW - Workflow JF - iConference CY - Los Angeles, CA ER - TY - Generic T1 - Towards A review of the empirical FLOSS literature Y1 - 2008 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Kangning Wei A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - Li, Qing KW - FLOSS N1 - Towards A review of the empirical FLOSS literature ER - TY - Generic T1 - Building a collaboratory for research on open source software development (Poster) Y1 - 2007 A1 - James Howison A1 - Squire, Megan A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - eScience KW - FLOSS JF - eSocial Science Conference CY - Ann Arbor, MI ER - TY - Generic T1 - A proposed data and analysis archive for research on Free and Open Source Software and its development (Poster) Y1 - 2007 A1 - James Howison A1 - Squire, Megan A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - FLOSS ER - TY - Generic T1 - A proposed data and analysis archive for research on Free and Open Source Software and its development (Poster) Y1 - 2007 A1 - James Howison A1 - Squire, Megan A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - FLOSS JF - eSocial Science Conference CY - Ann Arbor, MI ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The role of face-to-face meetings in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams JF - IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications Y1 - 2007 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Masango, Chengetai A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz KW - FLOSS AB - We examine the role of face-to-face meetings in the context of technology-supported self-organizing distributed or virtual teams, specifically Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Based on a qualitative inductive analysis of data from interviews and observations at FLOSS conferences, we identify a variety of settings in which developers meet face-to-face, activities performed in these settings and benefits obtained. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, FLOSS developers generally do not meet face-to-face until the project is well under way. An additional benefit of face-to-face meetings is time away from a regular job and speed of interaction for certain kinds of tasks. VL - 50 ER - TY - Generic T1 - Business Partnering with Open Source Communities:Opportunities, Perils and Pitfalls Y1 - 2006 A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS N1 - In July 2006 James Howison presented a tutorial at OSCON in Portland Oregon ER - TY - Generic T1 - Core and periphery in Free/Libre and Open Source software team communications T2 - Proceedings of the 39th Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-39) Y1 - 2006 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Kangning Wei A1 - Li, Qing A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS AB - The concept of the core group of developers is important and often discussed in empirical studies of FLOSS projects. This paper examines the question, “how does one empirically distinguish the core?” Being able to identify the core members of a FLOSS development project is important because many of the processes necessary for successful projects likely involve core members differently than peripheral members, so analyses that mix the two groups will likely yield invalid results. We compare 3 analysis approaches to identify the core: the named list of developers, a Bradford’s law analysis that takes as the core the most frequent contributors and a social network analysis of the interaction pattern that identifies the core in a core-and-periphery structure. We apply these measures to the interactions around bug fixing for 116 SourceForge projects. The 3 techniques identify different individuals as core members; examination of which individuals are identified leads to suggestions for refining the measures. All 3 measures though suggest that the core of FLOSS projects is a small fraction of the total number of contributors. JF - Proceedings of the 39th Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-39) CY - Kaua'i, Hawai'i, January ER - TY - Generic T1 - Emergent decision-making practices in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams T2 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) Y1 - 2006 A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Allen, Eileen E. A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - James Howison A1 - Kangning Wei KW - Decision-Making KW - FLOSS AB - We seek to identify work practices that make technology-supported self-organizing distributed (or virtual) teams (TSSODT for short) effective in producing outputs satisfactory to their sponsors, meeting the needs of their members and continuing to function. A particularly important practice for team effectiveness is decision making: are the right decisions made at the right time to get the work done in a way that satisfies team sponsors, keeps contributors happy and engaged, and enables continued team success? In this research-in-progress paper, we report on an inductive qualitative analysis of 120 decision episodes taken by 2 Free/libre Open Source Software development teams. Our analysis revealed differences in decision-making practices that seem to be related to differences in overall team effectiveness. JF - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) CY - Milwaukee, WI, 10–13 Dec ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Hierarchy and centralization in Free and Open Source Software team communications JF - Knowledge, Technology & Policy Y1 - 2006 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS AB - Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams provide an interesting and convenient setting for studying distributed work. We begin by answering perhaps the most basic question: what is the social structure of these teams? Based on a social network analysis of interactions represented in 62,110 bug reports from 122 large and active projects, we find that some OSS teams are highly centralized, but contrary to expectation, others are not. Projects are mostly quite hierarchical on four measures of hierarchy, consistent with past research but contrary to the popular image of these projects. Furthermore, we find that the level of centralization is negatively correlated with project size, suggesting that larger projects become more modular. The paper makes a further methodological contribution by identifying appropriate analysis approaches for interaction data. We conclude by sketching directions for future research. VL - 18 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Information systems success in Free and Open Source Software development: Theory and measures JF - Software Process–Improvement and Practice Y1 - 2006 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Annabi, Hala KW - FLOSS KW - Success AB - Information systems success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems (IS) research, but research on Free/Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) often fails to appropriately conceptualize this important concept. In this paper, we reconsider what success means within a FLOSS context. We first review existing models of IS success and success variables used in FLOSS research and assess them for their usefulness, practicality and fit to the FLOSS context. Then, drawing on a theoretical model of group effectiveness in the FLOSS development process, as well as an online discussion group with developers, we present additional concepts that are central to an appropriate understanding of success for FLOSS. In order to examine the practicality and validity of this conceptual scheme, the second half of our paper presents an empirical study that demonstrates its operationalization of the chosen measures and assesses their internal validity. We use data from SourceForge to measure the project’s effectiveness in team building, the speed of the project at responding to bug reports and the project’s popularity. We conclude by discussing the implications of this study for our proposed extension of IS success in the context of FLOSS development and highlight future directions for research. VL - 11 ER - TY - CONF T1 - Language and power in self-organizing distributed teams T2 - OCIS Division, Academy of Management Conference Y1 - 2006 A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS AB - In this paper, a comparative case study is conducted to explore the way power is expressed and exercised through language use in distributed or virtual teams. Our research questions are “how is power expressed in online interactions in self-organizing distributed teams, in a context without formal authority or hierarchy?” and “What effects do expressions of power have on team outcomes?” To fully understand the role of power in self-organizing teams, we apply an input-process-output model on two open source projects-one successful and the other less successful. Two set of codes (source of power and power mechanism) are drawn from the data, and different power patterns interestingly show up between them. The findings lead us to speculate that strong, centralized leadership, the assertive exercise of power, and direct language may contribute to effectiveness in FLOSS teams. And the relevant conclusions and suggestions are provided for further research. JF - OCIS Division, Academy of Management Conference CY - Atlanta, GA ER - TY - Generic T1 - Open Source Data Sources Y1 - 2006 A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS N1 - James Howison presented a short tutorial on FLOSS data sources at the 2006 Academy of Management conference in Atlanta. ER - TY - Generic T1 - Social dynamics of free and open source team communications T2 - Proceedings of the IFIP Second International Conference on Open Source Systems Y1 - 2006 A1 - James Howison A1 - Inoue, Keisuke A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - FLOSS AB - This paper furthers inquiry into the social structure of free and open source software (FLOSS) teams by undertaking social network analysis across time. Contrary to expectations, we confirmed earlier findings of a wide distribution of centralizations even when examining the networks over time. The paper also provides empirical evidence that while change at the center of FLOSS projects is relatively uncommon, participation across the project communities is highly skewed, with many participants appearing for only one period. Surprisingly, large project teams are not more likely to undergo change at their centers. JF - Proceedings of the IFIP Second International Conference on Open Source Systems CY - Lake Como, Italy, 8-9 June ER - TY - Generic T1 - Coordination of Free/Libre Open Source Software development T2 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) Y1 - 2005 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Kangning Wei A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - James Howison KW - Coordination KW - FLOSS AB - The apparent success of free/libre open source software (FLOSS) development projects such as Linux, Apache, and many others has raised the question, what lessons from FLOSS development can be transferred to mainstream software development? In this paper, we use coordination theory to analyze coordination mechanisms in FLOSS development and compare our analysis with existing literature on coordination in proprietary software development. We examined developer interaction data from three active and successful FLOSS projects and used content analysis to identify the coordination mechanisms used by the participants. We found that there were similarities between the FLOSS groups and the reported practices of the proprietary project in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-task dependencies. However, we found clear differences in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-actor dependencies. While published descriptions of proprietary software development involved an elaborate system to locate the developer who owned the relevant piece of code, we found that “self-assignment” was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects. This coordination mechanism is consistent with expectations for distributed and largely volunteer teams. We conclude by discussing whether these emergent practices can be usefully transferred to mainstream practice and indicating directions for future research. JF - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) CY - Las Vegas, NV, USA, December ER - TY - CONF T1 - Face-to-face interactions in self-organizing distributed teams T2 - Academy of Management Conference Y1 - 2005 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Masango, Chengetai A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz KW - FLOSS AB - We explore the role of face-to-face meetings in the life of distributed teams using data from Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Such distributed teams are part of many organizations’ new vision of management in the 21st century. Practitioner research has suggested the need for face-to-face meetings when a team is formed, but few studies have considered the role of face-to-face meetings during a team’s life. Based on a qualitative inductive analysis of data from interviews and observations at FLOSS conferences, we identify a variety of settings in which FLOSS developers meet face-to-face, activities performed in these settings and benefits obtained. Contrary to prior research, we find that FLOSS developers generally do not meet until the project is well under way. We also find that an additional benefit of face-to-face meetings is time away from a regular job. We conclude by noting limitations in our data collection due to a focus on core developers in large projects and with directions for further research. JF - Academy of Management Conference CY - Honolulu, HI ER - TY - CONF T1 - OSSmole: A collaborative repository for FLOSS research data and analyses T2 - 1st International Conference on Open Source Software Y1 - 2005 A1 - James Howison A1 - Conklin, Megan S. KW - FLOSSmole AB - This paper introduces a collaborative project, “OSSmole”, designed to gather, share and store comparable data and analyses of free and open source software development for academic research. The project draws on the ongoing collection and analysis efforts of many research groups, reducing duplication, and promoting compatibility both across sources of FLOSS data and across research groups and analyses. The paper outlines current difficulties with the current typical quantitative FLOSS research process and uses these to develop requirements and presents the design of the system. JF - 1st International Conference on Open Source Software CY - Genova, Italy ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The social structure of Free and Open Source Software development JF - First Monday Y1 - 2005 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS AB - Metaphors, such as the Cathedral and Bazaar, used to describe the organization of FLOSS projects typically place them in sharp contrast to proprietary development by emphasizing FLOSS’s distinctive social and communications structures. But what do we really know about the communication patterns of FLOSS projects? How generalizable are the projects that have been studied? Is there consistency across FLOSS projects? Questioning the assumption of distinctiveness is important because practitioner–advocates from within the FLOSS community rely on features of social structure to describe and account for some of the advantages of FLOSS production. To address this question, we examined 120 project teams from SourceForge, representing a wide range of FLOSS project types, for their communications centralization as revealed in the interactions in the bug tracking system. We found that FLOSS development teams vary widely in their communications centralization, from projects completely centered on one developer to projects that are highly decentralized and exhibit a distributed pattern of conversation between developers and active users. We suggest, therefore, that it is wrong to assume that FLOSS projects are distinguished by a particular social structure merely because they are FLOSS. Our findings suggest that FLOSS projects might have to work hard to achieve the expected development advantages which have been assumed to flow from "going open." In addition, the variation in communications structure across projects means that communications centralization is useful for comparisons between FLOSS teams. We found that larger FLOSS teams tend to have more decentralized communication patterns, a finding that suggests interesting avenues for further research examining, for example, the relationship between communications structure and code modularity. VL - 10 UR - http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1207/1127 N1 - First Monday, Special Issue #2: Open Source — 3 October 2005 The social structure of free and open source software development (originally published in Volume 10, Number 2, February 2005) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Effective work practices for software engineering T2 - Proceedings of the 2004 ACM workshop on Interdisciplinary software engineering research (WISER '04) Y1 - 2004 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Annabi, Hala A1 - James Howison A1 - Masango, Chengetai KW - FLOSS AB - We review the literature on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development and on software development, distributed work and teams more generally to develop a theoretical model to explain the performance of FLOSS teams. The proposed model is based on Hackman’s [34] model of effectiveness of work teams, with coordination theory [52] and collective mind [79] to extend Hackman’s model by elaborating team practices relevant to effectiveness in software development. We propose a set of propositions to guide further research. JF - Proceedings of the 2004 ACM workshop on Interdisciplinary software engineering research (WISER '04) PB - ACM Press CY - Newport Beach, CA, USA SN - 1581139888 JO - WISER '04 ER - TY - Generic T1 - Defining Open Source Software project success T2 - Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) Y1 - 2003 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Annabi, Hala A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS AB - Information systems success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems research. In this paper, we identify a range of measures that can be used to assess the success of Open Source Software (OSS) projects. We identify measures based on a review of the literature, a consideration of the OSS development process and an analysis of the opinions of OSS developers. For each measure, we provide examples of how they might be used in a study of OSS development. JF - Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) CY - Seattle, WA, December ER -