Laura Dabbish
Jim Herbsleb
ABSTRACT
Social applications on the web let users track and follow the activities of a large number of others regardless of location or affiliation. There is a potential for this transparency to radically improve collaboration and learning in complex knowledge-based activities. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with central and peripheral GitHub users, we examined the value of transparency for large-scale distributed collaborations and communities of practice. We find that people make a surprisingly rich set of social inferences from the networked activity information in GitHub, such as inferring someone else's technical goals and vision when they edit code, or guessing which of several similar projects has the best chance of thriving in the long term. Users combine these inferences into effective strategies for coordinating work, advancing technical skills and managing their reputation.
- Azouley, P., Graff Zivin, J. S., & Sampat, B. N. The diffusion of scientific knowledge across time and space. NBER Working Paper Series (2011).Google Scholar
- Bardram, J. E. & Hansen, T. R. Context-based workplace awareness. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 19, 2 (2010), 105--138. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Begel, A., DeLine, R., & Zimmerman, T. Social media for software engineering. In Proc. FoSER 2010, IEEE Computer Society (2010), 33--38. Google ScholarDigital Library
- boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 1 (2007), article 11.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Corbin, J. M., & Strauss, A. L. Basics of qualitative research. London, UK: Sage Publications, 2008.Google Scholar
- DiMicco, J., Millen, D., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B. & Muller, M. Motivations for social networking at work. In Proc CSCW 2008, ACM Press (2008), 711--720. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dourish, P. & Bellotti, V. Awareness and coordination in shared workspaces. In Proc. CSCW 1992, ACM Press (1992), 107--114. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Erickson, T., & Kellogg, W. Social translucence: An approach to designing systems that support social processes. TOCHI 7, 1 (1999), 59--83. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Froehlich, J., & Dourish, P. Unifying artifacts and activities in a visual tool for distributed software development teams. In Proc. ICSE 2004, IEEE Society (2004), 387--396. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Github: Social Coding, http://github.com/, accessed March 17, 2011.Google Scholar
- Gross, T., Stary, C., & Totte, A. User-centered awareness in computer-supported cooperative work systems. Int. J. of HCI, 18, 3 (2005), 323--360.Google Scholar
- Gutwin, C., Greenberg, S., & Roseman, M. Workspace awareness in real-time distributed groupware: Framework, widgets, and evaluation. In Proc. HCI on People & Computers, Springer-Verlag (1996), 281--298. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gutwin, C., Penner, R., & Schneider, K. Group awareness in distributed software development. In Proc CSCW 2004, ACM Press (2004), 72--81. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ko, A. J., DeLine, R., & Venolia, G. Information needs in collocated software development teams. In Proc ICSE 2007, IEEE Computer Society (2007), 344--353. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mas, A., & Moretti, E. Peers at work. American Economic Review, 99, 1 (2009), 112--145.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Millen, D., Feinberg, J., & Kerr, B. Dogear: Social bookmarking in the enterprise. In Proc. CHI 2006, ACM Press (2006), 111--120. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Olson, G., M., & Olson, J. S. Distance matters. Human-Computer Interaction 15 (2001), 139--178. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Omoronyia, I., Ferguson, J., Roper, M. & Wood, M. Using developer activity data to enhance awareness during collaborative software development. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 18, 5 (2009), 509--558. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sarma, A., Maccherone, L., Wagstrom, P., & Herbsleb, J. (2009). Tesseract: Interactive visual exploration of socio-technical relationships in software development. In Proc. ICSE 2009, IEEE Computer Society (2009), 23--33. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sarma, A., Z. Noroozi, & Htreetreeoek, A. (2003). Palantír: raising awareness among configuration management workspaces. In Proc ICSE 2003, IEEE Computer Society (2003), 444--454. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Skeels, M. M., & Grudin, J. When social networks cross boundaries: A case study of workplace use of Facebook and LinkedIn. In Proc. GROUP 2009, ACM Press (2009), 95--103. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Storey, M. A., Ryall, J., Singer, J., Myers, D., Cheng, L. T., & Muller, M. How software developers use tagging to support reminding and refinding. IEEE TSE 35, 4 (2009), 470--483. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Storey, M., Treude, C., van Deursen, A., & Cheng, L. T. The impact of social media on software engineering practices and tools. In Proc. FoSER 2010, ACM Press (2010), 359--363. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Teasley, S. Covi, L. Krishnan, M. & Olson, J. Rapid software development through team collocation. IEEE TSE 28, 7 (2002), 671--683. Google ScholarDigital Library
- van de ven, A. H., Delbecq, A. L., & Koenig, R. Determinants of coordination modes within organizations. American Sociological Review, (1976).Google Scholar
- Viegas, F., Wattenberg, M., & Kushal, D. Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow visualizations. In Proc CHI 2004, ACM Press (2004), 575--582. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Weiner, B. Human Motivation: Metaphors, Theories and Research, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Social coding in GitHub: transparency and collaboration in an open software repository
Recommendations
Impact of social features implemented in open collaboration platforms on volunteer self-organization: case study of open source software development
WikiSym '13: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open CollaborationThe promise of collective intelligence emerging from voluntary participation, contribution and knowledge sharing brought about by ubiquitous information and communication technologies has recently attracted the attention of academics and practitioners ...
Herding in open source software development: an exploratory study
CSCW '13: Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work companionIn spite of the lack of organizational control, a large number of these self-organized groups have successfully developed high quality software in open source software projects. We examined the process through which coordinated action emerges from the ...
Collaborative Writing on GitHub: A Case Study of a Book Project
CSCW '18 Companion: Companion of the 2018 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social ComputingSocial coding platforms such as GitHub are increasingly becoming a digital workspace for the production of non-software digital artifacts. Since GitHub offers unique features that are different from traditional ways of collaborative writing, it is ...
Comments