CHS: SHF: SMALL: Collaborative Research: Scaffolding skill acquisition to onboard OSS ecosystems

CHS：SHF：小型：协作研究：为机载 OSS 生态系统提供脚手架技能获取

• 批准号: 1815486
• 负责人: Anita Sarma
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1815486&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CHS; SHF; SMALL; Collaborative; Research

This research aims to develop broadly applicable principles and methods to scaffold the newcomers' skill acquisition as they onboard into an Open Source Software (OSS) project, which in recent years has become an integral part of software development. Although the long-term sustainability of OSS projects depends on the availability of a diverse, passionate group of volunteers, it is quite difficult to become a successful OSS developer. During the onboarding period, newcomers face several barriers such as: steep learning curve, setup misconfiguration, reception problems, and expectation breakdowns. These barriers result in many newcomers giving up, meaning the field may be losing many potential software developers. This research will lead to new insights that can radically improve how newcomers onboard to software projects and to open source communities, which can broaden participation and increase retention. This project's empirical studies and infrastructure design pay particular attention to the fact that differences exist in how people problem-solve and use software features, and that these often cluster by gender. Therefore, broadening participation requires that tools and processes support different problem-solving styles, such that one group is not disproportionately impacted.For this project, skills are defined as the capability of performing an activity; skills can refer to knowledge about the contribution process, programming concepts, or about a class of data, an application programming interface, a library, or the domain. The project objectives are: (1) create a model of skills that pertains to how to be successful in OSS, (2) design and evaluate approaches to extract these skills from open tasks in OSS projects, (3) scaffold skill acquisition of newcomers by matching developers' skills (and their goals) to available tasks in an OSS ecosystem, (4) investigate strategies and design solutions that promote gender inclusiveness, and (5) assess the approach through the design and evaluation of an infrastructure built in this research and made available to the OSS community. The intellectual merit of the work is threefold. First, it will generate a deep understanding of skill models for software development tasks that is anchored and carefully validated in the context of tasks in an OSS ecosystem. Second, the researchers will design approaches that scaffold skill acquisition of developers to create a development trajectory that matches their current skill levels as well as their goals. Finally, a novel infrastructure will be designed and shared, that scaffolds the skill acquisition of newcomers, thereby, mitigating the effects of onboarding barriers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项研究的目的是开发广泛适用的原则和方法，以在新人加入开源软件（OSS）项目时为他们的技能获取提供支撑，开源软件近年来已成为软件开发的一个组成部分。尽管OSS项目的长期可持续性依赖于一个多样化的、充满激情的志愿者群体的可用性，但是成为一个成功的OSS开发人员是相当困难的。在入职期间，新人会面临一些障碍，例如：陡峭的学习曲线、设置配置错误、接收问题和期望崩溃。这些障碍导致许多新来者放弃，这意味着该领域可能会失去许多潜在的软件开发人员。这项研究将带来新的见解，可以从根本上改善新人加入软件项目和开源社区的方式，这可以扩大参与并增加留存率。这个项目的实证研究和基础设施设计特别关注这样一个事实，即人们如何解决问题和使用软件特性存在差异，并且这些差异通常按性别聚集。因此，扩大参与要求工具和过程支持不同的解决问题的方式，这样一个群体就不会受到不成比例的影响。在这个项目中，技能被定义为执行活动的能力；技能可以指有关贡献过程、编程概念或关于一类数据、应用程序编程接口、库或领域的知识。项目目标是：(1)创建一个与如何在OSS中取得成功有关的技能模型，(2)设计和评估从OSS项目的开放任务中提取这些技能的方法，(3)通过将开发人员的技能（及其目标）与OSS生态系统中可用的任务相匹配，来支撑新人的技能获取，(4)调查促进性别包容性的策略和设计解决方案，(5)通过设计和评估本研究中构建的基础设施，并将其提供给OSS社区，从而评估该方法。这项工作的智力价值是三重的。首先，它将产生对软件开发任务的技能模型的深刻理解，这些任务是在OSS生态系统中的任务上下文中锚定并仔细验证的。其次，研究人员将设计方法来支撑开发人员的技能获取，以创建符合他们当前技能水平和目标的开发轨迹。最后，将设计和共享一种新的基础设施，为新员工获得技能提供支撑，从而减轻入职障碍的影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

AID: An automated detector for gender-inclusivity bugs in OSS project pages

AID：OSS 项目页面中性别包容性错误的自动检测器

• DOI: 10.1109/icse43902.2021.00128
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE
• 作者: Chatterjee, Amreeta;Guizani, Mariam;Stevens, Catherine;Emard, Jillian;May, Mary Evelyn;Burnett, Margaret;Ahmed, Iftekhar;Sarma, Anita
• 通讯作者: Sarma, Anita

How to Choose a Task? Mismatches in Perspectives of Newcomers and Existing Contributors

• DOI: 10.1145/3544902.3546236
• 发表时间: 2022-09
• 期刊: Proceedings of the 16th ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
• 作者: F. Santos;Bianca Trinkenreich;J. F. Pimentel;I. Wiese;Igor Steinmacher;A. Sarma;M. Gerosa

How Gender-biased Tools Shape Newcomer Experiences in OSS Projects

性别偏见工具如何塑造 OSS 项目中的新人体验

• DOI: 10.1109/tse.2020.2984173
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
• 影响因子: 7.4
• 作者: Padala, Susmita Hema;Mendez, Christopher John;Dias, Luiz Felipe;Steinmacher, Igor;Steine Hanson, Zoe;Hilderbrand, Claudia;Horvath, Amber;Hill, Charles;Simpson, Logan Dale;Burnett, Margaret
• 通讯作者: Burnett, Margaret

Supporting Code Comprehension via Annotations: Right Information at the Right Time and Place

通过注释支持代码理解：在正确的时间和地点提供正确的信息

• DOI: 10.1109/vl/hcc50065.2020.9127264
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: 2020 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC
• 作者: Adeli, Marjan;Nelson, Nicholas;Chattopadhyay, Souti;Coffey, Hayden;Henley, Austin;Sarma, Anita
• 通讯作者: Sarma, Anita

Recommending Tasks to Newcomers in OSS Projects: How Do Mentors Handle It?

给OSS项目新人推荐任务：导师如何处理？

• DOI: 10.1145/3412569.3412571
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: 16th International Symposium on Open Collaboration (OpenSym 2020
• 作者: Balali, Sogol;Annamalai, Umayal;Padala, Hema Susmita;Trinkenreich, Bianca;Gerosa, Marco A.;Steinmacher, Igor;Sarma, Anita
• 通讯作者: Sarma, Anita