Effectively managing and leveraging crowdsourced knowledge for software engineering

知识共享平台（例如，Stack Overflow和GitHub）已经改变了开发人员在互联网上分享和寻求知识的方式。这些平台为软件工程（SE）积累了大量的知识，这些知识是由大量快速变化的参与者群体（即，众包SE知识）。例如，Stack Overflow已经积累了大量的SE知识（通常包括代码示例，沿着它们的文本描述）。最近的一项调查显示，61%的开发人员每天都在Stack Overflow上寻求帮助，这突出了这种众包SE知识的感知价值。随着众包SE知识量的快速增长，管理和利用如此大量的知识是具有挑战性的。挑战1：由于知识共享平台上生成的信息不断泛滥，知识的组织变得越来越具有挑战性。挑战2：保持如此大量知识的质量需要社区付出巨大的努力。事实上，最近的研究表明，从各种角度来看，Stack Overflow上的代码示例可能是有毒的（例如，过时和不安全）。挑战3：知识的不同维度分散在不同的来源（例如，平台），开发人员很难有效地检索和利用这些知识。 我的长期研究目标是改进管理和利用大SE知识来支持软件开发和维护。该研究计划旨在解决上述挑战，并有三个短期研究目标（RO）。目标1：努力改进众包社会企业知识活动的组织。我的HQP和我将进行分析，以了解一个良好的用户感知的知识组织的特征，同时提出技术，以改善知识的组织。RO2：确保众包SE知识的质量。为了保持知识的质量，特别是对于过时和安全性方面的代码示例，我将提出自动化技术来检测过时和不安全的代码示例，并通过利用软件开发历史来推荐解决方案。目标3：有效利用多样化的SE知识。我将开发一个基础设施来收集和链接来自各种来源的SE知识，并开发支持多维搜索SE知识的技术。本研究的结果将为改善众包SE知识的管理和利用提供解决方案。它将使加拿大和全球数百万学习者受益，并显着提高软件质量，降低加拿大公司的软件开发成本。拟议的研究将培训10名高素质人员（HQP），并为他们提供软件工程和数据科学方面的技能，这是学术和行业环境中最需要的技能。

Knowledge-sharing platforms (e.g., Stack Overflow and GitHub) have changed how developers share and seek knowledge on the Internet. These platforms accumulate a massive amount of knowledge for Software Engineering (SE) that is contributed by a large and rapidly-changing group of participants (i.e., crowdsourced SE knowledge). For instance, Stack Overflow has accumulated a tremendous amount of SE knowledge (often including code examples, along with their textual description). A recent survey shows that 61% of developers seek help on Stack Overflow daily, which underlines the perceived value of such crowdsourced SE knowledge. As the amount of crowdsourced SE knowledge rapidly grows, managing and leveraging such a massive amount of knowledge is challenging. Challenge 1: The organization of knowledge is becoming challenging due to a continual inundation of generated information on knowledge-sharing platforms. Challenge 2: Maintaining the quality of such an enormous amount of knowledge requires an enormous amount of effort from the community. In fact, recent studies show that code examples on Stack Overflow could be toxic from various perspectives (e.g., being obsolete and insecure). Challenge 3: Different dimensions of knowledge are scattered across different sources (e.g., platforms), it becomes difficult for developers to effectively retrieve and leverage such knowledge. My long-term research goal is to improve the management and leveraging of big SE knowledge to support software development and maintenance. This proposed research program aims to address the above-mentioned challenges and has three short-term research objectives (ROs). RO1: Towards improving the organization of crowdsourced SE knowledge activities. My HQPs and I will conduct analysis to understand the characteristics of a good user-perceived organization for knowledge while proposing techniques to improve the organization of the knowledge. RO2: Ensuring the quality of crowdsourced SE knowledge. To maintain the quality of knowledge, typically for code examples in terms of obsolescence and security, I will propose automated techniques to detect obsolete and insecure code examples, and recommend solutions by leveraging software development history. RO3: Towards effectively leveraging the diverse SE knowledge. I will develop an infrastructure for gathering and linking SE knowledge from various sources and develop techniques for supporting multi-dimensional search for SE knowledge. The outcome of this research will provide solutions towards improving the management and leveraging of crowdsourced SE knowledge. It will benefit millions of learners in Canada and worldwide, and significantly improve software quality and reduce software development costs among Canadian companies. The proposed research will train ten highly qualified personnel (HQP) and prepare them with skills in software engineering and data science, the most in--demand skills in academic and industry settings.