CHS: SHF: Small: Collaborative Research: Scaffolding Skill Acquisition to Onboard Open Source Software Ecosystems

这项研究旨在开发广泛适用的原则和方法，以支持新人在加入开放源码软件(OSS)项目时获得技能，该项目近年来已成为软件开发的组成部分。尽管开放源码软件项目的长期可持续性取决于是否有一群多样化的、充满激情的志愿者，但要成为一名成功的开放源码软件开发人员是相当困难的。在入职期间，新人面临几个障碍，例如：陡峭的学习曲线、设置错误配置、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来者加入软件项目和开放源码社区的方式，这可以扩大参与和增加留存率。该项目的经验研究和基础设施设计特别关注这样一个事实，即人们在解决问题和使用软件功能的方式上存在差异，而且这些差异通常按性别聚集。因此，扩大参与度要求工具和过程支持不同的问题解决方式，这样一组人就不会受到不成比例的影响。对于这个项目，技能被定义为执行活动的能力；技能可以指关于贡献过程、编程概念的知识，或者关于数据类、应用程序编程接口、库或域的知识。项目目标是：(1)创建与如何在开放源码软件中取得成功有关的技能模型；(2)设计和评估从开放源码软件项目的公开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)与开放源码软件生态系统中的现有任务相匹配来获得新人的支架技能；(4)调查促进性别包容性的战略和设计解决方案；以及(5)通过设计和评估本研究中建立的并向开放源码软件社区提供的基础设施，来评估这种方法。这部作品的学术价值有三个方面。首先，它将产生对软件开发任务的技能模型的深刻理解，这些技能模型是在OSS生态系统中的任务的上下文中锚定和仔细验证的。其次，研究人员将设计一种方法，为开发人员获得技能奠定基础，以创建与他们目前的技能水平和目标相匹配的开发轨迹。最后，将设计和共享一个新的基础设施，为新来者的技能获取奠定基础，从而减轻入职障碍的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.