We are a research group at Carnegie Mellon studying diversity and inclusion in open source software development.
We use behavioral science research methods to understand open source contribution experiences and project environments. Taking a mixed-method approach, we combine in-depth qualitative interviewing with archival data analysis. Our work is funded by a grant from the Sloan Foundation.
Featured Publication
Going
farther together: The impact of social capital on sustained participation in open source. In ICSE 2019.
Qiu, H. S., Nolte, A., Brown, A., Serebrenik, A., & Vasilescu, B.
This paper reports a mixed-methods empirical study of the role of social capital (i.e., the resources people can gain from their social connections) for sustained participation by women and men in open-source GitHub projects. After combining survival analysis on a large, longitudinal data set with insights derived from a user survey, we confirm that while social capital is beneficial for prolonged engagement for both genders, women are at disadvantage in teams lacking diversity in expertise.
