Going farther together:the impact of social capital on sustained participation in open source

Sustained participation by contributors in open-source software is critical to the survival of open-source projects and can provide career advancement benefits to individual contributors. However, not all contributors reap the benefits of open-source participation fully, with prior work showing that women are particularly underrepresented and at higher risk of disengagement. While many barriers to participation in open-source have been documented in the literature, relatively little is known about how the social networks that open-source contributors form impact their chances of long-term engagement. In this paper we report on 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.\u3cbr/\u3

DecidArch: Playing Cards as Software Architects

Teaching software architecture is a challenge because of the difficulty to expose students to actual meaningful design situations. Games can provide a useful illustration of the design decision making process, and teach students the power of team interaction for making sound decisions. We introduce a game –DecidArch– developed to achieve three learning objectives: 1) create awareness about the rationale involved in design decision making, 2) enable appreciation of the reasoning behind candidate design decisions proposed by others, and 3) create awareness about interdependencies between design decisions. The game has been played by 22 groups with a total of 83 players, all of them students of the VU software architecture course. We present some of the lessons learned, both from our observation and through participant survey. We conclude that the game well supports our three learning objectives, and we identify several improvement points for future game editions

The Commons Architect.e altering urban architectural design in Brussels

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Problematizing agile in the large: alternative assumptions for large-scale agile development

In this paper we critically examine the underlying assumptions in existing studies of large-scale agile software development. We use Alvesson and Sandberg’s problematization methodology and find that existing studies of large-scale agile share a number of underlying assumptions relevant to small rather than large-scale projects. Empirically, we draw on a case study of a large-scale agile project lasting nearly four years and involving more than 120 participants. Interestingly, the findings of the study contradict many of the assumptions in the literature review. For example, work across boundaries becomes at least as important as work within teams. We contribute by developing an alternative set of assumptions better suited to the characteristics of large-scale agile software development. Based on this, we re-conceptualize agile in the large, emphasizing both the complex knowledge boundaries within the project itself, as well as the interactive complexity and tight coupling with technologies and processes outside the project

The Space Between: Performance, the Body and Scholarship

The thesis is concerned with the interrelationships between the body, making sense of experience through performance, and the conceptual and scholarly understanding that people construct around experience. The lens through which these interrelationships are explored is phenomenology, both in terms of phenomenological theory per se and, more specifically, with theories related to performance and pedagogical process. The research question explores the relationship between the body, space/place and digital media through four cycles of participatory action research in which practice and theory are interrelated. The experience of (the body) in space and place is captured and re-created with digital media in the live performance space drawing attention to spatial and temporal anomalies that both de-stabilise and re-affirm what is it to be ‘now’ and ‘here.’ Ideas shift from the determined to the disintegrated, and the body moves between a critical engagement with experience and a pre-reflective and heightened consciousness of ‘being’ in performance – as maker, performer and viewer, and as learner, teacher and researcher. Answers to questions are replaced by gaps and spaces between – in which the known, the not known, and the imagined unfold and become exposed. Experiments shift from the body immersed in and subsumed by technology to the body, live (not mediatised) in performance, and again to the live as mediatised, exposing the phenomena that we encounter. Performance emerges as the body touched, sensed and multi-faceted in an in-between space of inter-relationships, inter-subjectivities and inter-medialities. The body is both fullness and void, coexistent and isolated – in suspense as it hovers and ‘is’ of all worlds. Investigations are devised and delivered, with students as co-researchers, through a teaching and learning model that guides and exposes, disrupts and transforms – creating a pedagogy of instability and discovery in order to reveal new and innovative performance

Supplier relationship management best practices applied to the manufacture of a helicopter airframe in China

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2009.Page 67 blank.Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-66).Sikorsky's recently begun program to manufacture the S-76 helicopter airframe at a supplier in China is examined as a case study of supplier relationship management. Best practices and key principles from the literature and other industry case studies are identified. Key concepts covered include: importance of product architecture and supplier strategic role on the appropriate type of supplier relationship to develop; the different stages of relationship management; the concept of making investments in a supplier relationship as a way of achieving desired relationship closeness; the importance of geography and culture on foreign supplier relationships. The best practices and principles are then used to analyze Sikorsky's performance in the China S- 76 airframe program to date. It is found that while Sikorsky is engaged in several key supplier relationship management activities, significant improvement could be made by more carefully considering how to overcome geographic and cultural distance and by making decisions about relationship investments in a more analytical way, with a focus on bottom-line financial impact. Finally, a generalized process for managing supplier relationships is developed. The six steps are: * Determine the appropriate relationship to develop with the supplier * Determine current supply chain proximity with the supplier * Determine stage of supplier relationship management and appropriate type of investments * Develop menu of relationship investment options * Determine the attractiveness of investment options * Select, prioritize and make investments.R. Jon King.S.M.M.B.A

Gender Differences in Personality Traits of Software Engineers

There is a growing body of gender studies in software engineering to understand diversity and inclusion issues, as diversity is recognized to be a key issue to healthy teams and communities. A second factor often linked to team performance is personality, which has received far more attention. Very few studies, however, have focused on the intersection of these two fields. Hence, we set out to study gender differences in personality traits of software engineers. Through a survey study we collected personality data, using the HEXACO model, of 483 software engineers. The data were analyzed using a Bayesian independent sample t-test and network analysis. The results suggest that women score significantly higher in Openness to Experience, Honesty-Humility, and Emotionality than men. Further, men show higher psychopathic traits than women. Based on these findings, we develop a number of propositions that can guide future research

Building technological capability within satellite programs in developing countries

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012.Vita. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.Global participation in space activity is growing as satellite technology matures and spreads. Countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are creating or reinvigorating national satellite programs. These countries are building local capability in space through technological learning. They sometimes pursue this via collaborative satellite development projects with foreign firms that provide training. This phenomenon of collaborative satellite development projects is poorly understood by researchers of technological learning and technology transfer. The approach has potential to facilitate learning, but there are also challenges due to misaligned incentives and the tacit nature of the technology. Perspectives from literature on Technological Learning, Technology Transfer, Complex Product Systems and Product Delivery provide useful but incomplete insight for decision makers in such projects. This work seeks a deeper understanding of capability building through collaborative technology projects by conceiving of the projects as complex, socio-technical systems with architectures. The architecture of a system is the assignment of form to execute a function along a series of dimensions. The research questions explore the architecture of collaborative satellite projects, the nature of capability building during such projects, and the relationship between architecture and capability building. The research design uses inductive, exploratory case studies to investigate six collaborative satellite development projects. Data collection harnesses international field work driven by interviews, observation, and documents. The data analysis develops structured narratives, architectural comparison and capability building assessment. The architectural comparison reveals substantial variation in project implementation, especially in the areas of project initiation, technical specifications of the satellite, training approaches and the supplier selection process. The individual capability building assessment shows that most trainee engineers gradually progressed from no experience with satellites through theoretical training to supervised experience; a minority achieved independent experience. At the organizational level, the emerging space organizations achieved high levels of autonomy in project definition and satellite operation, but they were dependent on foreign firms for satellite design, manufacture, test and launch. The case studies can be summarized by three archetypal projects defined as "Politically Pushed," "Structured," and "Risk Taking." Countries in the case studies tended to start in a Politically Pushed mode, and then moved into either Structured or Risk Taking mode. Decision makers in emerging satellite programs can use the results of this dissertation to consider the broad set of architectural options for capability building. Future work will continue to probe how specific architectural decisions impact capability building outcomes in satellite projects and other technologies.by Danielle Renee Wood.Ph.D