3,625 research outputs found
Barriers and Self-Efficacy: A Large-Scale Study on the Impact of OSS Courses on Student Perceptions
Open source software (OSS) development offers a unique opportunity for
students in Software Engineering to experience and participate in large-scale
software development, however, the impact of such courses on students'
self-efficacy and the challenges faced by students are not well understood.
This paper aims to address this gap by analyzing data from multiple instances
of OSS development courses at universities in different countries and reporting
on how students' self-efficacy changed as a result of taking the course, as
well as the barriers and challenges faced by students
Eliminating Language Barriers for LEP Individuals: Promising Practices from the Public Sector
While the focus of this report is on eliminating language barriers for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals, any strategy to improve communications with this population must also include English learning and address the shortage of high-quality English as a Second Language (ESL) courses for adults. State-administered ESL programs currently serve only about a million of the estimated 12.4 million LEP adults in the United States who need language instruction. The underfunding of ESL programs means that large numbers of immigrant adults who wish to learn English are unable to enroll in classes or face overcrowded classrooms. For instance, a 2006 national survey of ESL providers found that 57 percent of these programs maintained waiting lists -- ranging from a few weeks to more than three years -- and could not accommodate the high numbers of immigrants interested in learning English. Policy experts and organizations that work with adult English learners have proposed various strategies to increase the availability of high-quality ESL courses, but lack of political support at the national level -- coupled with the current fiscal crisis -- has weakened efforts to help immigrants improve their English skills
Overcoming Poverty through Digital Inclusion
A growing body of research is showing how digital inclusion can help communities overcome poverty and injustice. The main challenge lies in how best to achieve this goal. The authors argue that digital inclusion must occur in two distinct stages. The first stage is digital literacy, accomplished with the Symbiotic Computer (SC)-smartphones and tablets. The second stage will be professional capacity-building, accomplished with the more traditional Personal Computer (PC)
Why Modern Open Source Projects Fail
Open source is experiencing a renaissance period, due to the appearance of
modern platforms and workflows for developing and maintaining public code. As a
result, developers are creating open source software at speeds never seen
before. Consequently, these projects are also facing unprecedented mortality
rates. To better understand the reasons for the failure of modern open source
projects, this paper describes the results of a survey with the maintainers of
104 popular GitHub systems that have been deprecated. We provide a set of nine
reasons for the failure of these open source projects. We also show that some
maintenance practices -- specifically the adoption of contributing guidelines
and continuous integration -- have an important association with a project
failure or success. Finally, we discuss and reveal the principal strategies
developers have tried to overcome the failure of the studied projects.Comment: Paper accepted at 25th International Symposium on the Foundations of
Software Engineering (FSE), pages 1-11, 201
Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers
The maintenance and evolution of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS)
projects demand the constant attraction of core developers. In this paper, we
report the results of a survey with 52 developers, who recently became core
contributors of popular GitHub projects. We reveal their motivations to assume
a key role in FLOSS projects (e.g., improving the projects because they are
also using it), the project characteristics that most helped in their
engagement process (e.g., a friendly community), and the barriers faced by the
surveyed core developers (e.g., lack of time of the project leaders). We also
compare our results with related studies about others kinds of open source
contributors (casual, one-time, and newcomers).Comment: Accepted at CHASE 2018: 11th International Workshop on Cooperative
and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (8 pages
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