Submission 4 (Survey/Short)

[opencert]

Title: A Survey of Learning Methods in Open Source Software

Abstract: Open source software (OSS) is usually developed by heterogeneous groups of people, each with their own interests, motivations and abilities. Therefore, it is important to establish the best software development and contributing practices early in the life-time of the project. Such practices should foster contributors' involvement in the open-source project as quickly as possible. The sustainability of an OSS project is heavily based on the underlying community of contributors and on the knowledge and skills they bring to the project and they acquire and develop through their participation in the project and interaction with the project community. Therefore, identifying and investigating contributors' learning processes is an important research area in OSS. This survey paper presents an overview of open source learning methods in order to explore how community interaction impacts the development and application of OSS learning processes in other areas, especially in education. It is argued that collaboration with peers and consistent code contributions result in learning progress in OSS. Typical research in this area is based on case by case analysis, whereas this survey will try to highlight and combine the outcomes of several research contributions from the literature. OpenCERT_2019_paper_4.pdf

[luis-sb]

I will review this paper Luis Barbosa

[sdepaoli]

I will review this paper Stefano De Paoli

[michelafazzolari]

I will review this paper Michela Fazzolari

[opencert]

Assigned PC members:

• Luis Barbosa
• Stefano De Paoli
• Michela Fazzolari
• Soumaya Ben Dhaou

[sksowe]

I would like to have a look at this paper

[SoumayaBD]

I will review this paper Soumaya

[luis-sb]

The paper provides an interesting overview of the learning potential of OSS communities. Two suggestions:

• On section 4, I was expecting more on the "how to apply such methods to other areas, especially to education”, rather than just discussing how bringing OSS into formal classes provides an advantage of effective learning experiences. In the first, broader sense, I believe there is a lot of work in Education studies on collaboration, peer-to-peer learning assessment, etc. that, not referring explicitly to OSS, do use similar pedagogical principles. May be this could be further explored in a survey.

• Also on page 4, paper [a] reports on the use of OSS in a MSc class for pre-service teachers in Informatics (in the context of an Education Faculty).

[a] Sara Fernandes, Maria Helena Martinho, Antonio Cerone, Luís Soares Barbosa: "Integrating Formal and Informal Learning through a FLOSS-Based Innovative Approach". CRIWG 2013: Springer LNCS VOL 8224, pp 208-214, 2013

luis

[sdepaoli]

Some initial comments, more can/will follow.

The paper is well written and informative, but it could be better grounded with additional considerations. I see the relevance of the distinction between formal and informal learning, but I would suggest this is not the only distinction which may be relevant.

Learning in organisations (including FOSS communities) is a big topic and this area could provide other coordinates to organise the existing work on learning in FOSS. One distinction is whether the learning process is based on acquiring notions or if instead it is practice-based (learning by doing). Because of the hands-on "philosophy" of FOSS, it would seem that there is a practice-based learning process in place, which is not acknowledged in the paper and it is not capture by the "informal learning approach" either. This can be seen in Section 4, when you talk about the Applications of the methods. You make the example of students at a University required to make contributions to project of increasing complexity. This, whilst being formal, looks like a hands-on approach (practice based). The same could be captured by the notion of Communities of Practice, where you have people learning together in a learning-by-doing and trial and error fashion.

The paper would be much stronger if there was an acknowledgement of these aspects I feel.

An overlooked aspects in the paper is how existing documentations/guidelines/licenses/code etc. in projects can drive learning. I would think that learning is not something that happens just in the "head" of learners, but is is also something that relates strongly to the existing material artifacts of a FOSS project. It is the interaction between learners and the "material" aspects of a FOSS project. In section 3.3 you kind of take this approach, when you describe the role of e.g. communication tools in the learning process. But you do not seem to acknowledge that the project tools (whether textual or software) also bring the same dynamics.

[SoumayaBD]

The paper is well written, easy to read and well balanced between the 3 main parts. The topic is interesting and relevant to the workshops. Some suggestions below to improve the quality of the contributions:

• The authors provide a definition of the key concepts used throughout the paper. However, the references to these definitions are often not provided (Example part 2 "formal learning", "informal learning"
• In the introduction, you mention that you will present an overview of the learning process ... but you don't explain in which purpose and how you will do it. It is important to specify it and/or to explain your contribution or to position your paper comparatively to the existing literature.
• The introduction is also missing how the paper is organized You didn't explain or justified why you are focusing specifically on the formal and informal methods of learning or why you are excluding others.
• A short introduction/conclusion at the beginning and the end of part 3 will help the reader understand your objective and what you concluded from this overview to be consistent.
• Part 4 is confusing: From the title, we assume that there will be an application in the education field of what you have observed in the literature but is not really the case. The link (or transition) between paragraph (2-3) and 4 is not clearly defined It is not a literature review of what has been done in the research, neither an examination of the knowledge transfer from the OSS field to the education field. Also, you are stating that there is a "big opportunity" but you don't justify or support your statement and you select the most "obvious" application. Then you indicate that "some studies provide evidence of success..." but they are not cited. The last paragraph should be at the beginning and be developed further and probably will be useful to better organize this last section
• Finally, the conclusion could better describe the contribution of the paper, the limitations and the future steps or research.

[AntonioCerone]

Dear Reviewers, thank you very much for your comments. We will try to take them into account in the revised version to be submitted by Sunday. However, given the holiday period communication and coordination between the co-authors is difficult. If the paper is accepted, whatever has not been addressed in Sunday's revision will be considered in the preparation of the camera-ready version.

Antonio Cerone

[rhcu]

Thanks a lot for the comments and for suggesting the possible ways of improving the paper. It is very valuable for us. Regards, Assiya Khuzyakhmetova

[AntonioCerone]

Dear Reviewers, please find attached the revised version of our paper. We have tried to take into account your comments as much as possible.

In particular, we have:

• revised the introduction, also including a final paragraph that illustrates the organisation of the paper;
• better clarified in Section 2 the distinction between informal and formal learning, also adding new references;
• added a short introduction at the beginning of Section 3 and revised Section 3.3;
• revised, re-organised and expanded Section 4, also adding new references;
• completed Section 5 by adding the last two paragraphs on the limitations and the future steps.

opencert-2019.pdf

We will further revise the paper, if accepted, after the end of this holiday period, when communications among the co-authors will be easier. Thank you very much for your understanding.

Antonio Cerone

[opencert]

Camera-ready version for the post-proceedings. paper_4.pdf