Shared Mental Models among Open Source Software Developers

1 Shared understandings are important for software development as they guide to effective individual contributions to, and coordination of, the software development process. In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary analysis on shared mental models within Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Based on structuration theory and by adopting cognitive mapping and process analysis, we represented and compared the mental models of some developers of the Lucene Java project. Our analysis suggests that there is a high-level of sharing among core developers but the sharing is not complete, with some differences related to tenure in the project.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: HICSS
• Authors: Barbara Scozzi, Kevin Crowston, U. Yeliz Eseryel, Qing Li
• Keywords: Biometrics, Effective Individual Contributions, HICSS 2008, Mental Models, Software Development, System Sciences