Validity of network analyses in Open Source Projects

—Social network methods are frequently used to analyze networks derived from Open Source Project communication and collaboration data. Such studies typically discover patterns in the information flow between contributors or contributions in these projects. Social network metrics have also been used to predict defect occurrence. However, such studies often ignore or side-step the issue of whether (and in what way) the metrics and networks of study are influenced by inadequate or missing data. In previous studies email archives of OSS projects have provided a useful trace of the communication and co-ordination activities of the participants. These traces have been used to construct social networks that are then subject to various types of analysis. However, during the construction of these networks, some assumptions are made, that may not always hold; this leads to incomplete, and sometimes incorrect networks. The question then becomes, do these errors affect the validity of the ensu...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: MSR
• Authors: Roozbeh Nia, Christian Bird, Premkumar T. Devanbu, Vladimir Filkov
• Keywords: MSR 2010, Network Metrics, Social Network Metrics, Social Networks