A proposal
September 21, 2008
I will be looking through prior literature on what has already been done in digital artifacts of open source projects and I intend to describe this literature in the form of a narrative.
A proposal
I am in the middle of altering my research topic slightly, and it is this alteration and the result of it that I will make the subject of my project. I will be looking through prior literature on what has already been done in the area I intend to work in and I intend to describe this literature in the form of a narrative of my research process as I move from my current broad conception of the topic to my concrete research statement. I’ll do this in the form of an e-book (if I’m feeling ambitious) or as a website (if I’m feeling practical).
As I’ve said before, what I’m looking to do with my research is develop software that can help to reveal knowledge about who holds various kinds of power in an organization, over whom they exert that power, and in what way. I want to share that knowledge equally with everyone in the organization so that both the organization and the individuals in it can see clearly the nature of the landscape they act in. Fundamentally, I’ll be writing software to analyze the digital artifacts of communication and collaboration: e-mail archives, forum archives, chat logs, software changelogs and version control commit logs.
To avoid the ethical issues of working with a traditional organization, where my work would necessarily involve compromising confidentiality and personal privacy, I’ve chosen recently to refocus on open source software projects, who conduct all their business in public forums.
A tentative title for my work might be: “Digital archaeology of social spaces: revealing social structure of open source software communities through examination of public artifacts.”
