Developing a long-term strategy for volunteer retention in open-source project teams

Allison Wright

doi:10.17918/00001695

Open Source Design Practices (OSDP) have value in contributing knowledge to the design community. OSDP allows information to freely flow without the limitations of traditional academic practices. The most vital component of OSPD is the people who come together to create the projects: the volunteers. Volunteers can derive many benefits from participating in OPSD, such as social networking and skill building. This paper looks at the systemic issues that have challenged the wider adaptation of open source into the practice of the mainstream design community. One reason that Open Source projects may fail to generate momentum to completion is the lack of acknowledgment that volunteers receive for their participation and contribution to given projects. Open Source projects often lack financial incentives and require other forms of recognition such as intangible value for social interactions among members. Literature in direct relation to Open Source is new and limited in scope. The project goal is to test and experiment with tools that will assist in building community and connections that can be sustained in the OSDP community. The approach to this problem began with the analysis of process value in relation to the field of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. A group of dedicated Industrial and Organizational psychologists, (Allee, 2015) have written extensively on the importance of identifying value in group participation. Their research emphasizes that projects must build strong value networks in the form of social capital and knowledge exchange. The project approach, building on the literature examined, is to develop an interactive tool to assist project leaders in the identification of the skills each project participant brings to an Open Source development team. Susan Leigh Star defines boundary objects as "scientific objects which both inhabit several communities of practice and satisfy the informational requirements of each of them. Boundary objects are thus objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites" (Star, 2015). The goal is to develop knowledge into a social network web through the development of a collaborative tool or boundary object. Through an analytical process, active participant skills are mapped to create a formal Social Network Analysis (SNA). This process could uncover possible unidentified social and knowledge capital. Once identified and represented, I anticipate that project leads will be able to use this information to match participants who have knowledge of a particular skill with those who want to acquire those skills. Over the course of a project, this will help build a social network, which will strengthen group cohesion and sustain volunteer engagement.

Developing a long-term strategy for volunteer retention in open-source project teams

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Developing a long-term strategy for volunteer retention in open-source project teams

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