Supporting Knowledge Collaboration in Software Development

an APSEC 2005 workshop

Supporting Knowledge Collaboration in Software Development
Dec. 17 (Sat.), 2005
Room 108, The Grand Hotel, Taipei, Taiwan

Program

10:20 - 10:30
	Introduction
10:30 - 11:10
	Please STeP_IN: A Socio-Technical Platform for in situ Networking
	Yoshiyuki Nishinaka, SRA Key Technology Lab
	Mistsuhiro Asada, SRA Key Technology Lab
	Yamamoto Yasuhiro, University of Tokyo
	Yunwen Ye, SRA Key Technology Lab & University of Colorado at Boulder
11:10 - 11:50
	CoxR: Open Source Development History Search System
	Makoto Matsushita, Osaka University
	Kei Sasaki, Osaka University
	Katsuro Inoue, Osaka University
11:50 - 12:00
	Managing Trust in Collaborative Software Development
	Haoyang Che, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Science
	Dongdong Zhao, Dalian University of Technology

12:00 - 13:30
	Lunch Break

13:30 - 14:10
	Understanding the Nature of Collaboration in Open-Source Software Development
	Kumiyo Nakakoji, University of Tokyo
	Kazuaki Yamada, University of Tokyo
	Elisa Giaccardi, University of Colorado at Boulder
14:10 - 14:50
	Supporting Knowledge Collaboration Using Social Networks in a Large-Scale Online Community of Software Development Projects
	Masao Ohira, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
	Tetsuya Ohoka, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
	Takeshi Kakimoto, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
	Naoki Ohsugi, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
	Ken'ichi Matsumoto, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
14:50 - 15:00
	The Functions to Be Prepared for SNS
	Masahiko Ishikawa, Software Research Associates, Inc.
15:00 - 15:10
	Summary

Overview

As an inherently knowledge-intensive and distributed cognitive activity, software development requires extensive knowledge from a wide range of domains and sources. Because few software developers have all the knowledge needed for developing complex software systems, collaboration has become an essential aspect of software development. Collaboration includes not only the collaborative production of software systems, but also the transfer of knowledge among software developers and the collaborative creation of new knowledge that is needed for the development of software systems. The objective of this workshop is to create a deeper understanding on knowledge collaboration involved in the development of complex and evolving software systems by bringing together researchers and practitioners in the Asian-Pacific software engineering community who have shared interest and concerns in various aspects of supporting knowledge collaboration in software development.

The workshop will be discussion-oriented. It will be divided into four sessions, each of which focuses on one specific topic (see below for details). Each session features a major presenter who presents a full research paper, several position paper presenters, and a discussant, who comments and counters ideas made by presenters as well as coordinates the discussion. Major presenters and discussants are invited from leading researchers in that topic area, and position paper presenters will be selected based on submitted position papers.

A position paper may describe visions or predictions, new perspectives, research experience, or emerging research questions on one of the four major topics of the workshop. Position papers will be selected based on relevance, novelty, and insight. We especially encourage the submission of provoking or unconventional ideas that can lead to lively and productive discussions and inspire new research ideas and directions.

Participants in this workshop can expect to gain an improved understanding on the theoretical, social, technological and practical issues related to knowledge collaboration in software development, to collaboratively explore open issues and define new research agenda in this emerging research direction in software engineering. The workshop will reflect upon what we have achieved over the years especially in the Asian-Pacific software engineering community, assess and compare existing knowledge management and collaboration theories and solutions by stressing specially the influence of Eastern epistemological theories. It will also provide a venue for like-minded researchers establish contacts and therefore potential research collaborations within Asian-Pacific area.

Format and Submission of Position Paper

A position paper may not exceed two pages, and should be prepared according to the IEEE proceeding format. Please submit your paper before Sept. 27, 2005 in either PS or PDF by sending emails to yunwen@cs.colorado.edu.
Instructions of the IEEE format can be found at http://www.tinmith.net.tabletop2006/IEEE/Format/instruct.htm

Four Major Research Topics

Socio-Technical Issues for Knowledge Acquisition and Transfer: The development of software is no longer confined to an individual software developer but has to rely on distributed cognition by reaching into a complex networked world of information and computer mediated collaboration. Easy access to external information and peer collaboration is thus an important factor that affects software development. This session will discuss the technical and social issues in providing timely access to the external information, knowledge, and collaboration that compensate the inevitable insufficiency of an individual developerÕs knowledge.
Tracing Collaboration Processes in OSS Development: Open Source Software is developed collaboratively by many developers dispersed all over the world. Understanding the collaboration and communication processes among OSS developers can shed light on the creation of better support tools for collaborative software engineering. This session will discuss different analytic angles and mechanisms to trace the collaboration processes among developers by analyzing and using various latent relationships among software developers, source code, email archives, version management repositories, and bug reporting and tracking systems.
Idiosyncrasy in Collaborative Software Development: Despite the wide spread of new styles of collaborative software development, such as open-source software development and pair-programming, we still do not have a clear understanding of how and why they work better than traditional styles, and how they are different from collaboration in other fields. The discussion of this session will focus on: what is so special and not so special about collaboration in software development, and where certain styles of collaboration work or do not work by comparing with other kinds of collaboration styles in other fields. The session will explore both theoretical and empirical accounts for describing these phenomena as well as to identify idiosyncratic nature of software development as a collaborative knowledge task.
Social Networks for Knowledge Collaboration: In software development that requires new and diverse knowledge, not only knowledge repositories that accumulate, share, and exploit past knowledge but also knowledge networks that connect various developers who possess relevant knowledge are needed. Because knowledge networks piggyback on social networks, creating, using, and maintaining social networks becomes an important step toward successful knowledge collaboration. The aim of the session is to foster a better understanding on social networks for the purpose of supporting knowledge collaboration by discussing theories on dynamics of social networks, technology for creating and managing social networks, motivational aspect of participation in social networks, and visualization of social networks.

Organizers

Kouichi Kishida
SRA Key Technology Laboratory
3-12 Yotsuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo 160-0004, Japan
Tel:+81-3-3357-9011 Fax:+81-3351-0880
Email: k2@sra.co.jp

Yunwen Ye
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO80309
Tel:+1-303-492-3547 Fax:+1-303-492-2844
Email: yunwen@colorado.edu

Important Dates

Sept. 27, 2005: Position paper due
Oct. 20, 2005: Notification of acceptance
Dec. 17, 2005: Workshop