Localized open source software projects: Exploring realism and motivation
Kevin Buffardi · 2016
To address a gap between traditional software engineering projects and professional software products and practices, we established an organization for student collaboration with local software professionals on open source projects. We explored how experiences with this local organization compared to different domains and approaches to improving software engineering project realism. Software engineering students worked in small teams on different types of projects that also included: internal products for a company in industry, humanitarian open source software, and entrepreneurial projects. We identified both strengths and weaknesses of each project type's realism. In addition, we explored students' motivations and discovered trends among underrepresented minorities' preferences.