Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
81 lines (47 loc) · 4.79 KB

open-source-survey.md

File metadata and controls

81 lines (47 loc) · 4.79 KB

Open Source Survey

Pattern Theme / Category

  • OSS Discovery
  • Community building

OSPO Problems / Challenges

  • A lack of up to date information on how much open source software is being produced in a university.

Context

A research university creating large volumes of research outputs across every discipline.

University policy allows research teams to release their software as open source without requiring institutional permission. This approach fosters innovation but results in limited visibility into the scope and impact of open source contributions across the university.

The lack of visibility makes it difficult for the OSPO to build community, foster collaboration, and contribute to the overall sustainability of open source efforts on campus.

Forces

Many labs and projects are expert practitioners in open source and open science. However, they may not be known or receiving due recognition outside of siloed networks within their university.

Researchers and development teams on open science/open source projects are overburdened and their needs have not been explored.

Solution

Develop and disseminate a campus-wide ‘Open Source Survey’ with the objectives of:

  • Gauging usage of open source tools amongst members of the university community.
  • Identifying open source projects under development.
  • Signposting the university to more relevant contacts.
  • Collecting feedback on improving the open source environment at the institution.
  • Understanding perceptions of open source on campus.

The survey captures a diverse range of respondents’ GitHub profiles, links to projects or other relevant OSS identifiers.

Resulting Context

The survey data enables the university to track OSS projects that had previously been unknown outside of their own silos/networks.

More open source / open science projects are also signposted as contacts by respondents.

Survey findings are used to inform and design services and resources based on users' needs.

The university is also able to incorporate the results into messaging about the importance of supporting open source activity in a research environment.

Additional Learning from University of Wisconsin-Madison OSPO

Our OSPO is hosted by the Data Science Institute. We capitalized on the priorities and skill sets of our colleagues there to assist in the discovery process. This led to the development of the campus-wide survey.

There were 300 responses to our survey. The results provided clear feedback on needs across campus. We shared results with user groups and stakeholders and used it as an opportunity to build relationships and promote the OSPO’s services.

We also recruited an outreach specialist to contact people identified through initial introductory calls and through the campus-wide OS survey.

Additional Learning from University of California Santa Barbara

Our survey is still in progress and specifically targets developers and contributors. We're working in collaboration with the Office of Research (OR). The OR is an important partner as they are also responsible for maintaining researcher biobibs which contain listings of all research products.

Known Instances

References

Contributor(s) & Acknowledgment

In alphabetical order:

The UW-Madison Open Source Survey was inspired by a needs assessment survey conducted by the NYU Science and Software Services (DS3), an open source survey conducted by UW-Madison DSI Director Kyle Cranmer, which was produced at the University of Washington.