FLOSS Communication Centralization Plot, Exponentially Weighted
Download WorkflowThe analysis in this workflow represents the basis of the analysis in our paper, Social dynamics of FLOSS team communication across channels. This workflow uses WSDL components to select periodized data from the FLOSSmole database and generate sociomatrices. The workflow parses the threaded list structure into a communication network based on reply-to relationships. In the analysis process, an edge weighting is applied so that older messages receive less weight using an exponential decay function; this is intended to moderate the effects of using a sliding window of observations for dynamic analysis. The weighted sociomatrices are then dichotomized according to a threshold, and their centralities are calculated using R's sna package, and plotted in a time series. The final output demonstrates communication centralization trends over time in a FLOSS project.
The analysis workflow allows users to set parameter values for the size of the sliding window, the date ranges covered, and the communication venues analyzed. Data for the analysis in the paper examined dynamics in different communication channels; the data sets included up to 90 periods (with a 90-day sliding window) and 10K's of email messages or forum posts. Date periods are currently only in months, and exception handling for empty periods is implemented both in the WSDL components and the RShell scripts. There are a couple of inelegant solutions involving temporary output files, which are configured based on a standard Mac file structure. Future development effort could focus on solving these issues and on optimizing performance.
Preview
Run
Run this Workflow in the Taverna Workbench...
Option 1:
Copy and paste this link into File > 'Open workflow location...'
http://www.myexperiment.org/workflows/144/download?version=1
[ More Info
]
Workflow Components
Workflow Type
Version 1 (earliest)
(of 4)
None
Log in to add Tags
Shared with Groups (1)
Statistics
Reviews
(0)
Other workflows that use similar services
(1)
FLOSS Communication Centralization Plot, U...
(2)
Created: 2009-02-07
Credits:
Andrea Wiggins
Crowston
James Howison
Log in to make a comment
We have made this workflow available to use with some FLOSSmole data. There is a list of the project names in the Project_list input metadata description that contains the data that are available for use as of 2/15/2008.
The project names are:
fire-tracker-feature-requests
fire-tracker-translations
fire-talk
fire-core
fire-development
gaim-cabal
gaim-devel
gaim-forum-users-helping-users
gaim-tracker-plugins
gaim-tracker-patches
gaim-tracker-smileys
gaim-tracker-rej-patches
Start and end dates are also required for using this workflow. The "active" project date ranges that we have chosen for the projects are:
Fire, 2001-08-16 (registry) through 2006-03-15 (one month following final release 1.5.6)
Gaim, 1999-11-13 (registry) through 2007-04-24 (when the project changed name to Pidgin and its lists moved)
Note that not all date ranges contain data for all venues; some were not active as early as others and some were ad-hoc communication venues (i.e. gaim-cabal).