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Thesis Defence: The Alchemy of OSS: Transforming Chats into Insights Using Sentiment, Emotion and Topic Analysis of Mentor-mentee Communications in Google Summer of Code
August 29 at 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Erfan Raoofian, supervised by Dr. Fatemeh Fard and Dr. Gema Rodriguez-Perez, will defend their thesis titled “The Alchemy of OSS: Transforming Chats into Insights Using Sentiment, Emotion and Topic Analysis of Mentor-mentee Communications in Google Summer of Code” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science.
An abstract for Erfan Raoofian’s thesis is included below.
Defences are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Registration is not required for in person defences.
ABSTRACT
Open Source Software (OSS) ecosystems function as the digital infrastructure upon which numerous applications and services are built. The role of human factors like diversity, inclusion, and teamwork is well-known to be essential for the growth and longevity of Open Source Software (OSS) communities in Software Engineering (SE). Central to the sustainability and growth of OSS ecosystems is the effective integration and retention of new contributors. This thesis examines the role-specific dynamics of mentors and mentees in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program through the analysis of the OpenMent dataset. OpenMent is a comprehensive compilation of over 500 thousand issue and pull request comments and commit messages from GitHub, that is curated as part of this thesis. By applying sentiment and emotion analysis, topic modeling, and temporal analysis of communication data between mentors and mentees, this study examines how these interactions evolve over the program’s duration and influence mentees contributions to OSS.
Significant findings from this research highlight the key role of early engagement in technical aspects and how mentor-mentee communications impact mentee contributions on GitHub projects. Differences in the communication patterns between mentors and mentees across various stages of GSoC indicates the importance of targeted support to mentors and mentees. By providing insights into the dynamics of mentorship in OSS, this thesis contributes valuable recommendations for improving mentorship frameworks, with the aim of stimulating a more robust and inclusive OSS community.
