Papers for

community engagement teams

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Motivations that boost effort and lasting contributions in open source

Motivation and Contribution in Open Source Software: A Meta-Analytic Investigation

Abstract: Research on why people contribute to open source software (OSS) and related open collaboration platforms spans more than two decades, but its findings conflict, and studies often treat the work people contribute and their intention to keep contributing as interchangeable. Drawing on self-determination theory and motivation crowding theory, we meta-analyze 41 studies. The main analysis pools 178 correlations of eight antecedents with contribution effort and continuance intention from 29 independent samples (N = 9,632). Seven antecedents relate positively to effort, all eight relate positively to intention, and each relates at least as strongly to intention as to effort. Contrary to a common assumption, intrinsic motivation is not more strongly related to effort than extrinsic motivation, but its gap between intention and effort is larger. Reputation relates to effort mainly on platforms with a reputation system, and we find no sign that monetary rewards crowd out enjoyment. The findings inform how platforms can turn contributors' intentions into work.

Wed 21 OctHuman-Computer InteractionSoftware Engineering
The gist
People contribute to open source software for many reasons, but studies don't always agree about what motivates them or how motivation relates to the amount of work done. The authors combined results from 41 studies and found that all types of motivation they looked at help people keep wanting to contribute and actually put in effort. They also found that enjoying the work doesn’t always mean more work is done, and money does not reduce enjoyment. Knowing this helps platforms encourage contributors to turn their good intentions into real contributions.
Open → 2610.29199v1

Robots as social elements shaping human group experiences

A Robot Among People:From Social Imitation to the Social Becoming of Human Groups

Abstract: Robots designed to mediate human groups often fall into the solutionist trap: they are framed as sociable agents that fix problems such as conflict, disengagement, or lack of coordination. We suggest a different way of thinking. Rather than discrete agents, robots can be understood as situated elements of shared environments; catalysts and carriers of group experience whose meaning emerges through how people position, interpret, and interact with them. From this perspective, robots are not there to repair some ostensible dysfunctionality, but to enable group-level sense-making around care, norms, and identity. Our prior work on robotic street furniture suggests that this does not happen by imitating human sociality but by taking the shape of deliberately constrained, group-facing entities that happen and act for \textit{us} without being socially entangled as one of us. We thus understand robots in public spaces not in terms of autonomy or intelligence, but as a relational capacity. This implies designing robots not in our image or for our utility, but grounded in our needs in being and becoming together.

Fri 11 SeptRoboticsComputers and SocietyHuman-Computer Interaction
The gist
Sometimes robots are designed to fix problems between people, like stopping fights or helping people work together. This paper suggests a different idea: robots don’t need to copy humans exactly, but instead can act as parts of the environment that help groups understand each other better. The authors studied robots in public places and found that robots work best when they act for the group as a whole, not as another human. This helps groups create shared meanings about care, rules, and identity without the robot being a person.
Open → 2609.12937v1