Das Potenzial der Wissensentdeckung in Daten wird häufig nicht ausgenutzt, was hauptsächlich auf Barrieren zwischen dem Entwicklerteam und dem Endnutzer des Data-Mining zurückzuführen ist. In dieser Arbeit wird ein transparenter Ansatz zum Beschreiben und Erklären von Daten für Entscheidungsträger vorgestellt. In Entscheidungsträger-zentrierten Aufgaben werden die Projektanforderungen definiert und die Ergebnisse zu einer Geschichte zusammengestellt. Eine Anforderung besteht dabei aus einem tabellarischen Bericht und ggf. Mustern in seinem Inhalt, jeweils verständlich für einen Entscheidungsträger. Die technischen Aufgaben bestehen aus einer Datenprüfung, der Integration der Daten in einem Data-Warehouse sowie dem Generieren von Berichten und dem Entdecken von Mustern wie in den Anforderungen beschrieben. Mehrere Data-Mining-Projekte können durch Wissensmanagement sowie eine geeignete Infrastruktur voneinander profitieren. Der Ansatz wurde in zwei Projekten unter Verwendung von ausschließlich Open-Source-Software angewendet. / Despite high potential of data mining in business and science many projects fail due to barriers between the developer team and the end user. In this work a more transparent approach to describing and explaining data to a decision-maker is presented. In decision-maker-centric tasks project requirements are defined and finally the results composed to a story. A requirement is made of a tabular report and possibly patterns in its data, each understandable to a decision-maker. The technical tasks consist of a data assay, the integration of data within a data warehouse and, as required, the creation of reports and the discovery of patterns. Multiple data mining projects benefit from each other through knowledge management and a common infrastructure. The approach has been applied to two projects exclusively using open source systems.

SALOME est une plate-forme générique Open Source de Pré-Post traitement destinée à être spécialisée pour y intégrer des codes de calcul existants. Elle intègre plusieurs modules dans une architecture de composants distribués. Notre mission dans le cadre du projet SALOME a été la conception et la mise en œuvre technologique du module DATA, dédié à la description des propriétés physiques.En ce sens, nous avons réalisé un nouveau langage dédié à la description des modèles de données physiques : le SPML (SALOME Physics Modelling Language). Un métamodèle dédié à la description des propriétés physiques offre au langage SPML sa base sémantique. Pour réaliser une partie commune de communication entre des modèles représentant différents domaines de la physique, il a été développé un Modèle de Données Commun, matérialise par une librairie SPML réutilisable. La réalisation de l'IHM, notamment l'adaptation automatique de l'interface graphique aux modèles physiques décrits en SPML, font du module DATA un outil performant, qui permet une adaptation facile de la plate-forme, pour tout domaine de la physique. Nous avons réalisé une première connexion du solveur Flux, dans le cadre de la plate-forme pour des analyses magnétostatiques sur des problèmes décrits en SALOME.

Ce travail de recherche porte sur la conception de Logiciels libres et Open Source (LOS), vue comme une nouvelle forme d'organisation du travail basée sur : des collectifs communautaires ouverts à la participation volontaire d'utilisateurs ; un processus de conception continu ; une distribution de la conception dans trois espaces d'activité sur Internet (espaces de discussion, de documentation et d'implémentation). <br />L'apport méthodologique de ce travail consiste à analyser des traces contextuelles d'un processus de conception du projet Python, le Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP), et ceci dans des perspectives synchronique (centrée sur des discussions en ligne PEPs) et diachronique (centrée sur l'évolution d'une proposition PEP dans les trois espaces d'activité). Nous avons adopté une méthodologie originale combinant des analyses structurelles des listes de discussion du projet, l'une orientée usage et l'autre orientée conception (p.ex. représentation des discussions) à des analyses de contenu de ces listes (p.ex. activités collaboratives de conception), ainsi que des analyses des traces des espaces de documentation et d'implémentation et des entretiens.<br />Concernant l'organisation de la conception de l'artefact dans les trois espaces d'activité, nous montrons que la liste orientée usage et la liste orientée conception sont spécialisées, en termes de phases du processus de conception et d'activités qui y ont lieu. De même, nous montrons les relations qui lient les actions dans les listes (espace de discussion) avec les actions dans les deux autres espaces d'activités (implémentation, documentation). Les discussions de conception sont focalisées et marquées par des moments d'échange quasi-synchrones, traduisant la présence de règles implicites encadrant les discussions. Enfin, la répartition des activités collaboratives de conception et des séquences d'activités est similaire à celle mise en évidence dans d'autres études concernant les réunions de conception en face à face.<br />Concernant ce qui constitue le collectif de conception, nous montrons que la communauté des concepteurs de Python est constituée de réseaux de conception locaux associant des membres provenant de diverses communautés d'utilisateurs, autour d'un noyau dur de développeurs. Dans ce collectif de conception, la participation est basée sur les rôles effectivement tenus par les participants, plus que sur leurs statuts (utilisateurs vs. développeurs). Notre analyse montre que les rôles cognitifs (génération-évaluation de solutions de conception) et épistémiques (clarification) sont pris en charge par l'ensemble des participants, y compris les utilisateurs. Des profils de participants spécifiques apparaissent néanmoins. Le chef de projet et les personnes proposant les nouvelles fonctionnalités (les champions) ont un profil d'animateur du processus de conception, caractérisé par un rôle de coordination, par un rôle interactif (gestion de l'interaction) central dans les discussions, et parfois par un rôle socio-relationnel (relations interpersonnelles). Des profils d'acteurs d'interface, articulant usage et conception, apparaissent comme des participants clés pour la performance du processus de conception. Ils se caractérisent par un rôle interactif basé sur la participation croisée, entre les listes orientées usage et conception, et une position centrale dans les discussions. Ils ont également un rôle épistémique basé sur des apports de connaissances spécifiques quant aux domaines d'application de la conception, et enfin un rôle de soutien du champion de la proposition. <br />Ces résultats peuvent fonder la spécification d'outils permettant de favoriser la participation aux projets LOS, en dépassant diverses barrières (p.ex. coût temporel d'intégration dans un projet) et en soutenant la construction et le maintien de la conscience du projet (conscience du processus de conception et conscience sociale).

L'open source a provoqué de profondes mutations industrielles. L'ampleur et l'intensité de ce phénomène exige une révision conceptuelle de bon nombre d'objets en sciences de gestion. Cette thèse aborde l'étude de l'impact des logiciels libres et synthétise les principaux enjeux de leur diffusion. Nous montrons tout d'abord que le modèle racine à l'origine du premier logiciel libre est issu de la combinaison inédite entre un système de solidarité et un processus de production distribué. Ensuite, nous décrivons les nouvelles interactions entre l'activité marchande et non-marchande donnant naissance à des formes organisationnelles originales et inédites. Puis, nous détaillons la manière dont ces logiciels sont utilisés comme composants génériques par des groupes industriels dans le but de générer de la valeur. Nous décrivons également d'autres stratégies consistant à utiliser divers mécanismes technologiques afin de contourner les règles des licences. Enfin, nous suggérons que les innovations créées par les organisations de l'open source visent principalement à combler les défaillances du système marchand.

<p>Purpose: The objective of this study is to illustrate how participants in leaderless based projects communicate with each other. Several studies have focused on technology-supported projects, such as open source projects, with an established project manager and goal. There is a lack, to the best of our knowledge, in studies that deal with the communication pattern in a leaderless computer supported collaborative project.</p><p>Method: We have chosen to use a quantitative method where we systematically group several messages according to their content. This method was used in a similar study to illustrate the communication between participants involved in an open source project. We have taken the same Kripendorff based method and adapted it to our study by adding more descriptive variables.</p><p>Theoretical perspectives: Manuel Castell discusses the aspects of a new communication power that is rooted in the individual as part of a larger creative audience. The collaborative works we have studies are prime examples of how the creative audience works together and of mass self‐communication. In order to analyze the potential motivations behind the participant’s involvement in these collaborative works, we have adopted the ideas of Preece and Shneidermans frame theory. They have identified 4 major roles in most onlinebased co‐operations and refer to them as reader, contributor, collaborator and leader.</p><p>Result: Our results show that the communication in computer supported collaborative works is characterized by positive and energetic communication. The participants are all involved by their own will; they contribute because they want to. We believe this to be the major factor influencing the flow and form of communication between the participants. The majority of posts are comments to other participants or contributing posts that add to the progression of the discourse. We also have reason to believe that the use of smileys and embedded pictures is related to the tools available to the participants; the quicker and easier it is to add a picture the more likely the participants will use these tools.</p>

Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) communities often use open bug reporting to allow users to participate by reporting bugs. This practice can lead to more duplicate reports, as inexperienced users can be less rigorous about researching existing bug reports. The purpose of this research is to determine the extent of this problem, and how FOSS projects deal with duplicate bug reports. We examined 12 FOSS projects: 4 small, 4 medium and 4 large, where size was determined by number of code contributors. First, we found that contrary to what has been reported from studies of individual large projects like Mozilla and Eclipse, duplicate bug reports are a problem for FOSS projects, especially medium-sized projects. These medium sized projects struggle with a large number of submissions and duplicates without the resources large projects use for dealing with these. Second, we found that the focus of a project does not affect the number of duplicate bug reports. Our findings point to a need for additional scaffolding and training for bug reporters of all types. Finally, we examine the impact that automatic crash reporting has on these bug repositories. These systems are quickly gaining in popularity and aim to help end-users submit vital bug information to the developers. These tools generate stack traces and memory dumps from software crashes and package these up so end-users can submit them to the project with a single mouse-click. We examined Mozilla's automatic crash reporting systems, Breakpad and Socorro, to determine how these integrate with the open bug reporting process, and whether they add to the confusion of duplicate bug reports. We found that though initial adoption exhibited teething troubles, these systems add significant value and knowledge, though the signal to noise ratio is high and the number of bugs identified per thousand reports is low. / Graduation date: 2012

Open Source Software (OSS) communities are homogenous and their lack of diversity is of concern to many within this field. This problem is becoming more pronounced as it is the practice of many technology companies to use OSS participation as a factor in the hiring process, disadvantaging those who are not a part of this community. We should expect that any field would have a population that reflects the general population given no constraints. The constraints within OSS are documented as being a hostile environment for women and minorities to participate in. Additionally OSS communities rely predominately on volunteers to create and maintain source code, documentation, and user interface as well as the organizational structure of the project. The volunteer nature of OSS projects creates a need for an ongoing pool of participants. This research addresses the lack of diversity along with the continual need for new members by developing a pedagogical paradigm that uses a collaborative environment to promote participation in an OSS project by diverse students. This collaborative environment used a Communities of Practice (CoP) framework to design the course, the indicators of which were used to operationalize the collaboration. The outcomes of this course not only benefit the students by providing them with skills necessary to continue participation and experience for getting a job, but also provide a diverse pool of volunteers for the OSS community. This diverse pool shows promise of creating a more diverse culture within OSS. In the development of this pedagogical paradigm this research looked primarily at student���s perception of the importance of their group members and mentors provided to guide their participation in and contribution to an OSS community. These elements were used to facilitate the formation of a CoP. Self-efficacy was also used as a measure; an increase in self-efficacy is associated with the successful formation of a CoP. Finally the intent to continue, as reported by students, was measured to determine the potential contribution to the OSS community overall. This research was designed to use collaboration to support the formation of a CoP within the groups formed between students based on common interests in the OSS project. Additionally students were provided with a mentor from the community to assist in finding paths to contribute. The Ubuntu project was chosen for its commitment to diversity and its reputation for being a welcoming environment to newcomers, reducing the risk of negative community interactions for students. Written reflections were gathered at mid and end of term and used in conjunction with transcripts or reports of group meetings as well as emails between mentors and mentees. Additionally self-efficacy was measured at the beginning and end of the term. The results of this study show that this pedagogical paradigm supports student contribution. Contribution levels were found to be associated with the level of the formation of a CoP within each group and the use of mentors, as well as attending a live, hands-on bug triage demo and the Global Jam, to gather resources. It was also evident that students intend to continue participating at a rate higher than the average rate for newcomers trying to contribute without the type of support offered by this class. Further research into the examination of the use of reflective dialogue with mentors is recommended. It is also recommended that the results from the operationalization of the indicators of the formation of a CoP be used to assist in a more consistent formation of this important resource across more groups within the class. The results of this research point to the effectiveness of this paradigm to promote contributions to an OSS community. These contributions provide the skills students need to improve their attractiveness to future employers. This class also produced a number of students who intend to continue participating in OSS, providing a diverse pool of potential volunteers to the OSS community. / Graduation date: 2013

Thesis (M.Ing. (Nuclear Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

This paper seeks to describe the process by which a database-centric web application was redesigned and rewritten to take advantage of Apache’s Lucene - an open-source information retrieval software library written in the Java programming language. After the implementation of a Lucene-based text index of “semi-structured data”, a college radio station's card catalog application was able to deliver higher-quality search results in significantly less time than it was able to do using just a relational database alone. Additionally, the dramatic improvements in speed and performance even allowed the search results interface to be redesigned and enhanced with an improved pagination system and new features such as faceted search/filtering.

Purpose: The objective of this study is to illustrate how participants in leaderless based projects communicate with each other. Several studies have focused on technology-supported projects, such as open source projects, with an established project manager and goal. There is a lack, to the best of our knowledge, in studies that deal with the communication pattern in a leaderless computer supported collaborative project. Method: We have chosen to use a quantitative method where we systematically group several messages according to their content. This method was used in a similar study to illustrate the communication between participants involved in an open source project. We have taken the same Kripendorff based method and adapted it to our study by adding more descriptive variables. Theoretical perspectives: Manuel Castell discusses the aspects of a new communication power that is rooted in the individual as part of a larger creative audience. The collaborative works we have studies are prime examples of how the creative audience works together and of mass self‐communication. In order to analyze the potential motivations behind the participant’s involvement in these collaborative works, we have adopted the ideas of Preece and Shneidermans frame theory. They have identified 4 major roles in most onlinebased co‐operations and refer to them as reader, contributor, collaborator and leader. Result: Our results show that the communication in computer supported collaborative works is characterized by positive and energetic communication. The participants are all involved by their own will; they contribute because they want to. We believe this to be the major factor influencing the flow and form of communication between the participants. The majority of posts are comments to other participants or contributing posts that add to the progression of the discourse. We also have reason to believe that the use of smileys and embedded pictures is related to the tools available to the participants; the quicker and easier it is to add a picture the more likely the participants will use these tools.