Analysis of Open Source Software Communities from the perspective of Semantic and Social Network Analyses

Proyectos de Excelencia de la Junta de Andalucía (From: 30-01-2014 To: 29-01-2017)

Summary:

Although the concept of community of practice was treated and developed during the 90s, its real boom has come with the emergence of virtual communities, characterized by making an intensive use of electronic media as a basic tool for contacting other users and sharing contributions. This boom is basically due to the new models of operation in Internet, usually referred as Web 2.0. The current Web is very different from the one that existed just a decade ago. The reason is that there has been a turning point where Internet has gone from a 'top-down' model of creation of information and interaction to a 'bottom-up' model, thanks to the new Web applications that give users a more prominent role. Until recently, Internet was understood as a great repository of information, and users were merely passive consumers of that information. But now users have become information generators, grouped into virtual communities leading to large social networks. The emergence of these social networks has made Internet a social media able to connect people and share information and knowledge.
In this context, this proposal aims to go deeper in the analysis of virtual communities as intellectual capital and knowledge management tools. For this purpose, the two basic underlying knowledge management processes according to the theory of Hildreth et al., 1999 will be considered. The first one is known as cosification, which means making tangible something abstract. In the case of virtual communities, it refers to the content generated and shared, which will be analyzed using semantic analysis techniques. The second process refers to the participation activity, which can be studied using social network analysis techniques. For instance, characteristics such as the topology of the community and its cohesion can be measured. The identification of key user profiles necessary for the good development of the community is another interesting issue related to participation.
Obtained results have important implications for the new business models of the software industry, which is moving from schemes based on the generation of new products and collection of licensing fees to schemes based on new value-added services over free software of open source software.

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