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Software developers are increasingly having conversations about software development via online chat services. Many of those chat communications contain valuable information, such as code descriptions, good programming practices, and causes of common errors/exceptions. However, the nature of chat community content is transient, as opposed to the archival nature of other developer communications such as email, bug reports and Q&A forums. As a result, important information and advice are lost over time. The focus of this dissertation is Extracting Archival Information from Software-Related Chats, specifically to (1) automatically identify conversations which contain archival-quality information, (2) accurately reduce the granularity of the information reported as archival information, and (3) conduct a case study to investigate how archival quality information extracted from chats compare to related posts in Q&A forums. Archiving knowledge from developer chats that could be used potentially in several applications such as: creating a new archival mechanism available to a given chat community, augmenting Q&A forums, or facilitating the mining of specific information and improving software maintenance tools.
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This content will become publicly available on August 1, 2026
“WE JUST WANNA READ THE SCROLLS!” COLLABORATION AND COMPETITION IN THE VESUVIUS CHALLENGE— A STUDY OF VESUVIUS CHALLENGE DISCORD CHATS
This dissertation investigates the knowledge sharing that occurred in the Vesuvius Challenge, a $1 million dollar innovation contest designed to advance the research of Professor Brent Seales to virtually unwrap and read carbonized papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum. Through a content analysis of the Discord channel chats posted by Vesuvius Challenge contestants and stakeholders, the study reveals the existence of several aspects of a community of practice and the operation of the Vesuvius Challenge as a boundary practice. It also presents findings regarding how that development impacted the level of knowledge sharing that occurred in the highly competitive environment. Finally, it suggests that communities of practice operate as effectively in virtual spaces as they do in face-to-face environments, although computer mediated communities of practice manifest some additional features not delineated in traditional communities of practice literature. Discord chats from two channels, #papyrology and #general, were examined qualitatively using deductive qualitative analysis and thematic content analysis approaches. Previously identified concepts from communities of practice theory were used as a theoretical framework and, along with concepts from other virtual community participation and knowledge sharing literature, served as sensitizing constructs for the deductive and inductive coding analysis of the chats. This dissertation work adds to the literature regarding communities of practice by describing the qualities of a purely online community of practice and by proposing a coding scheme for measuring the existence of a community of practice. It is also the first study to examine the effectiveness of innovation contests in a new environment, that of academic research, and to explore how the typical features of communities of practice may encourage collaboration in such competitive environments.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2131940
- PAR ID:
- 10637817
- Publisher / Repository:
- University of Kentucky Libraries
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Communities of practice computer mediated communication innovation contests knowledge sharing online communities social media platforms Vesuvius Challenge
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Institution:
- University of Kentucky
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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