How Online Forums Complement Task Documentation in Software Crowdsourcing

Leticia S. MacHado, Igor Steinmacher, Sabrina Marczak, Cleidson R.B. De Souza

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

An issue in software crowdsourcing is the quality of the task documentation and the high number of registered crowd workers to solve tasks but few submitted solutions only. This happens because uncommunicated or misunderstood requirements can lead crowd workers to deliver a solution that does not meet the customers' requirements or, worse, to give up submitting a solution. In this paper, we present an empirical study in which we analyzed task documentation and online forums messages associated with 25 Software Crowdsourcing (SW CS) challenges. The findings corroborate that weak documentation is a challenge in SW CS. Meanwhile, online forums allow crowd workers to gather additional technical and operational information that is not present in the official task documentation. We provide a stepping stone towards understanding the interplay between requirements and communication, to make it possible to improve SW CS development processes, practices, and tools.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2020 IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops, ICSEW 2020
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages101-108
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781450379632
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 27 2020
Externally publishedYes
Event42nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops, ICSEW 2020 - Seoul, Korea, Republic of
Duration: Jun 27 2020Jul 19 2020

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2020 IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops, ICSEW 2020

Conference

Conference42nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops, ICSEW 2020
Country/TerritoryKorea, Republic of
CitySeoul
Period6/27/207/19/20

Keywords

  • Software crowdsourcing
  • communication
  • documentation tasks

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

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