A Multi-Institutional Study of Learning via Student Involvement in Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software Projects

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of student opinion of the impact of participation in Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) on motivation, computing learning, and major/career direction. The study builds on an existing body of work in student participation in HFOSS. Six institutions with a variety of profiles are involved in the study and the paper reports on quantitative analysis of Likert survey items. Results of Mann-Whitney U tests on Likert data are mixed. Positive results indicate that students perceived that participating in an HFOSS project made them more comfortable with computing and improved their perceived ability to maintain a project and interact with professionals. Negative results include a perceived decrease in perception of computing skills, which may result from an increased understanding of the complexity of developing a large, real-world project.