Impact of Collaboration on Structural Software Quality

Abstract

The structural quality of a codebase is a key determining factor in the software's total cost of ownership, yet it is notoriously difficult to measure or predict. In this doctoral research we leverage the power of open source repositories to understand the factors that influence structural quality (and by extension fault-proneness) in the context of the patterns of collaborative behaviour exhibited by contributors. The objective is to further our understanding of how such behaviour impacts structural quality with the end goal being to inform management decision making across the industry in the pursuit of better software engineering practices.