Megan Conklin, assistant professor of computing sciences, is the primary investigator on a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant titled "A Data and Analysis Archive for Research on Free and Open Source Software and its Development." Details...
The three-year, $100,000 grant is for expansion of the FLOSSmole repository for data about free, libre, and open source software (FLOSS) development. Conklin is co-founder and project co-leader of FLOSSmole.
The grant is part of the cyberinfrastructure category of grants and is funded through the NSF’s Directorate for Computing and Information Science and Engineering.
Conklin and her students will work to collect data on open source software, which allow users to use, change, and improve the programs, and to redistribute the software in modified or unmodified form. Open source software is often developed in a public, collaborative manner.
Through Web spider programs that crawl the Internet, Conklin will collect data on software bugs, computer languages used to write the software, names of the people developing the programs and other information. The massive amounts of data she collects will be open to researchers worldwide. Elon students will help develop the databases, write queries and learn valuable information about open source programs.
Conklin’s grant is also categorized under the RUI heading (“Research in Undergraduate Institutions”), as it will support research with full-time undergraduate students over three years. The grant is a collaborative arrangement with Syracuse University, with Kevin Crowston as the primary investigator for that institution.