%0 Journal Article %1 Mair2015Motivation %A Mair, Patrick %A Hofmann, Eva %A Gruber, Kathrin %A Hatzinger, Reinhold %A Zeileis, Achim %A Hornik, Kurt %D 2015 %I National Academy of Sciences %J Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences %K social computing %N 48 %P 14788--14792 %R 10.1073/pnas.1506047112 %T Motivation, values, and work design as drivers of participation in the R open source project for statistical computing %U http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1506047112 %V 112 %X Significance: Over the last years, the open-source environment R has become the most popular environment for statistical computing and data analysis across many fields of research. The developer community is highly active: Thousands of packages are available in the official Comprehensive R Archive Network repository and more on developer platforms like GitHub or R-Forge. One question that has not been studied yet is as follows: why do people contribute to the R environment? What are the key motives that drive package authors? Do these developers have specific personal value structures? Are some work environments more conducive to productivity than others? This study is the first empirical study, to our knowledge, performed within the R package author community that finds answers to these questions. Abstract: One of the cornerstones of the R system for statistical computing is the multitude of packages contributed by numerous package authors. This amount of packages makes an extremely broad range of statistical techniques and other quantitative methods freely available. Thus far, no empirical study has investigated psychological factors that drive authors to participate in the R project. This article presents a study of R package authors, collecting data on different types of participation (number of packages, participation in mailing lists, participation in conferences), three psychological scales (types of motivation, psychological values, and work design characteristics), and various socio-demographic factors. The data are analyzed using item response models and subsequent generalized linear models, showing that the most important determinants for participation are a hybrid form of motivation and the social characteristics of the work design. Other factors are found to have less impact or influence only specific aspects of participation.

@article{Mair2015Motivation, abstract = {Significance: Over the last years, the open-source environment R has become the most popular environment for statistical computing and data analysis across many fields of research. The developer community is highly active: Thousands of packages are available in the official Comprehensive R Archive Network repository and more on developer platforms like GitHub or R-Forge. One question that has not been studied yet is as follows: why do people contribute to the R environment? What are the key motives that drive package authors? Do these developers have specific personal value structures? Are some work environments more conducive to productivity than others? This study is the first empirical study, to our knowledge, performed within the R package author community that finds answers to these questions. Abstract: One of the cornerstones of the R system for statistical computing is the multitude of packages contributed by numerous package authors. This amount of packages makes an extremely broad range of statistical techniques and other quantitative methods freely available. Thus far, no empirical study has investigated psychological factors that drive authors to participate in the R project. This article presents a study of R package authors, collecting data on different types of participation (number of packages, participation in mailing lists, participation in conferences), three psychological scales (types of motivation, psychological values, and work design characteristics), and various socio-demographic factors. The data are analyzed using item response models and subsequent generalized linear models, showing that the most important determinants for participation are a hybrid form of motivation and the social characteristics of the work design. Other factors are found to have less impact or influence only specific aspects of participation.}, added-at = {2018-06-18T21:23:34.000+0200}, author = {Mair, Patrick and Hofmann, Eva and Gruber, Kathrin and Hatzinger, Reinhold and Zeileis, Achim and Hornik, Kurt}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2f41d7d4b14a375df8caaaba21d700fda/pbett}, citeulike-article-id = {13835084}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1506047112}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/04/1506047112.abstract}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/04/1506047112.full.pdf}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26554005}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=26554005}, day = 01, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1506047112}, interhash = {e69c0d4245c296f8d07f66d7cee8d20e}, intrahash = {f41d7d4b14a375df8caaaba21d700fda}, issn = {1091-6490}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, keywords = {social computing}, month = dec, number = 48, pages = {14788--14792}, pmid = {26554005}, posted-at = {2015-12-14 10:58:39}, priority = {2}, publisher = {National Academy of Sciences}, timestamp = {2018-06-22T18:36:02.000+0200}, title = {Motivation, values, and work design as drivers of participation in the R open source project for statistical computing}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1506047112}, volume = 112, year = 2015 }