Analyzing Government Use of Github for Collaboration: an Empirical Approach to Measuring Open Government and Open Collaboration

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Analyzing Government Use of Github for Collaboration: an Empirical Approach to Measuring Open Government and Open Collaboration Analyzing Government Use of GitHub for Collaboration: An Empirical Approach to Measuring Open Government and Open Collaboration By Jaydeep Mistry A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Environmental Studies in Geography Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2020 © Jaydeep Mistry 2020 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract The way government organizations collaborate on developing computer software has significantly changed with the use of the Internet. GitHub, an online platform that hosts computer software and provides project management solutions, has been popular for hosting open source software projects. Although some government organizations have been adopting the use of GitHub for their own work, there is a lack of understand as to why they use it and how it can contribute to them becoming an open government. This research identifies motivations and challenges that they face in using the platform to become an open government, and how they are participating in open collaboration on the platform. Governments are motivated to use GitHub because it allows them to break down silos of knowledge within government departments and share knowledge more freely. It comes with the challenges to train government workers to use version control systems such as Git, or to work within loose legal frameworks of what software is appropriate for governments to become an open government. As for the usage of the government accounts on the platform, almost 50% of government accounts on GitHub have actively used the platform since 2018. Although there are over 700 government organization accounts on GitHub, there is a lack of metadata or information available on their account as only 47% of them have provided a description about themselves, and only 36% have provided an email address to contact. Additionally, only 3% of all government accounts are verified accounts on GitHub. There is a collaborative relationship between government accounts who use GitHub, however there is a long-tail distribution in the number of collaborations (node degree). Few government accounts such as @alphagov (United Kingdom), @18F (United States of America), or @govau (Australia) are the most frequent collaborators, and they are their respective country’s chief open government organizations. Overall, this research demonstrates how to study the progression of open government and open collaboration using GitHub data, users, and organizations as a case study. iii Acknowledgements I thank my professor and advisor Dr. Peter Johnson for providing me with the opportunity to be in the Master of Environmental Studies program at the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo. I also thank him, and all others at Faculty of Environment who have helped me get to where I am today. I thank all the mentors that I have had the luck and privilege to work with throughout the years since starting my Master program. With your support and guidance, I have learned a great deal about work, friendship, and life. I thank Philip Everson for running Velocity Start events. Your guidance was most inspiring to me to become more entrepreneurial. I give my condolences to your family for your unfortunate passing in 2019. I also give my condolences to the family of Marzieh Foroutan for her unfortunate passing in 2020. iv Dedication I dedicate this thesis to my parents. With their support, guidance, and love I was able to accomplish all that I have done so far, and I look ahead for greater things to come. v Table of Contents AUTHOR’S DECLARATION ................................................................................................................................. ii Abstract .................................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................. iv Dedication ................................................................................................................................................................ v List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................................ ix List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................................................................. 1 1 Thesis Overview ........................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Open Government ............................................................................................................................... 3 1.2.1 President Obama’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government ..... 4 1.2.2 Open Government Framework .............................................................................................. 4 1.2.3 Open Government Maturity .................................................................................................... 6 1.3 Open Collaboration ............................................................................................................................. 9 1.3.1 Open Collaboration Frameworks ......................................................................................... 9 1.3.2 Open Collaboration in Practice ........................................................................................... 12 1.4 Open Collaboration on GitHub .................................................................................................... 13 1.4.1 Coordinating Collaborations using Git ............................................................................ 14 1.4.2 Social Coding on GitHub ........................................................................................................ 16 1.5 Research Goal ..................................................................................................................................... 18 1.6 Research Scope .................................................................................................................................. 19 1.7 Thesis Outline .................................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................................................... 21 2 Motivations and Challenges to Collaboration: A SWOT Analysis of Government use of GitHub ..................................................................................................................................................................... 21 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 21 2.1.1 Open Collaboration via Pull Requests .............................................................................. 21 2.1.2 Open Collaboration for Transparency ............................................................................. 23 2.1.3 Open Collaboration to Advance Open Government Policies ................................... 24 2.1.4 Research Goal ............................................................................................................................ 24 vi 2.2 Methods ................................................................................................................................................ 25 2.3 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 27 2.3.1 Strengths ..................................................................................................................................... 29 2.3.2 Weaknesses ................................................................................................................................ 34 2.3.3 Opportunities ............................................................................................................................ 37 2.3.4 Threats ......................................................................................................................................... 40 2.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................ 41 2.5 Limitations .......................................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 3 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