Request for Community Approval – Academic Survey on Software Quality in OSS Projects

[estebanalonsoaustral]

Dear TLDR community,
My name is Esteban Jorge Alonso, and I am a PhD researcher at Universidad Austral (Argentina) conducting a scientific study on software quality in open-source projects. This research explores how developers, maintainers, and contributors perceive and prioritize quality across three essential dimensions: Product, Process, and People – commonly referred to as the 3P model.
To support this investigation, I have developed a short and anonymous survey (approx. 15 minutes) aimed at contributors to OSS projects hosted on GitHub. The purpose is to gather informed perspectives that will help identify and refine quality metrics relevant to real-world software development practices.
Key information about the study includes:
• This project has received ethics approval as part of my doctoral research
• The survey is anonymous and does not collect personal data
• Results will be published as open-access academic output
If permitted by the community, I would like to share the survey link in a future post, along with the formal consent form and additional study details. I am not including any links in this message, as I wish to respect community norms and seek prior approval before proceeding.
I kindly ask for your guidance or approval on how to best proceed with this initiative within the TLDR community. Your input and support would be greatly appreciated, and I am of course open to any feedback or suggestions to ensure this request aligns with your norms and values.
Thank you very much in advance for your time and consideration.
Best regards,
Esteban Jorge Alonso
PhD Candidate – Universidad Austral (Argentina)
[email protected]

[Managor]

Sounds interesting. I'm on board. I shared the discussion in our chatroom to get opinions of others.

[estebanalonsoaustral]

Thanks a lot. Tomorrow morning it will be done.

[estebanalonsoaustral]

Hi @Managor,
Thank you very much for your helpful feedback! I’ve just applied the change you suggested — the repeated “To what extent do you agree that…” has been removed from all items, and the instructions were updated accordingly.
I really appreciate your time and attention to detail.

[Managor]

I feel like "the following aspects represent" repetion could be removed as well or moved to the header of the questionaire. Apply the DRY principle.

[estebanalonsoaustral]

Hi @Manganor,

Thanks a lot for your great feedback about the phrasing and the DRY principle — that really helped! I’ve just applied your suggestions and published the new version of the survey (V.04): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdNVB0QuWqz_13gFs1qtzmLc8hrA4vV5XCuxsn2tmYnZ8Yu9A/viewform?usp=dialog

It’s much cleaner and easier to follow now, and I really appreciate your time and kind collaboration.

Quick question: do you think it’s okay to share the link here so other community members can take it, or would it be better to make a separate post in another channel?

Thanks again for your support and insight!

— Esteban
PhD Candidate, Universidad Austral (Argentina)

[Managor]

This is probably the best place. I've already shared the link in our chatroom.