Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7110
Title: Gender, representation and online participation: A quantitative study of stackoverflow
Authors: Vasilescu, BN
Capiluppi, A
Serebrenik, A
Issue Date: 2012
Publisher: Academy of Science and Engineering
Citation: 2012 International Conference on Social Informatics, Washington DC, USA, 14-16 Dec 2012
Abstract: Online communities are flourishing as social meeting web-spaces for users and peer community members. Different online communities require different levels of competence for participants to join, and scattered evidence suggests that women can be overly under-represented. Moreover, anecdotal evidence of the Q&A website StackOverflow suggests that women withdraw from unfriendly online communities. Due to the lack of empirical evidence on the matter, this paper provides a quantitative study of the phenomenon, in order to assess the representation and social impact of gender in StackOverflow. This study positions itself within recent and focused international initiatives, launched by the European Commission in order to encourage women in the field of sciences and technology. Our findings confirm that men represent the vast majority of contributors to StackOverflow. Moreover, men participate more, earn more reputation, and engage in the “game” more than women do.
Description: Copyright @ 2012 Academy of Science and Engineering
URI: http://www.asesite.org/conferences/socialinformatics/2012/accepted_list.html
http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7110
ISBN: 978-3-540-31111-9
Appears in Collections:Publications
Computer Science
Dept of Computer Science Research Papers

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