Dissertation Paper- Results

1. Interpersonal Connections Establishment 

The primary issue identified in this study is the importance and benefits of e-mentoring to both the mentor and the mentee. Interpersonal relations between the trainer and the trainee are built and strengthened in the conscious activity of training (Suzuki et al., 2016). By sharing their knowledge with their trainees, mutual respect is built between the two parties and their interpersonal connections are established (Trainer, Kalyanasundaram & Herbsleb 2017). Through effective communication such as friendliness and improved listening skills between the mentors and the mentees, a mutual understanding is developed (Schilling 2014). For example, Atelier is a platform that connects mentors with mentees and employers with workers and facilitates the establishment of positive personal relations between the different individuals. 

2. Facilitate Individuals’ learning 

Online mentoring bridge the distance between the mentors and their mentees. Through e-mentoring, training and mentoring campaigns can be carried out across wide geographical locations. Mentors do not need to come into physical contact with their mentees for the training to take place. Yoda is an approach that connects amateurs and less skilled individuals who join the software to the recommended mentors who are able to impart knowledge and skills, making a broader community of knowledgeable individuals (Suzuki et al., 2016). This approach fetches its data from mailing lists and it is then able to connect people and facilitate exchange and sharing of knowledge from one person to another without considering the existing differences in their geographical locations. Atelier connects mentors and mentees regardless of the differences in their locations. 

3. Adaption to Communication Processes. 

While e-mentoring is associated with a multiple of demerits and setbacks especially among young children and youths, the availability of software that facilitates the processes of giving feedback and as a result, enable quick and effective mentoring processes is a significant advantage (Suzuki et al., 2016). Individuals are able to adapt communication processes efficiently and effectively. Front-end projects that require both the mentors and mentees to depend on each other are better in improving the interpersonal relations between both parties (Trainer, Kalyanasundaram & Herbsleb 2017). More still, Atelier allows individuals to connect and consequently facilitates the interaction between the connected persons.

4. Better Understanding of Complex contributions

Complex contributions are \a wide range of activities and tasks that are carried out in the in the field of software programming and that require a deeper expertise to understand. E-mentoring recognizes the contributions of each party involved in the training processes. The mentors benefit from the feeling of fulfillment that is associated with sharing new knowledge and impacting the lives of other people (Marlow, Dabbish, & Herbsleb, 2013). Similarly, the mentees benefit from the access and gain of new skills and competencies that they did not have there before. At the end of the session, the contributions of every member of the training team are recognized and awarded (Trainer, Kalyanasundaram & Herbsleb 2017).  Among its sub-benefits also include its ability to develop cues about any past credentials and it helps to subdivide loads of work into smaller achievable fragments. When work is broken into smaller units, it becomes easy to understand the ways through which the challenges can be solved and enable the learner to understand a whole complex challenge over time. Per-question assistance allows mentees to get answers and solutions to smaller bits of works where they might have challenges and consequently helps them to understand complex tasks (Users of Open Source Software, 2009). 

5. Improvement of Community Structure and Understanding

The community structure refers to the formal connections that exist in the society. The understanding of these relations helps an individual to link with each other easily such as different times of e-mentoring. Mentoring imparts knowledge to a person who initially did not have the relevant skills or knowledge. Mentors are people who possess the valuable information and skills and they share them with other people making the community to be enlightened and understanding of various aspects to be improved (Suzuki et al., 2016). Atelier allows different individuals but with similar interests to connect and share their ideas. The study illustrates how through e-mentoring, the different relationship structures are maintained. 

Reduce Entry Barriers for Initial Interactions to the Community

E-mentoring facilitates a better understanding and improves the interpersonal relations between the people in a typical community. Mentoring platforms such as Yoda facilitate the connection of mentors and mentees and in turn enhance the transfer and exchange of knowledge. In the study of Feliciano,  Storey & Zagalskey (2016)  the contributions of newcomers in open source software projects help to sum up the amount of skills and knowledge in a training community (Feliciano, Storey & Zagalsky, 2016)

6. Interpersonal Ties Formation

The sharing of essential knowledge in online communities creates awareness among individuals. Exemplification allows experts of practical skills to share their primary knowledge with other people thereby allowing the mentees to acquire skills and knowledge in the performance of activities. Novices become experts in programming taks and other challenges. They also gain knowledge about OSSP and its related fields (Feliciano, Storey & Zagalsky, 2016). 

7. Involvement in Transparency of Activities 

Transparency of activities refers to carrying the activities honestly and with integrity. Mentoring creates awareness to the mentees about the conduction of various activities by equipping them with the relevant skills required to perform the different activities (Marlow, Dabbish, & Herbsleb, 2013). E-mentoring enables mentees to engage in collaborative learning, which in turn makes people to develop expertise and recognize the processes employed while performing the various programming activities. It bridges the locations since it does not involve physical contact of the training parties (Feliciano, Storey & Zagalsky, 2016). For example, Yoda and Atelier models allow interconnections between members from different locations. Gaining awareness and engaging in collaborative learning makes the members to learn the actual practices and activities being carried and this generates transparency in the conduction of activities fields (Feliciano, Storey & Zagalsky, 2016). 

Additionally, it is also evident that a platform such as Github also provides an opportunity where mentees can be able to interact and exchange ideas mainly on software engineering. The fact that understanding software engineering can be a challenging activity means that for the mentees to fully understand such aspects they have to involve themselves in activities that are associated with the aspects of integrity and honesty. This means that through the aspect of transparency the students can be able to develop interest in the field of computer science and software engineering. Therefore the success of these platforms where the mentees are able to learn and exchange ideas highly depends on aspects such as transparency and openness. 

8. Cultural Differences Understanding

E-mentoring assumes the differences in the backgrounds and ethnicity between mentees and mentors. Since it does not require individuals to come together physically, the people are able to understand each other and such differences are assumed altogether (Fagerholm et al., 2014). For example, a mentee from one culture can be effectively mentored by a mentor in another location.  The newcomers are mentored by experts who they connect in online platforms such as Yoda, Atelier, among others (Canfora, Penta, Oliveto & Panichella, 2012). 

9. Experts-Mentees Relationship Building

Mutual respect is created when a mentee learns new skills from an expert. Similarly, the mentor felt proud and fulfilled when he assists another individual to gain the expertise required to carry out various specific tasks. Consequently, the relationship between the two parties is reinforced (Storey et al., 2017). For example, mentee respect and value their mentor and always get back to them in case they want certain clarifications about how to conduct an operation. The increased relationships between helpers and developers builds chances for future activities of working together in case of enquiries (Chen,  Oney, & Lasecki, 2016). Such experts may also be granted permissions to make future edits and updates on information. 

10. Continuous Learning

There is increased productivity among the programming teams because the number of the trained individuals has risen (Marlow, Dabbish, & Herbsleb, 2013. Consequently, the newly qualified individuals perfect in the skills and mentor other amateurs, thus facilitating continuous learning (Yunwen 2009). Freshly trained mentees are prepared for future projects while the continually learning individuals improve the current projects by incorporating new knowledge into activities (Marlow, Dabbish, & Herbsleb, 2013. People often make judgements and learn things about other people basing on the way they behave or conduct themselves. Open Source Software Development is an illustration of modern day productions where young people learn about other people and judge them accordingly. This is achieved by reading and focusing on the notes and pictures that such people post on their walls. Additionally, such sources can also be platforms for learning. Young people learn such things as dressing modes by stalking the way their favorite models dress and emulating them accordingly. 

Works Cited

Canfora, G., Di Penta, M., Oliveto, R., & Panichella, S. (2012). Who is going to mentor newcomers in open source projects? Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFT 20th International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering – FSE ’12. doi:10.1145/2393596.2393647

Chen, Y., Oney, S., & Lasecki, W. S. (2016). Towards Providing On-Demand Expert Support for Software Developers. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI ’16. doi:10.1145/2858036.2858512

Fagerholm, F., Guinea, A. S., Münch, J., & Borenstein, J. (2014). The role of mentoring and project characteristics for onboarding in open source software projects. Proceedings of the 8th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement – ESEM ’14. doi:10.1145/2652524.2652540

Feliciano, J., Storey, M., & Zagalsky, A. (2016). Student experiences using GitHub in software engineering courses. Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion – ICSE ’16. doi:10.1145/2889160.2889195

Marlow, J., Dabbish, L., & Herbsleb, J. (2013). Impression formation in online peer production. Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work – CSCW ’13. doi:10.1145/2441776.2441792

Schilling, A. (2014). What Do We Know about FLOSS Developers’ Attraction, Retention, and Commitment? A Literature Review. 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi:10.1109/hicss.2014.495

Steinmacher, I., Graciotto Silva, M. A., Gerosa, M. A., & Redmiles, D. F. (2015). A systematic literature review on the barriers faced by newcomers to open source software projects. Information and Software Technology, 59, 67-85. doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2014.11.001

Storey, M., Zagalsky, A., Filho, F. F., Singer, L., & German, D. M. (2017). How Social and Communication Channels Shape and Challenge a Participatory Culture in Software Development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 43(2), 185-204. doi:10.1109/tse.2016.2584053

Suzuki, R., Salehi, N., Lam, M. S., Marroquin, J. C., & Bernstein, M. S. (2016). Atelier. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI ’16. doi:10.1145/2858036.2858121

Trainer, E. H., Kalyanasundaram, A., & Herbsleb, J. D. (2017). E-Mentoring for Software Engineering: a Socio-Technical Perspective. 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training Track (ICSE-SEET). doi:10.1109/icse-seet.2017.19

Users of Open Source Software – How Do They Get Help? (2009). 2009 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi:10.1109/hicss.2009.489

Yunwen Ye. (2009). Peer to peer support for the reuse of Open Source Software libraries. 2009 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse & Integration. doi:10.1109/iri.2009.5211566