UC Irvine Team Studying Crowdprogramming

Two researchers at the University of California Irvine have been awarded $800,000 to continue their exploration of "crowdprogramming." Whereas crowdsourcing taps into a mass of people to provide input, generate ideas or solve problems, crowdprogramming tries to apply the same principles to software development.

Adriaan van der Hoek and Thomas LaToza are trying to figure out what aspects of software creation could be done by the "crowd." The challenge with software, according to the researchers' grant proposal, is that "it is inherently non-uniform, steeped with dependencies, difficult to describe in terms of the functionality desired and can be implemented in any number of ways." People don't always know what they want at the beginning of the project, which means the workflow can't be determined in advance.

The overall goal, according to a short description of the project, is to increase parallelism in development work, which could, in turn, "increase participation in open source development by lowering the barriers to contribute, enabling new economic models and allowing software to be constructed dramatically more quickly."

The researchers, who work out of the university's Department of Informatics in the School of Information and Computer Sciences, are creating CrowdCode, an integrated development environment specifically intended for the intricacies of crowd programming. That's being tested through the construction of a "short program" with a "small crowd."

Researchers from Zynga and Carnegie Mellon University are also participating. The work is expected to continue through mid-2018.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Training the Next Generation of Space Cybersecurity Experts

    CT asked Scott Shackelford, Indiana University professor of law and director of the Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance, about the possible emergence of space cybersecurity as a separate field that would support changing practices and foster future space cybersecurity leaders.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • AI microchip, a cybersecurity shield with a lock, a dollar coin, and a laptop with financial graphs connected by dotted lines

    Survey: Generative AI Surpasses Cybersecurity in 2025 Tech Budgets

    Global IT leaders are placing bigger bets on generative artificial intelligence than cybersecurity in 2025, according to new research by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

  • university building surrounded by icons for AI, checklists, and data governance

    Improving AI Governance for Stronger University Compliance and Innovation

    AI can generate valuable insights for higher education institutions and it can be used to enhance the teaching process itself. The caveat is that this can only be achieved when universities adopt a strategic and proactive set of data and process management policies for their use of AI.