Sinha, Tanmay, and Indra Rajasingh. "Investigating substructures in goal oriented online communities: Case study of Ubuntu IRC." 2014 IEEE International Advance Computing Conference (IACC). IEEE, 2014.

This paper utilizes social network analysis methods to explore the structural dynamics of the Ubuntu open-source goal-oriented IRC community. It aims to track the community's development over time and examine changing participation patterns. Specifically, the research investigates how communication dynamics unveil important substructures in the IRC network, shedding light on internal functioning and drivers of behavior in open-source learning communities. By applying consistent social network metrics, the study identifies factors influencing participants' embeddedness, structural influence, and roles as discussion initiators or responders. This analysis helps develop strategies to improve communication and collaboration, thereby enhancing knowledge flow within the network and identifying bottlenecks for focused attention.