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Abstract
Open Source Software (OSS) projects increasingly depend on a diverse set of contributors, including episodic participants who contribute intermittently. Episodic contributors represent a large portion of OSS communities, yet projects often struggle to retain them, leading to decreased project health and continuity. While dashboards and real-time communication tools support continuously active contributors, they often fail to serve the unique needs of episodic participants, who may struggle to remain informed and re-engage with project activity after periods of absence. In this study, we examine the effect of a weekly, email-based newsletter intervention designed to improve awareness and engagement among episodic OSS contributors. We ground our approach in self-determination theory, emphasizing autonomy, competence, and relatedness as key motivational constructs. To inform the design of the Weekly Project Newsletter, we conducted a systematic literature review, followed by a think-aloud study with OSS contributors, leading to a refined newsletter that summarizes recent activity in issues, pull requests, and commits, and highlights project milestones and community interactions. We evaluate the final design of our Weekly Project Newsletter through a three-week diary study involving nine episodic contributors, analyzing how its content affected their awareness, motivation, and re-engagement patterns. Our findings show that the newsletter improves participant awareness and perceived project connection. These findings highlight how theory-driven communication tools can complement existing OSS infrastructure by supporting re-engagement and lowering the barrier to continued participation. However, its influence on OSS contribution behavior remains limited without actionable prompts or surfacing of beginner-friendly tasks.
Publication Date
2026
Subject Major(s)
Computer Science
Disciplines
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics | Programming Languages and Compilers | Software Engineering | Systems Architecture
Current Academic Year
Senior
Faculty Advisor/Mentor
Kostadin Damevski
Rights
© The Author(s)
Recommended Citation
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2026.112887
Included in
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Commons, Programming Languages and Compilers Commons, Software Engineering Commons, Systems Architecture Commons