Communications of the ACM

lection, triangulation through multiple sources of evidence, and maintenance of a chain of evidence. 17, 27 The data-collection effort included semi-structured interviews with Kuali participants, direct observation of project events, milestone review presentations, minutes of meetings, and formal project documentation. We coded interview transcripts, observa-tional field notes, and documentary evidence using NVivo, a qualitative data-analysis tool. We conducted data collection and analysis in line with grounded theory methodology, including adherence to the principles of constant comparison and open, axial, and selective coding. 10, 22

Data collection. We began to look into Kuali in 2005, conducting formal interviews during three different periods of time in which respondents were encouraged to discuss their Kuali participation in an open-ended fashion. We asked them to share their project experience, reflecting on their activities, problems encountered, lessons learned, how they or others interacted, steps taken to resolve problems, and general perceptions of the benefits and challenges of the community source development experience. We further asked for their perceptions of project success and project control. Most questions were open-ended and nondirective. In each interview session, we allowed for flexibility to focus on particular questions, factual information, and evaluative comments while skipping others based on a respondent’s personal experience and expertise.

In addition to these largely un-
structured impressions, we probed
specific topics about the Kuali ini-
tiative. These more formal inquiry
elements varied somewhat across
interview periods. We conducted the
first phase of interviewing in Novem-
ber 2008 with questions focusing
largely on development issues from
Kuali projects. We asked respondents
about their role in a project, the tasks
in which they were involved, and the
deliverables for which they were re-
sponsible. We conducted the second
round of interviews in November
2011, with greater emphasis on Kuali
deployment issues. We conducted
the third round in May and July 2012
with questions focusing on perceived
participating institutions, each di-
recting its own human resources,
creates a common collaborative in-
frastructure all participants can le-
verage. 25 Community source thus
creates a formal virtual organization
to which partnering institutions con-
tribute resources toward developing
custom software solutions in differ-
ent locations at different times. 13
Despite drawing on the strengths of
both commercial and open source
models, community source remains a
complex endeavor, as the community
must balance the diverse, sometimes
conflicting, requirements of the vari-
ous development partners. 12

The community source model represents a promising area for research, as it offers a novel approach to enterprise software development with the potential to disrupt the domination of commercial software vendors in enterprise applications. Here, we describe the experience of a prominent community source project in higher education, the Kuali Initiative ( http://www.kuali.org), illustrating the strengths of the community source model and calling attention to the challenges faced in such efforts. We focus on understanding what motivates institutions to join such a project and how it holds together in pursuit of collective action.

Research Overview

In this research, we adopt a longitudinal case study methodology, 27 as it enables investigation of a contemporary phenomenon within its natural setting11, 27 and is especially appropriate for novel research domains (such as community source development where theory and research are still in their formative stages6). In addition, the longitudinal case study methodology is considered appropriate for addressing how, why, and what questions5, 17 while fostering a deeper contextual understanding of the domain. 27 Finally, the longitudinal nature of our study allowed us to observe development and deployment as project events unfold, instead of relying on retrospective accounts. 5