Open source software in research and development: guidelines for postgraduate students

Abstract

Two case studies were used in our study; they were two postgraduate projects that exploited FoSS but lacked proofs of concept. In addition, a survey was also conducted to investigate the level of usage of OSS in research. The sample population was quite small; hence, there should be some level of caution in generalizing the knowledge level of students as represented by the survey. 39 respondents out of the total 65 respondents said their works require prototype development; 26 respondents needed to develop their works ground-up, while 39 respondents needed to modify existing projects/codebases; 52 respondents leverage OSSD in their works, while 13 respondents do not; 40 respondents have access to sample/similar projects on the Internet, while 25 respondents do not; 35 respondents consider themselves proficient with the tools they use, while others are not. Lastly, the numbers of respondents that chose conceptualization, identification of tools, implementation and evaluation of a research work as the most challenging aspect of the research were 8,16,15,26, respectively.