Many software development projects struggle with creating and communicating a software testing culture that is appropriate for their needs, which might decrease software quality by leaving bugs undiscovered. Previous research suggests that social coding sites such as GitHub provide a collaborative environment with a high degree of social transparency. This makes developers’ actions and interactions more visible and trackable.
This article “Creating a Shared Understanding of Testing Culture on a Social Coding Site” is based on interviews with 33 active users of GitHub to investigate how the increased transparency found on GitHub influences developers’ testing behaviors. Subsequently, the findings were validated with an online questionnaire that was answered by 569 members of GitHub. Several strategies that software developers and managers can use to positively influence the testing behavior in their projects were discovered.. However, project owners on GitHub may not be aware of them. The article reports the challenges and risks created by this situation and suggests guidelines for promoting a sustainable testing culture in software development projects.