Using Hashtags to Analyze Purpose and Technology Application of Open-Source Project Related to COVID-19

TL;DR

This study analyzes COVID-19 related open-source projects on GitHub using hashtags to understand their functionalities, technologies, and community practices, revealing an imbalance in project types and maturity levels compared to academic research.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hashtag-based analysis method to explore the practical IT community's COVID-19 projects and their technological trends, contrasting with academic surveys.

Findings

Applications dominate GitHub COVID-19 projects

AI and data analysis projects are less common

Community projects use more mature technologies

Abstract

COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the lives of all human beings. Emerging technologies have made significant contributions to the fight against the pandemic. An extensive review of the application of technology will help facilitate future research and technology development to provide better solutions for future pandemics. In contrast to the extensive surveys of academic communities that have already been conducted, this study explores the IT community of practice. Using GitHub as the study target, we analyzed the main functionalities of the projects submitted during the pandemic. This study examines trends in projects with different functionalities and the relationship between functionalities and technologies. The study results show an imbalance in the number of projects with varying functionalities in the GitHub community, i.e., applications account for more than half of the projects. In contrast, other data analysis and AI projects account for a smaller share. This differs significantly from the survey of the academic community, where the findings focus more on cutting-edge technologies while projects in the community of practice use more mature technologies. The spontaneous behavior of developers may lack organization and make it challenging to target needs.