Monday, August 9, 2021

Research examines how race affects judgments of software developers' work

This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

Researchers have found that the perceived race and ethnicity of a software developer based on their online name may determine how their open-source software projects are judged by others.

In GitHub, one of the main online platforms for software developers, the quality of a coder’s contributions is evaluated by other developers on the platform. GitHub discussions are online, and users only see the name of a contributor. And in an open-source software development context, users discuss their contributions through what are known as “pull requests,” the system on GitHub to propose and collaborate on changes in a software repository.

“A developer’s contributions to an open-source software project are accepted or rejected for a variety of technical reasons, but our analysis of tens of thousands of projects on GitHub shows that contributions can be accepted or rejected because of other factors,” said Mei Nagappan, a professor at the University of Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science. “We found that one of them is the perceived race and ethnicity of a developer based on the person’s name on the platform.”

Nagappan led a research team that conducted an analysis of projects on GitHub, examining more than two million pull requests across more than 37,700 open-source projects involving nearly 366,000 developers.

The researchers estimated the race and ethnicity of developers based on their GitHub names using a tool called NamePrism that determines what is the likely perceived race and ethnicity by others when all they see is a name. They found that 70 per cent of the contributions that were integrated into an open-source software project were submitted by developers perceptible as white. Developers who were perceptible as Asian, Hispanic and Black had less than 10 per cent of the contributions in total that were accepted to open-source software projects.

“This low percentage is concerning because it does not reflect the percentage of developers among these groups in the larger tech community,” Nagappan said.

The researchers also found that the odds of a contribution being accepted by GitHub project integrators was lower from developers who are perceptibly non-white.

“Perceptible Hispanic and Asian developers had six to 10 per cent lower odds of getting their pull requests accepted compared with perceptible white submitters,” said postdoctoral researcher Gema Rodríguez-Pérez. “We need to identify the problems, understand why the problems exist, and determine what interventions can help reduce and eliminate bias.”

The paper, On the Relationship Between the Developer’s Perceptible Race and Ethnicity and the Evaluation of Contributions in OSS, authored by Rodríguez-Pérez, Reza Nadri and Nagappan, was recently published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

Pandemic impacts Indigenous businesses across Canada

Cheeckbone Beauty is an Indigenous-owned company with lipstick colors inspires by Indigenous women.

This article was originally published in the University of Waterloo Magazine. 

Tabatha Bull (BASc ’00), CEO of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, is Anishinaabe and a proud member of Nipissing First Nation near North Bay, Ontario. She connected with fellow Waterloo alumnus Megan Vander Woude (BKI ’12, MA ’13) to talk about the Indigenous economy, and the impact COVID-19 is having on Indigenous communities across Canada.

You work for the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB). What does that organization do?

Our main purpose is to bridge the gap between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal businesses in Canada. Through tools, networking and programs, we help to grow the Indigenous economy, which also benefits the Canadian economy. We need to get to a point where Indigenous communities are not just tick-boxes on a consultation list, but active players in a project, and that they are able to benefit economically, preferably with an equity position.

Procurement, for example — some of our major corporate leaders set a target that 5 per cent of their spending will go to the Indigenous economy. That has a direct impact on the wealth of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, and allows them to contribute more back to the Canadian economy.

There are more than 50,000 Aboriginal businesses in Canada, and they exist in all sectors — forestry mining, oil, gas, jewelry and fashion design and IT. According to our research, the Indigenous economy contributes $31 billion to Canada’s GDP. Through procurement, investment and other support, they could contribute $100 billion.

How is the pandemic affecting Indigenous businesses and communities?

We have seen coronavirus cases in some Indigenous communities, and we hope strict quarantine measures can contain them. Many Indigenous communities are far from urban centres, and because of their remoteness, lack of clean water, housing shortages and the already inadequate health-care systems, the virus could take a major toll.

We know that older people are at higher risk, so it is imperative that we remain vigilant, especially in Indigenous communities where our Elders and Knowledge Keepers are critical in passing down stories, languages and reviving cultures.

We recently conducted a brief survey of Aboriginal businesses and the findings were bleak. Almost four of five (79 per cent) respondents said their business revenue has decreased by 30 per cent or more. Over half (53 per cent) said their business revenue decreased by 75 per cent or more. Over a third (34 per cent) are no longer generating sales.

The recent downturn in oil and gas prices will disproportionately impact economies in the Prairies and a prolonged downturn could be detrimental to the great number of Aboriginal businesses that directly participate in or support the fossil fuel sector. We have already seen large Aboriginal companies that have had to lay off half of their staff due to COVID-19.

While there was considerable federal funding to help keep businesses afloat, we know that only a small percentage of Aboriginal businesses access financing from traditional financial institutions, so Aboriginal business needed another source of funding specific to their needs. In March, we sent a letter to the Prime Minister, along with five other national Indigenous economic organizations asking that they ensure that they provide funding through the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association (NACCA) and the network of Aboriginal Financial Institutions (AFIs) that already serve Aboriginal businesses. On April 18, the federal government announced $306 million in funding for Aboriginal business that would flow through NACCA and AFIs across Canada. This was a significant first step, but we know that this funding will only support 6,000 businesses, so additional measures will be necessary.

Is CCAB deploying any new initiatives to help Indigenous businesses through COVID-19 and its effect on the economy?

Our number one priority is to get information from our members so we can be a voice for Aboriginal business and ensure the government understands, and can meet, their needs. We are doing that by keeping the lines of communication open through surveys and weekly conference calls.

We also want to ensure that Aboriginal businesses have all the information they need to get through this pandemic with their business intact. We are providing information to them at ccab.com, through weekly newsletters, and through the Canadian Business Resilience Network.

Right now, the federal government is calling for the business community to help with medical supplies and personal protective equipment, so we are working hard to make sure Aboriginal businesses that have the capability to retool their operations can join these medical supply chains. We have already seen companies like E-supply, a Certified Aboriginal Business, offering office supplies to Indigenous communities at cost to staff who are working at home. Another Aboriginal member, Shared Value Solutions Ltd., is going to be producing and distributing hand sanitizer.

How can Canadians support the Indigenous economy, and what role does that play in Reconciliation?

Reconciliation starts with learning and understanding the real history of Canada. But there's also power in everybody's wallet, in our everyday purchases and in our investments. For example, there’s an amazing Indigenous-owned company called Cheekbone Beauty. A portion of their sales support First Nations education and Shannen’s Dream, and her lipsticks are named after inspiring Indigenous women. Birch Bark Coffee is another example — they source their coffee beans from small Indigenous producers, and a portion of their sales provide water treatment kits for homes in First Nation communities. You can buy online from both of these companies.

Another thing to consider is your investment decisions. Are your investment dollars going to companies that support Indigenous communities or seek to continue their path to Reconciliation? Today, there are many firms committed to sustainable investing — investing from an environmental perspective — but we can look at investing from a Reconciliation perspective too.

What will happen as we grow the Indigenous economy?

Our goal to increase the participation of the Indigenous community in employment and procurement opportunities creates more wealth, autonomy and empowerment. There is enormous opportunity for Indigenous communities to increase business acumen and create capacity through industry projects. When Indigenous communities are managing wealth instead of managing poverty — a cornerstone of socio-economic prosperity — then all of Canada benefits. It is important that we all continue to demonstrate the ability and capacity of Aboriginal business in order to succeed in the global supply chain of industry procurements. Working together to grow a stronger Indigenous economy means a stronger Canada.

Indigenous fire stewardship promotes global biodiversity

This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

The disruption of Indigenous-controlled fire use at the onset of colonization has resulted in high-severity fire activity, according to a new study by a research team at the University of Waterloo.

The researchers examined how Indigenous fire stewardship—specifically cultural burning—reduces the risks of interface fires, which have the potential to involve buildings and vegetation simultaneously, and fire impacts to ecological and human communities.

Indigenous fire stewardship is a global practice used for resource management, community protection, and cultural purposes. Importantly, it has increased biodiversity and ecosystem heterogeneity across all of Earth’s major terrestrial biomes.

“Declines in biodiversity were associated with high-severity fire activity, which began with the disruption of Indigenous-controlled fire use at the onset of colonization,” said research co-lead Kira Hoffman, a recent postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, now a jointly appointed postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry and The Bulkley Valley Research Centre.  

“Agency and public support for Indigenous-led fire stewardship, specifically cultural burning can revive important cultural practices while helping protect ecosystems and human communities from increasingly destructive wildfires.”

The study points out that over a century of fire suppression, combined with warmer and drier conditions associated with climate change, has led to increasingly severe wildfire events, which is threatening biodiversity on a global scale.

The team made up of undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the Trant Ecological Legacies Lab in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability (SERS) conducted a review of primary ecological literature published from 1900 to the present, noting 79 per cent of applicable studies reported increases in biodiversity as a result of Indigenous fire stewardship.

“Identifying and implementing human-fire interactions supporting a variety of valuable social and ecological outcomes is becoming increasingly urgent, given what we’re seeing in Western Canada, Manitoba, and Ontario, our forest fire situation that can only go from bad to worse without changes to existing strategies,” said Andrew Trant, Associate Professor in SERS and co-author of the recent publication.

Although evidence for widespread and contemporary Indigenous fire stewardship exists, the millennia-old practice is still debated in many parts of the world. Hoffman said misunderstandings of what cultural burning is, have been driven in part by colonialism, fear of fires becoming out of control, and real versus perceived public perceptions of wildfire risk, which can be in direct opposition to scientific evidence and Indigenous Ecological Knowledge that fire is a necessary and healthy component of functioning ecosystems.

“Importantly, Indigenous-led fire stewardship continues to demonstrate the value of routinely applying controlled fire to adapt to changing environments while promoting desired landscapes, habitats, and species while also supporting subsistence practices, communities and livelihoods,” Hoffman said.

Indigenous peoples comprise only 5 per cent of the world’s population but protect approximately 85 per cent of the world’s biodiversity through stewardship of Indigenous-managed lands. This is partly due to long-term and widespread relationships with and dependence on fire, which has been applied as a tool for managing landscapes for millennia.

The findings of the open-access study co-authored by Hoffman, Emma Davis, Sara Wickham, and Andrew Trant along with other co-authors were published today in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Monday's notes

The Writing and Communication Centre (WCC) has a new workshop geared towards graduate students. Entitled "Statements of Positionality," This informative workshop is designed to teach graduate students about statements of positionality including what it is and how to use it.

The workshop can be accessed through self-registration on Learn. For more information, visit the Workshops page.

Plant Operations has announced the following hot water tank shutdowns:

• Monday, August 9: Arts Lecture Hall, Carl Pollock Hall, Needles Hall, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• Tuesday, August 10: Davis Centre, Ron Eydt Village, Engineering 2, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

During the shutdown there will be no hot water available in the buildings.