Programmers make extensive use of web resources (and web search) while writing code. Similarly, we suspect that
Programmers use web search and online resources when answering programming questions on websites like MSDN and Stackoverflow.
CiteHistory is an experimental IE9 browser plugin which allows MSDN and StackExchange forum participants to share the pages they visit in association with asking and answering forum questions. For example, askers can list pages they have already investigated, while answerers can list the pages that they found useful in authoring their solutions.
CiteHistory adds a button to MSDN and StackExchange forum editors, allowing authors to include pages from their browsing history into their forum posts. CiteHistory also creates a bibliographical record of the post which can be shared with others.
CiteHistory was developed as part of a Microsoft Research summer intern project, investigating the role Internet resources serve in online technical question answering. This research is spearheaded by Adam Fourney and Meredith Ringel Morris, both in the Natural Interaction group. Some of the research questions we are interested in answering include:
You can download our ICWSM 2013 paper describing the research behind and about CiteHistory.
With CiteHistory, you have complete control over which data is published to CiteHistory's website for public consumption. Using the tools provided by CiteHistory, you can select the range of history items to share, and can remove individual history items from your submissions.
Because this is a research project, CiteHistory collects a limited amount of additional data describing browsing behavior up to one hour prior to visiting a supported forum. No data is logged unless you visit a technical forum. When data is logged, it is stored in our research database, and will not be publicly available. However, we reserve the right to report, in academic venues, aggregate statistics and anonymized excerpts of log data. Read more about these details in our FAQ.