Nicole loves research, strategy, data, and collaboration—especially when they make life better for people. Her approach uses a combination of mixed-methods design and a range of research methods—including surveys, log/system analysis, archival text analysis, and LLMs.
Research
Her research is rooted in three intersecting areas:
Her research is rooted in three intersecting areas:
She’s been awarded public and private grants from organizations like NASA, the Gates Foundation, IBM, and the NSF, and her research papers have been published in MIS Quarterly, Communications of the AIS, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Learning Sciences, and many more.
A former tenure-track professor at Utah State University and Pepperdine University, Nicole won’t assign her research papers as homework. But for those who love to curl up with some data analysis, here are a few of her recent works.
T.-C. Cheng, C. Badea, C. Bird, T. Zimmermann, R. DeLine, N. Forsgren, D. Ford (2024). “GEMS: Generative Expert Metric System through Iterative Prompt Priming.” MSR Whitepaper. https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.00880
B. Houck, H. Yelin, J. Butler, N. Forsgren, A. McMartin (2023). “The Best of Both Worlds: Unlocking the Potential of Hybrid Work for Software Engineers.” Whitepaper. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2023/05/BestOfBothWorlds.pdf
Forsgren, N., Kalliamvakou, E., Noda, A., Greiler, M., Houck, B., & Storey, M. A. (2023). DevEx in Action: A study of its tangible impacts. Queue, 21(6), 47-77. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639443
Noda, A., Storey, M. A., Forsgren, N., & Greiler, M. (2023). DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity: The developer-centric approach to measuring and improving productivity. Queue, 21(2), 35-53. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3595878 Top 5 in ACM Queue’s publication history
C. Bird, D. Ford, T. Zimmermann, N. Forsgren, E. Kalliamvakou, T. Lowdermilk, I. Gazit (2022). “Taking Flight with Copilot.” ACM Queue 20(6). (cross-published in Communications of the ACM) https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582083
Forsgren, N., M.-A. Storey, C. Maddila, T. Zimmermann, B. Houck, J. Butler (2021). “The SPACE of developer productivity: There’s more to it than you think.” ACM Queue https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3454122.3454124 In Top 3 downloads in ACM’s publication history, Number 1 downloaded for ACM Queue Overall
Forsgren, N. with G. Ceccarelli, D. Jedamski, S. Kelly, C. Sullivan (2020). “State of the Octoverse: Finding balance between work and play.” GitHub
Forsgren, N. with G. Ceccarelli, D. Jedamski, S. Kelly, C. Sullivan (2020). “State of the Octoverse: Empowering healthy communities.” GitHub. Featuring contributions from G. Ceccarelli, D. Ford, V. Gennarelli, Y. Huang, M. Kumar, T. Zimmerman.
Forsgren, N. with B. Alberts, G. Baker, G. Cecarelli, D. Jedamski, S. Kelly, C. Sullivan (2020). “State of the Octoverse: Securing the world’s software.” GitHub.
Forsgren, N. (2020). “The Best Advice I Can Give to Teams.” in 97 Things Every SRE Should Know, E. Stolarsky, J. Woo eds., O’Reilly.
Forsgren, N. with G. Ceccarelli, A. Filippova, T. Holland, D. Jedamski, S. Kelly, R. Wing (2020). “Octoverse Spotlight: An analysis of developer productivity, work cadence, and collaboration in the early days of COVID-19.” GitHub.
McCoy, J., N. Forsgren. (2020). “SLO Adoption and Usage in Site Reliability Engineering.” O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Wiedemann, A., Forsgren, N., Wiesche, M., Gewald, H., & Krcmar, H. (2019). “The DevOps Phenomenon.” ACM Queue, 17(2), 40.
Forsgren, N., D. Smith, J. Humble, J. Frazelle (2019). Accelerate State of DevOps Report.
Forsgren, N., J. Humble, G. Kim (2018) Accelerate State of DevOps Report: Strategies for a New Economy.
Esser, J., N. Forsgren, C. Nambiar, J. Wester, D. Zentgraf (2018). “Transformational Leadership: A Quickstart Guide.” IT Revolution Press.
Forsgren, N., M. Kersen (2018). “DevOps Metrics.” ACM Queue 15(6), 30. (Cross-published in CACM.)
Forsgren, N., J. Humble, G. Kim, N. Kersten, A. Brown (2014 – 2017) State of DevOps Reports.
Forsgren, N., J. Humble, G., Kim (2017). “Forecasting the Value of DevOps Transformations.” DORA.
Forsgren, N., et al. (2017). “Tactics for Leading Change.” IT Revolution Press.
Forsgren, N., et al. (2016). “Measure Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Culture to Optimize DevOps Transformation: Metrics for DevOps Initiatives.” IT Revolution Press.
Forsgren, N., J. Humble (2016). "The Core Belief Keeping Marginalized Groups Out of Tech." ModelViewCulture.
Popular press and whitepapers
Academic Peer-review
J. P. Lalor, A. Abbasi, K. Oketch, Y. Yang, N. Forsgren (2024). “Should Fairness Be a Metric or a Model? A Model-Based Framework for Assessing Bias in Machine Learning Pipelines.” https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641276
J. T. Liang, C. Badea, C. Bird, R. DeLine, D. Ford, N. Forsgren, T. Zimmermann (2024). Can GPT-4 Replicate Software Engineering Research? Proceedings of the ACM on Software Engineering, 1 (FSE). 1330-1353
B. Johnson, C. Bird, D. Ford, N. Forsgren, T. Zimmermann, (2023). “Make Your Tools Sparkle with Trust: The PICSE Framework for Trust in Software Tools.” In 2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP) (pp. 409-419). IEEE.
J. P. Lalor, Y. Yang, K. Smith, N Forsgren, A. Abbasi (2022). “Benchmarking Intersectional Biases in NLP,” Lalor, John P., et al. "Benchmarking intersectional biases in NLP." Proceedings of the 2022 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies.
Tremblay, M. R. Kohli, N. Forsgren (2021). “Theories in Flux: Reimagining Theory Building in the Age of Machine Learning,” MIS Quarterly.
C. Maddila, S. Shanbhogue, A. Agrawal, T. Zimmermann, C. Bansal, N. Forsgren, D.Agrawal, K. Herzig, A. van Deursen (2021). Nalanda: A Socio-Technical Graph for Building Software Analytics Tools at Enterprise Scale. (2022). ESEC/FSE Proceedings.
Tremblay, M. R. Kohli, N. Forsgren (2021). “Theories in Flux: Reimagining Theory Building in the Age of Machine Learning,” MIS Quarterly.
Forsgren, N., M. A. Rothenberger, J. Humble, J. B. Thatcher, and D. Smith (2020). “A Taxonomy of Software Delivery Performance Profiles: Investigating the Effects of DevOps Practices.” AMCIS 2020 Proceedings. 8.
Quatch, A., J. Symanzik, N. Forsgren (2019). “Soul of the Community: An Attempt to Assess Attachment to a Community,” Journal of Computational Statistics.
Forsgren, N., R. Sabherwal, & A. Durcikova, (2017). Knowledge exchange roles and EKR performance impact: extending the theory of knowledge reuse. European Journal of Information Systems, 1-19.
Forsgren, N., M. Chiarini Tremblay, D. Vandermeer, J. Humble (2017). “DORA Platform: DevOps Assessment and Benchmarking," In Proceedings of the International Conference on Design Science Research in Information System and Technology (DESRIST) 2017, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Forsgren, N., A. Durcikova, P.F. Clay, X. Wang (2016). “The integrated user satisfaction model: Assessing information quality and system quality as second-order constructs in system administration,” Communications of the Association of Information Systems.
Forsgren, N., J. Humble (2016). “The Role of Continuous Delivery in IT and Organizational Performance.” In the Proceedings of the Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI) 2016, Las Vegas, NV.
Forsgren, N., J. Humble (2016). "DevOps: Profiles in ITSM Performance and Contributing Factors." In the Proceedings of the Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI) 2016, Las Vegas, NV.
Forsgren, N., A. Durcikova, R.J. Mills (2016). “Examining System Administrators’ Verification Information to Enhance IT Training Design,” Journal of Computer Information Systems.
Wang, X., P.F. Clay, N. Forsgren (2015). “Encouraging knowledge contribution in IT support: social context and the differential effects of motivation type,” Journal of Knowledge Management, 19(2), 315-333.
Martin, T. C.P. Smith, N. Forsgren, A. Aghababyan, P. Janisiewicz, S. Baker (2015), “Learning fractions by splitting: Using learning analytics to illuminate the development of mathematical understanding,” Journal of the Learning Sciences.
Forsgren, N., Maughan, J. (2015). “Investigating Player Strategies in an Online Math Game Over Time.” Research presented at Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI) 2015.
Neely, P., R.F. Premuroso, N. Forsgren, C. Vician, C.E. White (2015). “Accounting Information Systems (AIS) Course Design – Current Practices and Future Trajectories,” Communications of the Association of Information Systems, 36(1), 30.
Forsgren Velasquez, N., D.A. Fields, D. Olsen, T. Martin, A. Strommer, M.C. Shepherd, and Y.B. Kafai (2014). “Novice Programmers Talking about Projects: What Automated Text Analysis Reveals about Online Scratch Users’ Comments.” In the Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). Waikoloa, Hawaii. IEEE. Nominated for Best Paper Award.
Forsgren Velasquez, N., I. Goldin, T. Martin, J. Maughan (2014). “The Use of Learning Aids in Online Learning Environments: An Examination of Developmental Mathematics.” In the Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Educational Data Mining. London, England, 2014.
Forsgren Velasquez, N., J. Johnson, S. Miller, C. Wann (2014). “Biases and Portfolio Management Behavior Profiles: An Empirical Taxonomy,” Journal of Economic and Finance Education, 13(2), 99-111.
Martin, T., Benton, T.J., Forsgren Velasquez, N., Maughan, J., Janisiewicz, P., & Diller, K.R. (2014). A Developmental Approach to Understanding Adaptive Expertise. In W. Aung, T. Doyle, F. E. Sandnes & L. Zaitseva (Eds.), Innovations 2014 -- World Innovations in Education and Research (pp. 1-26). Potomac, MD: iNEER.
Forsgren Velasquez, N., E.B. Matheson (2014). “An Investigation of Cultural and Organizational Impacts on EKR Use and EKR Use Outcomes Among System Administrators at NASA.” Research presented at and abstract appearing in the Proceedings of the USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA) 2014, Seattle, WA, 2014.
Velasquez, N.F., R. Sabherwal, A. Durcikova (2013). “The Effects of Business Intelligence Features on Internal and Competitive Advantage.” Paper presented at American Accounting Association Information Systems Midyear Meeting 2013, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Aghababyan, A., T. Martin, N. Forsgren Velasquez, and P. Janisiewicz (2013). “Educational data mining: Illuminating student learning pathways in an online fraction game.” In the Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Educational Data Mining, Memphis, TN.
Mills, R.J., N. Forsgren Velasquez, K. Fadel, C.C. Bell. (2012). "Examining IS Curriculum Profiles and the IS 2010 Model Curriculum Guidelines in AACSB-Accredited Schools," Journal of Information Systems Education, 23:4, 417-428.
Velasquez, N.F., R. Sabherwal, A. Durcikova (2011). “Adoption of an Electronic Knowledge Repository: A Feature-Based Approach.” In the Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 2011, Kauai, HI.
Velasquez, N.F., A. Durcikova, R. Sabherwal (2009). “Studying Knowledge Management System Success in System Administration.” In the Proceedings of HICSS 2009, Big Island, HI.
Lenchner, J., D. Rosu, N.F. Velasquez, et al (2009). "A Service Delivery Platform for Server Management Services.” IBM Journal of Research and Development 53(6): 2-1.
Velasquez, N.F., S.P. Weisband (2009). “System Administrators as Technician Brokers.” In the Proceedings of Computer Human Interaction for the Management of Information Technology (CHIMIT) 2009, Baltimore, MD.
Velasquez, N.F., S.P. Weisband (2008). “Work Practices of System Administrators: Implications for Tool Design.” In the Proceedings of CHIMIT 2008, San Diego, CA.
Velasquez, N.F., A. Durcikova (2008). “Sysadmins and the Need for Verification Information.” In the Proceedings of CHIMIT 2008, San Diego, CA.
Velasquez, N.F., S.P. Weisband, A. Durcikova (2008). “Designing Tools for System Administrators: An Empirical Test of the Integrated User Satisfaction Model.” In the Proceedings of USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA) 2008, San Diego, CA
Twitchell, D.P, D. Biros, N. Forsgren, et al. (2006). “Automated Determination of the Veracity of Interview Statements from People of Interest to an Operational Security Force.” In the Proceedings of HICSS 2006, Koloa, Kauai, HI.
Forsgren, N., J.W. Wilkerson, et al. (2005). “Using Linguistic Analysis and Classification Techniques to Identify Ingroup and Outgroup Messages in the Enron Email Corpus.” In the Proceedings of HICSS 2005, Waikaloa, Big Island, HI.
Twitchell, D.P., N. Forsgren, J.F. Nunamaker. (2005). "Detecting Deception in Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication Using Speech Act Profiling." In the Proceedings of ISI 2005, Atlanta, GA.
Twitchell, D.P, N. Forsgren, et al. (2005). "Assessing the Veracity of Criminal Detainee Statements: A Study of Real-World Data." In the Proceedings of ICIA 2005, McLean, VA.