Introduction

Overview

Teaching: 20 min
Exercises: 10 min

Questions

• What is the Community Facilitators Program in The Carpentries?

Objectives

• Learn more about The Carpentries Community Facilitators Program

• Understand how to get involved with The Carpentries Community Facilitators Program

In 2019, Kari Jordan, Tracy Teal, Sher! Hurt and Serah Rono constituted a Core Team working group that discussed how to support Carpentries community members through conflict. This working group identified the need to develop a task force that would come up with recommendations for dealing with incidents that come up in our community spaces and whose review and resolution fall outside the mandate of The Carpentries Code of Conduct (CoC) committee (see task force charter). One of the key recommendations from this Task Force was the institution of a Code of Conduct Facilitators Program to serve as an added layer of support for our community before incidents are reported to the Code of Conduct Committee (CoCc). More specific suggestions about how the Code of Conduct Facilitators Program could operate were first proposed by Malvika Sharan, the 2020 Code of Conduct committee chair in Q1 2019. In summary, while maintaining the role of the CoCc as a CoC enforcement body, Code of Conduct Facilitators would actively monitor Carpentries online spaces and physical meetings and share potentially negative behaviours or otherwise certify that the community is functioning as expected.

In thinking about the term facilitation as a verb in our community, we also realised there existed more opportunities for community facilitation, by our existing community and for our growing community, across the board. With this in mind, we decided to expand on the original mandate of Code of Conduct Facilitators in The Carpentries to include other necessary elements of facilitation that we see as necessary for the health and continuance of an established community like The Carpentries. This, we believe, will help community members see themselves as Facilitators in different ways that are fulfilling, and open up multiple pathways for interested community members to build trust and work with community members in these different facilitation roles

In summary, Community Facilitators are people who are empowered to advocate for others in the community and guide community members as they navigate various intricacies of The Carpentries global community.

Community Facilitation in The Carpentries

In early 2020, The Carpentries Community Development Team kicked off work to(i) develop resources and (ii) prepare to onboard and empower community members to spearhead different kinds of facilitation in The Carpentries. We believe there is great value in co-creating resources to guide community members in carrying out various facilitation roles, as there is need for them in The Carpentries and other organisations that share our core values and where synergies exist in our mission and initiatives. In Q2 2020, we collaborated with Lou Woodley fromCSCCE to co-create the Feedback Facilitators Module (more below). Here are the different facilitation roles we see an immediate need for in The Carpentries:

1. Code of Conduct facilitation

   Bridge between community members at events and our Code of Conduct processes

2. Feedback facilitation

• collect and organise community feedback shared publicly and informally in Carpentries spaces for ease of discovery, followup and response in the community,
• periodically offer official recommendations and kickstart conversations on issues and items that Core Team should prioritise,
• maintain a public, community-wishlist board that collates community feedback on different initiatives and experiences in The Carpentries
• recommend topics for Carpentries Conversations and Themed Discussions to the Instructor Development and Communications facilitation team as appropriate

1. Technology facilitation

   Community-facing and community-led helpdesk for all everyday ‘how-do-I’ questions that newcomers have as they collaborate with others on platforms The Carpentries uses i.e. GitHub

2. Community buddy system

   Providing a safe and welcoming environment for the onboarding of new community members - saying hello and ‘come to me with any questions’, etc

3. Communications facilitation

   • Community-led committee to help translate key communications so we can share these in languages other than English across our socials
   • Scouting for good candidates across our community to speak in panel-style, monthly Carpentries conversations

4. Resource-enhancement facilitation

   Content design facilitation to guide the publication and archival of community-created resources in a way that makes them accessible to all, and lowers barriers to knowledge acquisition by other community members i.e. replacing sea of text with images, GIFs, videos, illustrating workflows to make them easier to understand, managing tags and their use to collate resources across Carpentries platforms, etc

5. Accessibility facilitation

   Reviewing Carpentries accessibility guidelines that guide interactions in online and in-person spaces, as well as the creation of written and audio-visual content and choice of platforms. Ideally, these guidelines will be authored by Core Team and passed along to community facilitators for expansion, enforcement and maintenance i.e. update guidelines as nature of interactions or platforms evolve.

Community Facilitators Program Timeline

The seven modules we have identified as a starting point mean there is a lot for us to do.

Below is the projected timeline of activities as The Carpentries Core Team works to develop resources for the Community Facilitators program.

Invitation to Collaborate

If you are interested in collaborating with us to co-create a specific community facilitation module that may also be of interest for your community, please reach out to the Community Development Team via email.

Community Facilitators Program Life Cycle

Key Points

• Community Facilitators are people who are empowered to advocate for others in the community and guide community members as they navigate various intricacies of The Carpentries global community

• Look out for calls for application to be a feedback facilitator on The Carpentries blog between Q4 2020 and Q4 2021

• Interested in collaborating with us to co-create some of the seven modules in the Community Facilitators program? Let The Carpentries Community Development Team know

Feedback Facilitation

Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 5 min

Questions

• What is covered under the Feedback Facilitation module of the Community Facilitators Program, and what is missing?

Objectives

• Give an overview of content and resources made available to feedback facilitators during onboarding and over the course of their cohort work.

• Start a discussion about additional sections that may be necessary to add to the feedback facilitators module.

This module was co-created by Lou Woodley and Camille Santistevan from CSCCE and Serah Rono and Kari Jordan from The Carpentries.

Here is an outline of what is covered in the Feedback Facilitation module of The Carpentries Community Facilitators Program:

1. Theory of feedback
   • Definition of feedback
   • Types of feedback
   • Role of feedback in the continuity of communities
   • Giving and receiving feedback
   • The ideal feedback cycle
   • What does optimally presented feedback look like?
   • What distorts feedback?
2. Feedback in The Carpentries
   • The Carpentries Feedback Ethos
   • Feedback from the Carpentries Core Team & Governance to the Community
   • Between Community and Core Team
   • From Governance to Community
   • From Community to Governance and Core Team
   • Feedback from Community to Community - Identifying the Feedback Distortions - How Feedback Facilitators will Close the Feedback Loop
3. Collecting Feedback
   • Scouting for Feedback
   • Conversational Communications Channels
   • Broadcast Communications Channels - Soliciting for Feedback
   • Additional considerations - Responding to comments
4. Organising Feedback
   • Internal Workflows
   • External Workflows
   • Primer on Using GitHub
5. Closing the Feedback Loop

DISCUSSION

What additional content should we consider adding to this module for the benefit to feedback facilitators? Let us know by opening an issue or emailing us

Key Points

• Feedback Facilitation Module was co-created by The Carpentries and CSCCE to prepare Carpentries community members for feedback facilitation roles

Theory of Feedback

Overview

Teaching: 45 min
Exercises: 45 min

Questions

• What forms can feedback take?

• What are the steps involved in giving, receiving and responding to feedback?

• What does optimal feedback look like - and how might feedback become distorted?

• Why is feedback important in creating and maintaining healthy communities?

Objectives

• Reflect on how giving, receiving and responding to feedback is important in healthy communities.

Definition of Feedback

One might imagine feedback operating via a simple, linear mechanism - where a particular stimulus creates feedback, which is then transmitted and results in some outcome.

Linear Feedback Cycle: Stimulus → feedback is transmitted –> feedback is received —> outcome

However, this simple linear flow does not convey some of the nuances of feedback - which we need to bear in mind when we are gathering feedback from others and trying to respond to it in a useful way. Let us take a look at some dictionary definitions that can expand our understanding.

The Oxford dictionary gives three definitions of feedback:

• “Information…which is used as a basis for improvement.” Here, the emphasis is on feedback as input that we can use to improve.
• Feedback can also be defined as “the modification or control of a process or system by its results or effects, for example in a biochemical pathway or behavioural response.” i.e. here feedback exists as part of a pathway, a loop or circuit - which results in continuous, and responsive adjustment.
• Finally, feedback is also “the return of a fraction of the output signal from an amplifier, microphone, or other device to the input of the same device; sound distortion produced by this.” Here, feedback is something that can become distorted - where the original signal may no longer be clear.

So feedback is important for improvement - it is how we learn about our effects in the world. Feedback also operates within a system or broader set of interactions, rather than as an isolated, disconnected activity. And finally feedback can become distorted - a theme we’ll come back to later in this module.

Types of feedback

Feedback can take many forms. Let us start by reflecting on the different ways that we may already have encountered feedback in our professional lives - either in the Carpentries or elsewhere (see challenge question).

Challenge Question

On your own, take 2 - 3 minutes to think of some different examples of when you give or receive feedback e.g. “I have a monthly meeting with my supervisor where she gives me feedback on my progress towards delivering my assigned goals for the month.” or “When I enjoy a link that someone else shares on Slack, I add a thumbs up emoji and sometimes leave a comment to say thank you.”

Using Padlet, submit one example per tile.

Next, in groups of three, take 10 minutes to review the suggestions that have been posted on the Padlet board and discuss how you might organise the feedback into different types. How many types did you come up with? Did you identify feedback that might be categorised into more than one type?

We can think of feedback as falling into three broad types, as shown in the following table:

Subconscious or implicit feedback is any message we are transmitting that may not be through a formally created channel - things like body language, tone of voice or behaviour changes such as withdrawal or anger.

Social feedback is any mechanism that we are doing out in the open in a group and as such is subject to social cues because we are each influenced by the way in which others are behaving.

Formal or invited feedback may occur in small groups such as focus groups or privately via feedback surveys, but the structure through which someone can provide feedback is pre-defined.

When we consider these types of feedback, we are reminded that feedback is around us all the time - it is there whenever we are communicating.

Role of feedback in the continuity of communities

One way that CSCCE defines community is “A place where members feel a sense of belonging and a desire to work together towards shared goals”.

Being able to give, receive, and respond to feedback is necessary for healthy communities and it is important for two main reasons. Firstly, it is how we get to shape our shared activities i.e. how we interact and align around what to do together. It is also important emotionally to create a sense of belonging. When we feel able to give feedback and that feedback is received and responded to, we feel like our opinions and feelings matter and that we belong in that community.

Key takeaways

• There is both an emotional role for feedback in communities - what feedback do I need to give or receive to feel like I BELONG?
• And there is also a role for feedback in helping us to practically ALIGN around a mission and the processes we will follow as we plan to achieve the mission together.

Let us unpack these two roles for feedback (belonging and alignment) in more detail.

Here are some ways in which feedback can help us feel a sense of belonging:

Personal expression e.g. feeling seen, venting, desire to help Positive reinforcement, gratitude e.g. thanks to organisers, awards Connection to others e.g. discussion threads, task forces

And here are some ways in which feedback can help us to align around shared activities:

Suggesting improvements e.g. peer review, user testing Negotiating expectations e.g. performance reviews, commitment levels Shared ownership e.g. voting, petitions

Note

• it is crucial to be able to share feedback so that both the practical and the emotional components of being in a community are satisfied:

• If you focus on belonging without providing a mechanism for alignment, there may be a lot of goodwill, but no structure to get things done.

• If you focus on structure but not emotionally supporting one another, there may be a vision but less commitment to stick to it together.

Giving and receiving Feedback

Given the importance of feedback to healthy communities, in this next section we are going to explore:

i) the ideal feedback cycle - which we will then revisit later in light of how this works in the Carpentries.
ii) how feedback might be optimally presented iii) how feedback might be distorted - and how we can counteract that.

The ideal feedback cycle

How feedback can break down

We started initially by imagining the following simple flow for giving and receiving feedback:

Linear Feedback Cycle: Stimulus → feedback is transmitted –> feedback is received —> outcome

Taking each of the steps indicated by an arrow, let us explore the ways in which communication might fail.

Phase one (Stimulus → feedback is transmitted)

• If there are no channels in which to give feedback that are accessible to the intended recipient, an individual might either refrain from sharing the feedback at all, or share it somewhere else. For example, asking for input on equitable access of platforms used in our community can fail to capture the input of affected community members if the platform used to collect information is unavailable in their region.

Phase two (feedback is transmitted —> feedback is received)

• There may be channels in which feedback can be transmitted, but there may currently be no one monitoring those channels.

  For example, Software Carpentry, Library Carpentry and Data Carpentry accounts on Twitter precede The Carpentries account creation in 2017. These accounts continue to receive active communication from our community members, and if left unmonitored, plenty of useful, and sometimes critical feedback would be left unattended.

Phase three (feedback is received → outcome)

• This phase currently emphasises the need for the person receiving the feedback to decide on action that comes next in response to the feedback - but it does not show that clarification may be needed before action can be taken.

The ideal feedback cycle

We can reimagine our simple linear flow instead as a couple of feedback loops (shown below) that more actively involve the person giving feedback to i) emphasise the importance of their input and ii) to ensure the accuracy of our understanding such that appropriate action might be taken.

From the first loop above, Giver of feedback sends message —> receipt of message —> verify understanding

From the second loop, Take action on feedback → convey action to feedback giver → receive further feedback

Note, that the action taken may not be an immediate resolution of the feedback that has been reported. However, we can still convey the next steps in the process so that the feedback giver knows that their input matters.

What does optimally presented feedback look like

If we focus more closely now on the feedback itself, what characteristics would that feedback have if it was transmitted in a format that was easy to take action on?

Optimally presented feedback is specific, objective, timely and actionable

Specific - The feedback refers to a specific event, product or person - you know precisely what the feedback is referring to.

E.g. “At the workshop that took place last week at my university I could not hear one of the speakers.”

It is clear that the feedback is about a particular training event. Which helps us to look up related feedback about that event and possibly identify the instructors who led the workshop.

Objective - The feedback describes what happened and the impact that it had.

E.g. “I could not hear the speaker and so was unable to follow the lesson. This was extremely frustrating and I felt this was a waste of my time/money.”

This feedback clearly explains what happens - there was a problem with the sound - and also that it prevented the attendee from being able to follow the lesson. In this case the impact was quite severe in terms of their ability to take part.

Timely - The feedback is given as proximally to the event that occurred as is reasonably possible e.g. an exit survey should be shared at the end of a workshop, while the learner is able to recall all of the components of the event, rather than two weeks later when they may have forgotten many of the details.

E.g. in the example that we are working through, the optimal time to give feedback for this person would have been during the workshop itself - so that attempts could be made to address the technical issue immediately. By leaving the workshop early due to the technical issues, the person giving the feedback now has to identify who to contact and how, creating a barrier to them submitting feedback - and ultimately finding a resolution.

Note

Sometimes we do not or can not provide a way to give feedback in a timely way and this may lead to distortion of the underlying message e.g. because the giver of the feedback is now more frustrated and/or the problem has gotten worse. Delayed feedback may also require a different action e.g. in the example we are working through the action during the workshop might have been to pause the lesson and resolve the technical issues with the sound, whereas addressing the feedback afterwards becomes about issuing a refund or finding a place for the participant on a future workshop, as well as trouble-shooting what might have happened with the technical issues

Actionable - e.g. there is a clear ask - which you may need to work with the giver of the feedback to determine. Note that sometimes there is no immediate resolution of an issue and the action may be to listen to the feedback and help a community member to feel heard.

In the example about the workshop, we could imagine that the ask might be: “I would like a refund / free place in another workshop so that I can learn the skills I originally signed up to learn about. I would also like to know what you are going to do to address the technical issues in the future so that others are not impacted in the same way.”

What distorts Feedback

In the introductory definitions of feedback we briefly mentioned distortion of the message being transmitted (REVISIT TABLE from the Types of Feedback section). Distortion means that the underlying message that was intended to be communicated has been lost or changed somehow such that it is harder to determine the intention of the communication and an appropriate response and resolution.

It is therefore important to consider if there are any factors influencing the transmission or receipt of the message when giving and receiving feedback. These can range from the limitations of the feedback mechanism (e.g. a survey may not provide a way to give more qualitative impressions) to social cues such as upvoting that can distort the perceived importance or prevalence of what is being described.

Challenge Question

Brainstorm some possible ways in which feedback about a Carpentries workshop might be shared - and the ways in which that feedback may become distorted as a result. Is there anything that can be done to ensure that less distortion occurs?

Discussion Scenarios

Example One

The organizers of an event delayed sending out a post-event survey until the week after the event. Only 20% of the attendees of the workshop completed the survey and for 60% of the questions about the course materials the option “not applicable/can not recall” was selected. In this example, the request to give formal feedback was not TIMELY and so attendees were less able to recall specific details that they may have been able to share right at the end of the workshop. How might you improve or avoid this scenario?

Example Two

A comment left on a social media post stated “All the materials I have ever read from this organization are so useful.” In this example, while the feedback sounds emphatically positive, it is not SPECIFIC about which materials the individual has seen, nor OBJECTIVE how they were useful. That makes it hard to take any action based on the feedback - such as learning which materials are being reshared or discovering new examples of how they have been applied. What useful action might you want to take based on positive feedback like this? How might you respond to such a post to obtain feedback that is more specific and objective?

Example 3

A prominent community member recently made a complaint on Slack which received many emojis in response. Adding many emojis to a post may make an opinion look more popular than it is and/or overlook quieter or more subtle feedback. This is known as the Matthew Effect (also called the rich get richer effect) How might the complaint be turned into something ACTIONABLE? Who should be kept informed of the actions taken?

Key Points

• There is both an emotional role for feedback in communities - what feedback do I need to give or receive to feel like I BELONG?

• There is also a role for feedback in helping us to practically ALIGN around a mission and the processes we will follow as we plan to achieve the mission together.

• Optimally presented feedback is specific, objective, timely and actionable

Feedback in The Carpentries

Overview

Teaching: 15 min
Exercises: 30 min

Questions

• How does feedback flow in The Carpentries?

Objectives

• Gain insight into how feedback mechanisms currently work across all initiatives in The Carpentries

• Understand how to employ Carpentries core values in designing interactions with community members

The Carpentries Feedback Ethos

Feedback is more than information. As stated in our Core Values, “we value a growth mindset in all that we do and strive for continuous improvement, evolving ourselves and our methodologies, being responsive, curious, receptive to feedback, and eager to learn.” Feedback flows around The Carpentries community in a myriad of ways during our in-person events (workshops, instructor training, CarpentryCon/CarpentryConnect), and through various synchronous and asynchronous communication channels. In this section you will understand how feedback mechanisms currently work across all initiatives in The Carpentries, and how Feedback Facilitators will support the community by closing the feedback loop.

Feedback from the Carpentries Core Team & Governance to the Community

The Carpentries Core Team and Governance provides the community with feedback pertaining to the overall strategic direction of the Carpentries organisation. This feedback is often in the form of an announcement on the Carpentries blog, or update in the Carpentries handbook. Here you will learn more about the different types of feedback The Carpentries Core Team and Governance gives and receives.

Between Community and Core Team

The Carpentries Core Team provides feedback to the broader community about:

• Quarterly Projects: Core Team quarterly projects were introduced in the first quarter of 2019. The Core Team shares the outcomes of these quarterly projects at the end of each quarter and sometimes issues a call to action for the community to get involved. Many quarterly projects are in response to community needs.
• Job Opportunities: The Carpentries shares job openings when they are available, and invites community members to apply for those roles, and share those opportunities around their networks.
• Community Leadership Opportunities: Each year the Core Team invites community members to apply for leadership positions, including, but not limited to the following roles: Trainer, Instructor, Executive Council Member, Code of Conduct Committee Member, Maintainer, Instructor Development Committee Member, and now, community facilitator.
• Revisions in Policy and/or New Policies: When revisions are made to policies under The Carpentries, these changes are communicated to the community, and often the Core Team provides an opportunity for the community to give feedback.
• Workflows and Operations: There are several workflows in place around workshop operations, community development, and instructor training. The Core Team communicates new and/or improved workflows to the community and often asks for feedback on those improvements.
• Other: The Core Team provides feedback in other ways, including announcements for new funding and partnerships.

CHALLENGE

Select one of the posts below from the Carpentries blog. Identify the ways in which the Core Team solicited feedback from the community. Discuss with a partner.

• 2020-2021 IDC Leadership Call for Applications
• Carpentries Trainer Training Fall 2020
• Carpentries Values Project - An Update and Call for Input
• Updates to Privacy Policy

From Governance to Community

The Carpentries Governance provides feedback to the broader community about:

• Code of Conduct Transparency Reports: The Carpentries Executive Council issues public releases describing incidents reported to the Code of Conduct Committee.
• Governing Document Updates: The official governing documents of the Carpentries includes the Bylaws and Lesson Program Policy. Updates and revisions to these governing documents are often shared with the community for input and comments.

CHALLENGE

Select one of the posts below from the Carpentries blog. Identify the ways in which the Executive Council solicited feedback from the community. Discuss with a partner.

• A Call to Action: Nominate Yourself for the Executive Council Today
• The Carpentries Vision Statement
• Request for Comment on Carpentries Mission and Vision
• Standing with our Code of Conduct

From Community to Governance and Core Team

There are several ways community members formally provide feedback to The Carpentries Governance and Core Team. These include:

• Assessment (Formal/Invited Feedback): Assessment projects are led by The Carpentries Instructor Training Team. Assessment at the Carpentries includes learner 9pre- and post-workshop surveys, long-term surveys), and programmatic (instructor training surveys, anonymized data from instructor training applications, instructor check-out rate, etc.) The Carpentries uses the feedback we receive from assessment surveys to inform improvements in workshop operations and the instructor training curriculum. When community members complete Carpentries surveys it provides us with a formal feedback mechanism.
• Community Discussions (Social/Shared Feedback): Community Discussion are online meetings where instructors share experiences from teaching and obtain information while preparing to teach. The Carpentries Community Discussions are designed for everyone in The Carpentries community interested in learning, educating and advocating for teaching foundational coding and data science skills globally. Discussion topics range anywhere from teaching workshops and developing curricula to building local communities and assessing the impact of our workshops globally. Community members share feedback and experience during community discussions verbally, and in writing via the discussion host and participant surveys.
• CoC Incident Report Form (Formal/Invited Feedback): If a community member believes someone violated the Code of Conduct during a Carpentries event or in a Carpentries online space, we ask that they report it by completing the Code of Conduct Incident Report Form. The form may be completed anonymously, or an individual may include their contact information. This is one of the key ways the community provides feedback to the Carpentries Governance.
• Requests for Comments/Feedback (Formal/Invited Feedback): The Carpentries utilises the Request for Comments (RFC) framework to help shape our programs and governance. We will explore this in the following case study.
• Carpentries Communication Pathways: Feedback is often shared between The Carpentries Core Team and the Community when mentioning @thecarpentries, @datacarpentry, @swcarpentry, or @libcarpentry on Twitter, or sending an email to team@carpentries.org or community@carpentries.org.

CASE STUDY

REQUEST FOR COMMENT ON THE CARPENTRIES BYLAWS:

Read the short blog post linked below. Using what you know about what optimally presented feedback looks like, determine whether the information in this blog post was presented in a format that is easy for community members to take action on (e.g. Specific, Objective, Timely, Actionable).

Help Shape the Governance of Our Community

The distinction between this kind of formal feedback and the feedback you will receive and collate as Feedback Facilitators will be covered in this training.

Feedback from Community to Community

Community members provide social/shared feedback by sharing their ideas and experiences in all of our communications channels and repositories, and during workshops, instructor training, and other community meetings. As Feedback Facilitators, you will be tasked with focusing on the informal communication pathways that exist in the Carpentries, and collating community feedback you find in our communications channels.

Identifying the Feedback Distortions

When is the right time to “act” when we receive feedback as a community? For instance, if a Carpentries Community member provides feedback regarding an issue they are having with one of our tools, what is the process for a) collecting that information, b) sharing that information with the appropriate persons, c) developing a timeline for resolving the issue, and d) communicating the resolution back to the individual and broader community where applicable? As Feedback Facilitators you will close the feedback loop.

How Feedback Facilitators will Close the Feedback Loop

Now that you understand how feedback flows and where the gaps are, we hope you understand why your role as a Feedback Facilitator is so important. To prime you for a later section on closing the feedback loop, please complete the following exercise.

CHALLENGE

As Feedback Facilitators part of your role will be to acknowledge responses we receive when asking for the community to engage with us on a particular topic. In groups of 3, create a flow chart of what this process could potentially look like. In your flow chart, be sure to include the following steps:

• Acknowledge that feedback has been received
• Timeline for hearing back about next steps
• Resolution and rationale

Key Points

• At The Carpentries, we value a growth mindset in all that we do and strive for continuous improvement, evolving ourselves and our methodologies, being responsive, curious, receptive to feedback, and eager to learn.

Collecting Feedback in The Carpentries

Overview

Teaching: 15 min
Exercises: 30 min

Questions

• How can one scout for existing informal feedback in different platforms that community members use to interact?

• How can one solicit for feedback from community members effectively?

Objectives

• Know how to go about scouting for informal feedback relevant to specific topics in various community channels

• Learn more about drafting and posing good questions that encourage community input

So far, we have learnt that feedback is an innate component of human experiences, and the relationship between the two can be likened to one between shadows and objects - even when you cannot see it, you know it is there. Creating formal processes for channeling feedback back to the designers of community experiences is an important step in sustaining an existing community and creating avenues for it to grow and thrive.

Feedback collection is the process by which, through observation, invitation or conversation, information about people’s experiences around an initiative is recorded. Here are a few reasons why feedback is collected:

• For goodwill

  Whether collected or not, feedback exists in some form - in people’s minds or in whisper networks. Collecting feedback opens up a channel to listen to people that participate in or are influenced and affected by the initiatives we run.

• For posterity

  Collecting feedback makes it possible to provide meaningful context for what was done and its outcome. This is important information when handing over an initiative to others, or marking its end.

• For process auditing

  For many initiatives, intent and outcome do not always align, and collecting feedback makes it possible to see where the feedback distortions are.

• Capacity building

  Once feedback is collected and used to audit processes and initiatives, it can help

  • inform proposals for future work, and
  • make a case for the need for more resources i.e. personnel, time, funds, etc

• Community sustainability

  The overall outcome of seeking goodwill, documenting progress based on community input and amending an initiative’s roadmap based on changes can be continued collaboration on shared goals and transparency which, over time, constitute community sustainability

DISCUSSION

Apart from the five reasons for collecting feedback that are stated above, share additional reasons why feedback is sought from communities that you are part of.

Scouting for feedback

TL;DR

This is the workflow to employ in collecting feedback:

1. identify topic you would like to collect feedback on
2. depending on the time commitment, determine which platform you are able to focus on
3. communicate with other Feedback Facilitators to let them know you are about to start scouting for feedback. To do so, go to this spreadsheet and
   1. check that previous logs do not cover the same scope of work you want to focus on
   2. fill the spreadsheet with your date/time log detailing the platform you will focus on

Conversational Communications Channels

As the name suggests, conversational communications channels allow room for real time, asynchronous deliberation around topics, updates and questions shared with our community.

Facebook

Our Facebook group is therefore a great way for them to receive communication and announcements on broader topics that affect a majority of the people in our community. Here is what a comprehensive approach to collecting feedback on Facebook looks like:

• if you have a FaceBook account and are not a member of the group, start by joining the group
• search for keywords in the Facebook group and see if any outstanding questions exist under announcements shared by The Carpentries
• search for ‘The Carpentries’ + key terms in the platform-wide search tool to see what context and conversations exist,
• note the URL of the post containing feedback, and
• create a GitHub issue with a short summary of the feedback. (Organising Feedback section provides a detailed guide for how to do this)

TODO

in one of your monthly check-ins as feedback facilitators, either in month 3 or 4, take 20-30 minutes to

• co-create a rubric based on your experiences to help future feedback facilitators determine if the feedback they come by suits the scope of work,
• advice on where to record this feedback when it does or doesn’t fit the scope and
• add a set of screen grabs or gif showing these steps

You can carry out this exercise in your collaborative Etherpad first, before opening a Pull Request in this repository

Twitter

Our current Twitter strategy includes primary use of The Carpentries account, with an ongoing campaign to encourage Software Carpentry, Library Carpentry, and Data Carpentry followers to follow the main account.

Here is what a comprehensive approach to collecting feedback on Twitter looks like:

• remember that The Carpentries has Twitter presence on four accounts, so check for mentions and replies to key announcements in those channels
• determine what set of hashtags dedicated to a specific topic would be relevant to skim through in your search, for example, for any conversations around online workshops, #teachingonline, #onlineteaching and #onlinelearning are a good starting point
• make use of Twitter’s Advanced Search feature. Some conversations may span back 8 or 10 years, because Software Carpentry has been a lesson program since 1998, Data Carpentry was founded in 2015 and Library Carpentry in 2017 - so narrowing down the scope of your search to specific dates might help you keep track of how far you get in scouting for feedback each time
• note the URL of the tweet or tweet thread containing feedback, and
• create a GitHub issue with a short summary of the feedback. (Organising Feedback section provides a detailed guide for how to do this)

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is primarily used for making professional connections, networking, and job opportunities. It is a place where we list Carpentries Core Team members, and cross-post relevant organisation announcements, particularly targeted at potential member organisations. We have an instructors group and an organisation page. Here is what a comprehensive approach to collecting feedback on LinkedIn looks like:

• if you are not a member of the Carpentries Instructors group, start by joining the group
• search for keywords in the LinkedIn instructors group or The Carpentries page on LinkedIn and see if any outstanding questions exist under announcements shared by The Carpentries. Here is an official, detailed guide to using search on LinkedIn.
• search for ‘The Carpentries’ + key terms in the platform-wide search tool to see what context and conversations exist,
• note the URL of the post containing feedback, and
• create a GitHub issue with a short summary of the feedback. (Organising Feedback section provides a detailed guide for how to do this)

Slack

The Carpentries Slack is used to receive immediate feedback from community members. Channels are driven by community members (e.g. initiatives) and Core Team (e.g. project related). Due to the primarily community driven approach to Slack, some channels fall idle while others remain active. Here is what a comprehensive approach to collecting feedback on Slack looks like:

• If you are not a member yet, click here to join The Carpentries Slack channel.
• The Slack Team has put together a comprehensive guide to comprehensive search on the platform, please have a read.
• search for keywords in Slack, following recommended practices in the article above, and see if any outstanding questions and ideas exist around key search terms
• check with community members who posted relevant information whether it is ok to copy their feedback over to GitHub issues verbatim.
• Unless granted consent, always paraphrase and summarise the feedback, leaving out any identifying and sensitive information. When in doubt, check with the Director of Community Development and Engagement, Serah Rono.
• create a GitHub issue with a short summary of the feedback. (Organising Feedback section provides a detailed guide for how to do this)

Google groups

Many of The Carpentries Google Groups are now email lists on TopicBox.

Here is what a comprehensive approach to collecting feedback on our old Google Groups looks like:

• check that you have permissions to read historical content in our google Groups. If need be, request for permission from the Director of Community Development and Engagement, Serah Rono.
• search for keywords in the Google Group, using filters to refine your search and see if any outstanding questions and ideas exist around key search terms
• check with community members who posted relevant information whether it is ok to copy their feedback over to GitHub issues verbatim.
• Unless granted consent, always paraphrase and summarise the feedback, leaving out any identifying and sensitive information. When in doubt, check with the Director of Community Development and Engagement, Serah Rono.
• create a GitHub issue with a short summary of the feedback. (Organising Feedback section provides a detailed guide for how to do this)

TopicBox

Topicbox is used for announcements and richer discussions which, while possible, would be too crowded and unsuited for Slack. It is also a preferred communication channel for members seeking to limit the number of channels they follow.

Discuss is where The Carpentries community comes to amplify their own opportunities, suggestions, and observations. The popularity of discuss is somewhat due to its ease of use as a general all purpose communications channel. Here is what a comprehensive approach to collecting feedback on TopicBox looks like:

• Check that you have access to relevant program and subcommunity lists for the topic you are charged with. If not, email community@carpentries.org and one of the Carpentries Community Development team members will give you access. This blog post gives a good breakdown of The Carpentries mailing lists on TopicBox
• Search for keywords related to the subject in question
• Use TopicBox filters on the right of your screen to refine your search

screengrab above shows filters available to a user on The Carpentries’ TopicBox

GitHub

GitHub is a software development platform that The Carpentries employs to host our lessons, communicate about projects, publish our website, and collaborate openly with the community. Each lesson program within The Carpentries has several lessons that are maintained by a group of volunteers we call Maintainers. Issues and pull requests are welcome from community members on all of our lessons, and our Instructor Training curriculum.

The Carpentries uses GitHub issues to collate feedback that facilitate changes to policy, committee structure, and other functions of the organisation. Comments remain open for a period of time, and once feedback is collected and incorporated, we close the issue.

As many of our projects involve community members, we recommend the use of GitHub project boards to collaborate openly about projects with the community. One example of a project is the Code of Conduct Guidelines Project and The Carpentries Strategic Plan project. We will cover GitHub projects in more depth a bit later in this resource.

Here is what a comprehensive approach to collecting feedback on GitHub looks like:

• Determine which repositories in The Carpentries organisation are relevant for the subject you are looking into
• Use GitHub’s Advanced Search feature to get the information you need. We recommend following this detailed guide to Advanced Search on GitHub.

Gitter

In the past, Gitter has mainly been used by the Library Carpentry community for sprints. The #libraries Slack channel is now primarily promoted as the preferred everyday communication platform for the Libraries community. There is also an inactive Data Carpentry (https://gitter.im/data-carpentry/Lobby) and Software Carpentry (https://gitter.im/swcarpentry/public) Gitter. However, plenty of historical data exists in Gitter, and may benefit our search for community feedback and ideas from past years. To search for information on Gitter, please follow this detailed guide by GitLab.

CHALLENGE QUESTION:

In pairs, pick a social platform and let others know what platform you have selected for the exercise. If your platform of choice has been selected by others, pick another.

Spend the next 10 minutes collecting feedback from Carpentries community members on the use of Zoom breakout rooms in online workshops or discussions. Remember to take notes in the Etherpad.

Broadcast Communications Channels

Broadcast channels are, as the name suggests, uni-directional in nature and primarily used to pass along announcements, opportunities, requests for comment and other relevant calls to action.

Website and Blog

The Carpentries blog posts allow community and Core Team members to share announcements with the broader community. As with lessons, the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license extends to all website content. To search for feedback on all blogs associated with The Carpentries

• Use blog tags as a starting point, taking note of the ones that are relevant to the subject you are covering. Here is The Carpentries guide and breakdown for blog tags.

YouTube

YouTube is used in The Carpentries primarily as an archival tool to share videos from community events like CarpentryCon 2018, CarpentryCon @ Home, as well as recorded themed discussions that take place more regularly. Comments are disabled on The Carpentries YouTube channel, and we recommend searching for video URLs on the other platforms, using guides specific to each platform, to find any feedback relevant to published videos.

Newsletter

Our current Carpentry Clippings strategy is like so: The Carpentries Communications Manager (Omar Khan) works to solicit and organise contributions from community members - making sure Core Team members submit updates, and then writing, formatting, and publishing content from them. Some content curation is also involved i.e. for “Tweet of the Week” and “Toolshed (Posts from our Past)” sections. To find feedback from community members relevant to The Carpentries newsletter, use the search term ‘Carpentry Clippings’ on the different channels.

DISCUSSION

What are some of the ways to improve the way feedback is shared by community membersfor content published on broadcast channels such as the ones listed above?

Soliciting for Feedback

Earlier, we discussed how constructive feedback is often SPECIFIC, OBJECTIVE, TIMELY and ACTIONABLE. If you have decided to ask others for feedback, it can help to consider the following questions so that the responses you receive will be as clear as possible:

What is your goal in collecting the feedback?

This will help you to determine the question(s) that you want to ask and how to get to responses that are SPECIFIC.

E.g. If your goal is to determine whether learners attending a workshop were able to access and understand all of the course materials, then the questions that you ask would specifically pertain to how learners had accessed the materials and then interacted with them.

What factors may distort the feedback?

Asking this question will help you to obtain feedback that is more OBJECTIVE. E.g. asking for verbal feedback from learners at the end of a workshop may result in learners only sharing positive feedback out loud because they don’t feel comfortable sharing negative feedback in a group setting. Or it may be difficult to be present and listen to the feedback and write it down accurately at the same time so details may be missed - including who gave the feedback or precisely what it was about. Also, relying on one person to note down feedback may result in them recalling things that resonated most strongly with them and not be a fully accurate representation of what was shared.

What is the optimal format for gathering the feedback?

This will determine whether you’re able to gather feedback that is ACTIONABLE.

E.g. You might decide that gathering the feedback verbally at the end of a workshop would be too subjective and difficult to review later. You might conclude that an exit survey would be an optimal format as it will provide more structured answers that will allow you to answer specific questions about the technical set up, learning materials, and experiences of the learners so that you can improve future workshops. Asking learners to optionally leave their contact details would allow you to follow up later.

When is the best time to ask for feedback?

Asking yourself this question may reveal conflicting time pressures that your respondents might be facing or a deadline that is closer than you realised. This will enable you to ask for feedback in a TIMELY manner.

E.g. asking for feedback about a workshop experience is best asked at the end of the workshop itself while the learners are still engaged, rather than several days or weeks afterwards when it may not be a priority for them.

Additional considerations

There are some additional things to consider when putting together communications that request feedback:

Open vs closed questions

• A closed question is one where there is only a limited answer possible e.g. “Did you enjoy the workshop?”. The most immediately accessible answers are simply yes, no or a more ambiguous response such as “mostly”. The way the question has been phrased did not explicitly invite more detailed feedback.
• A more open way of asking the question might be: “Can you describe something that you enjoyed about the workshop and something that you would like us to improve?”. When formulating an open question, be sure that it elicits a more descriptive response beyond just “yes” or “no”.

Making use of feedback clear

To avoid any misunderstandings about how and where feedback may be used, ideally this will be made clear on the first page of a survey, on an accompanying web page, or on the original request for feedback in a blog post or other medium.

Responding to comments

If you have asked for feedback and received comments back e.g. on a post on social media, there are a few things to bear in mind before you respond.

CHALLENGE

Let’s imagine that the following comment has been left on a blog post announcing an upcoming workshop series:

“I attended a Carpentries workshop last month and it was plagued by technical issues which stopped me from being able to hear half of the lesson. I hope this has been sorted out before this new series starts!”

What should you consider in responding to this feedback?

SOLUTION

• Gratitude - Start by thanking the person who left the feedback. They have taken the time to share their opinion. Your thanks should be sincere and ideally not use the same words each time you give thanks.
  • e.g. “Thanks for letting us know about your experience of the workshop.”
• Acknowledgement - Acknowledge what is being said without passing judgment or questioning their experience.
  • e.g. “I’m sorry that you weren’t able to enjoy the workshop you attended as much as you had hoped.”
• Clarify meaning - In order for you to further report the feedback, it will need to meet the S-O-T-A criteria that we discussed earlier (Specific, Objective, Timely, Actionable). Do you need to ask any clarifying questions to meet those criteria?
  • e.g. “Could you please let me know which workshop you attended so that I can follow up about this with the instructors? Were you able to pass this feedback on at the time either during the event itself or in the post-event survey?”
• Explain what action will be taken - State what you are able to do about the feedback. Don’t over-commit or promise things that you may not be able to deliver. But do offer reassurance that the feedback has been received and will be directed to somewhere that it can be acted upon
  • e.g. “I’ll send this feedback to the core team who will be able to check the post-workshop reports and what action has been taken to resolve this issue. Someone from the team may be in touch directly, if that’s ok.”
• Should this conversation be continued on a private channel? In some cases, it may be better to move a conversation to a private channel. This can include making space for others to comment on a thread, discussing details that may be sensitive in a safer environment (such as personal information, including the location of the person giving the feedback), and removing the social cues that may be inflaming the conversation as it plays out in public e.g. others upvoting or resharing the feedback elsewhere. Where possible, indicate this in your response so that others reading the thread can see that you continued to be responsive - just not in public.
  • E.g. “I’ll DM you to continue this conversation and get some more details about what happened. Thanks again for bringing this up.”

Key Points

• There are a lot of varied reasons for actively collecting feedback from community members, and understanding the motive behind each ask helps to ask the right questions and gain responses relevant to your aims.

Organising Feedback in The Carpentries

Overview

Teaching: 30 min
Exercises: 60 min

Questions

• Why is organising feedback such a critical step in an feedback cycle?

• Once feedback is collected, how can it be organised effectively for next steps?

Objectives

• Learn firsthand about The Carpentries first public, community-wishlist board that collates community feedback with the opportunity to improve on it before community-wide launch

• Gain maintainer access on the public, community-wishlist board to manage the flow of feedback from The Carpentries community

Collecting and organising feedback is a continuous exercise that is likely to last the lifetime of your project. For this reason, it is important to document the processes that enable your entire feedback process so that

• You can share with others as your team grows or ownership over your project changes
• You can audit these processes and improve on them over time
• You can streamline your feedback processes to optimise for time and quality of feedback collected
• You can replicate your successful processes for other projects

In this resource, we will refer to these processes as workflows. This section focuses on workflows around organising feedback once it is collected.

Internal Workflows

Internal workflows refer to those very first steps you will take to record the information you collect ‘in its raw form’ - meaning, using a system that you and others in the feedback facilitation cohort agree to, but one that may not necessarily be ready to share publicly with the rest of the community.

CHALLENGE

In one of your cohort check-ins, working in pairs and using one of the questions below to guide your conversation , discuss what steps would constitute your initial, team-specific, internal workflows to organise feedback as you collect it, and before you analyse and prepare it for community-wide access and use.

• Find out how The Carpentries Tagathon was perceived by participants, taking note of any challenges they faced, and suggestions they made to improve this process
• What ideas around teaching online did community members discuss before 2020?
• Have community members shared questions and suggestions on Carpentries-specific social activities they would like to undertake or lead?

Bonus: discuss steps you can take to maintain integrity of the feedback collected while respecting the privacy of community members.

External Workflows

External workflows constitute work whose output can be seen, published and shared publicly, and may entail collaboration with the broader Carpentries community. At The Carpentries, we are also keen to share workflows that guide community-facing work, so community members are informed, inspired and able to make comprehensive suggestions for things that can change. Some examples of external workflows in The Carpentries include:

• How we developed nine Core Values of The Carpentries community
• How we designed The Carpentries Code of Conduct
• How we developed The Carpentries Communications Strategy and Implementation Plan, post 1 and post 2
• Introducing a workflow to work collaboratively with The Carpentries community during HacktoberFest 2019

DISCUSSION

Working in pairs, pick any two case studies from the list above and discuss:

• What internal workflows you think supported these external workflows
• Check the information shared (i) for clarity (ii) depth of detail making it possible to adapt it for other projects. Share short notes about anything that could have been improved.

Time: 10 minutes per case study, 20 minutes total

Primer on Using GitHub

We will employ use of GitHub for Feedback facilitation in The Carpentries. GitHub is an open repository for archiving, publishing and hosting public and private, technical and non-technical resources that are shared between a group of people. We will use GitHub for continuity, as it is one of the key platforms already in use in our community.

Here are some of the ways we use GitHub in The Carpentries community:

• To publish our computational skills and data science curricula
• To collaborate on the development of new lessons as well as other resources
• To archive notes from community meetings and workflows
• To draft and publish blog posts
• For consensus building as we deliberate on different topics and matters pertinent to our community

Because of its many use cases, GitHub has a lot of functionality that can be overwhelming to think about when you are new to the platform and need to adapt it for use in a time-bound set of tasks like the ones your cohort of feedback facilitators is charged with. To streamline this process so you can focus on feedback facilitation work, The Carpentries has made the decision for you about which features we will use for the purposes of this cohort, and your onboarding will include an introduction to these GitHub features with extensive support throughout your cohort term as you continue to use them.

The main feature we will employ is GitHub Projects Boards. Project boards on GitHub help you organise and prioritise your work. You can create project boards for specific feature work, comprehensive roadmaps, or even release checklists. With project boards, you have the flexibility to create custom workflows that suit your needs. The Carpentries Strategic Plan is a great example of how we use GitHub Project Boards in The Carpentries.

Here are useful guides, written by The GitHub Team, that you can reference as you use GitHub in your work as feedback facilitators. Our hands on session will allow you to create and use these features extensively.

• Managing your work with issues. In this section you will learn more:

  About issues
  Creating an issue
  Deleting an issue
  Opening an issue from a comment
  Opening an issue from code
  Transferring an issue to another repository
  Pinning an issue to your repository
  Creating a permanent link to a code snippet
  About task lists
  About automation for issues and pull requests with query parameters
  File attachments on issues and pull requests
  Assigning issues and pull requests to other GitHub users
  Viewing all of your issues and pull requests
  Disabling issues
  Linking a pull request to an issue
  About duplicate issues and pull requests
  

• Labeling issues and pull requests. In this section you will learn more:

  About labels
  Creating a label
  Applying labels to issues and pull requests
  Editing a label
  Deleting a label
  

• Managing project boards. In this section you will learn more:

  About project boards
  Creating a project board
  Editing a project board
  Linking a repository to a project board
  About automation for project boards
  Configuring automation for project boards
  Copying a project board
  Closing a project board
  Reopening a closed project board
  Deleting a project board
  Disabling project boards in a repository
  Disabling project boards in your organization
  Changing project board visibility
  

• Tracking the progress of your work with project boards. In this section you will learn more about:

  Adding issues and pull requests to a project board
  Adding notes to a project board
  Tracking progress on your project board
  Filtering cards on a project board
  Archiving cards on a project board
  

• Tracking the progress of your work with milestones. In this section you will learn more:

  About milestones
  Creating and editing milestones for issues and pull requests
  Associating milestones with issues and pull requests
  Filtering issues and pull requests by milestone
  Viewing your milestone's progress
  

• Finding information in a repository. In this section you will learn more about:

  Filtering issues and pull requests
  Filtering issues and pull requests by assignees
  Filtering issues and pull requests by labels
  Filtering pull requests by review status
  Sorting issues and pull requests
  Using search to filter issues and pull requests
  Sharing filters
  

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Closing the Feedback Loop

Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 15 min

Questions

• Why is it important to cultivate the practice of closing the feedback loop in communities?

Objectives

• Reflect on the value of closing the feedback loop as part of the feedback cycle practiced by healthy communities.

In the last exercise, you managed to

• audit external workflows published in recent years and months by The Carpentries,
• use the information shared as inspiration to help you fill the gaps and design the missing pieces of the process from your perspective (internal workflows in this case),
• provide The Carpentries Core Team with feedback.

Also recall that in an ideal feedback cycle,

From the first loop below, Giver of feedback sends message —> receipt of message —> verify understanding

From the second loop, Take action on feedback → convey action to feedback giver → receive further feedback

Up to this point in our feedback cycle, a community member does not yet know how The Carpentries intends to use any feedback they have shared with The Carpentries, if at all. For this reason, if they reads a community-wide request from us asking them to audit the process and give feedback, we anticipate that three things might happen:

• they may lean on your trust for The Carpentries, and give us feedback if, from your experience, we have acted on other feedback you shared or as goodwill
• they may ask how we intend to use the information they shared with The Carpentries as a followup to our request. If we respond satisfactorily, they may then decide to give feedback, or at least extend our request for feedback to others.
• Given the time commitment, and lack of clarity around what happens next, they may bookmark this task for later, or take note and not act on it.

Closing the feedback loop is an important exercise that cultivates trust and encourages accountability in open communities. It is a set of steps that outlines what community members should expect once they share some form of feedback. These steps communicate very broadly that ‘you can trust us with your input, and we will in turn act on it in at least one of several ways’. Below are a few examples of instances where closing the feedback loop helped to cultivate trust and opened up avenues for accountability in The Carpentries community:

• calls for comment, review and input as Carpentries Core Team iterated on the Code of Conduct we currently use,
• calls for input as we worked to articulate our Core Values in 2019,
• incorporation of community ideas as we designed engaging community events like CarpentryCon @ Home and
• publishing of community advice and adoption of some ideas as we developed an official set of recommendations for running online workshops in Q2 2020
• Our hiring process in The Carpentries includes an ‘interviews by community members’ component where their feedback helps to inform who is hired as part of The Carpentries Core Team for specific roles.

GROUP DISCUSSION

Working in pairs, and using any two case studies listed in the External Workflows section, identify some of the action points that The Carpentries shared that helped to cultivate trust and close the feedback loop. What other action points would have been good to communicate about?

Key Points

• Closing the feedback loop is an important exercise that cultivates trust and encourages accountability in communities.

Code of Conduct Facilitation

Overview

Teaching: 20 min
Exercises: 10 min

Questions

• What is covered under the Code of Conduct Facilitation module of the Community Facilitators Program?

Objectives

• Describe why the Code of Conduct Facilitator module was created.

• Identify content and resources made available to Code of Conduct facilitators during onboarding and over the course of their cohort work.

• Identify additional sections that may be necessary to add to the feedback facilitators module.

This module was co-created by Serah Njambi Rono, Director of Community Development and Engagement at The Carpentries and Code of Conduct Committee members Malvika Sharan and Karin Lagesen in Q1 2O21. This current version is the result of extensive feedback from The Carpentries Core Team. This Code of Conduct facilitation module contains the following sections:

• Theory of codes of conduct
• The Carpentries Code of Conduct - a deepdive
• How Code of Conduct facilitation will work in The Carpentries
• Code of conduct facilitation scenarios
• Information about how Code of Conduct facilitators will interact
• Information about the Code of Conduct facilitators onboarding schedule

Why this Code of Conduct module exists

There are two very broad categorisations for the way discussions around new community activities start: (i) as a response measure to community questions, suggestions or probing based on their experiences as part of the community, (ii) as a proactive measure, led by The Carpentries Core Team, based on strategic goals and decisions, or as a measure to ensure the continued growth and sustainability of our community.

In July 2019, we determined it necessary to recruit community members to constitute a task force with the goal of engaging our global community, and offering recommendation on incidents falling outside the Code of Conduct Committee mandate, including incidents that may have occurred outside of Carpentries spaces, incidents that happen within Carpentries spaces that are not reported, or where people would like to share information or get feedback, rather than formally report an incident. Samantha Ahern, Christopher Felker and Luca Di Stasio served on this Task Force and Karen Cranston and Kari L. Jordan were the Code of Conduct Committee and Carpentries Core Team liaisons respectively.

After a round of community input, the incident-response Task Force published a set of recommendations on guidelines, approaches, support structures or policies that could be developed to respond to incidents that happen outside the mandate of the Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee. Two out of the six recommendations pointed at the need for empowering more community members to facilitate some Code of Conduct processes in our community spaces as our community continues to grow, more specifically:

1. As Code of Conduct facilitators trained and prepared to
2. share any incidents or concerns to an ombudsperson, directly with the Code of Conduct Committee, and
3. actively monitor of online Carpentries channels, and representatives in community calls, local, regional and global Carpentries events
4. as counselors trained and prepared to guide community members who might want to discuss potential incidents before reporting them to the Code of Conduct Committee, in addition to facilitating the reporting process

We are pleased to share that the Code of Conduct module in The Carpentries Community Facilitators Program is designed to prepare community members to step in and serve as a bridge between our community and the Code of Conduct Committee (CoCc), and with a scope that covers the two recommendations above. Community members trained to serve in this role will be called Carpentries Code of Conduct Facilitators.

Why the need to bridge the gap between facilitators and CoCc

More often than not, we hear of incidents that arise that require the attention of the CoCc, but which go unreported for various reasons, key among them being

1. A question of trust of the reporting, the handling process and the community this happened in when an incident affects someone new to the community,
2. An uncertainty either
3. about the gravity of a situation or one’s experience and whether it warrants reporting, either gauged against other experiences or informal discussion with others or
4. the environment in which an incident occurs, especially in community events or spaces created as a cross-community effort
5. a lack of confidence as a bystander around stepping up to diffuse a situation without the right tools or know-how, and with a fear that it might make things worse

Other contributing reasons include:

1. unfamiliarity with the policies and complaint mechanisms,
2. fear of negative repercussions,
3. the social stigma attached to victims or not perceiving offence serious enough to make formal complaints, and/or
4. a lack of awareness about community members designated to take CoC reports. In some cases, if aware, they may still worry about the emotional toll associated with reporting and following up about an incident.

Expanding the scope of the role for our CoCc

Code of Conduct Committee (CoCc) members are a group of volunteers from the community who have been trained to handle CoC reports and have gained further experience through handling incidents as a group. Up until this point, you may notice that the CoCc has had little to no interaction with our global community outside the scope of investigating, addressing and resolving conflict; and interactions that affect our collaboration-driven ethos and impact our interactions negatively. The CoCc has proactively engaged the community in Code of Conduct policy development and maintenance, but formal opportunities for the CoCc to mentor and guide others in The Carpentries have been missing. The work of the CoCc is non-trivial - in fact, because conflict can make or break a community, we view the work of the CoCc as core to the continuity and sustainability of our community. We also think it is important to cultivate positive interactions between the CoCc and our global community. Having the CoCc lead the onboarding and oversight of Code of Conduct facilitators in The Carpentries will help make this possible.

How Code of Conduct facilitation will be carried out in The Carpentries

Going forward, the Code of Conduct facilitation module will be open to as many as are interested in stepping up and facilitating Code of Conduct processes in the community. The training sessions will span two hours at a time, and will be carried out every 8 weeks. The CoCc will be leaders and owners of the Code of Conduct facilitation process, and will be the official mentors for all Code of Conduct facilitators in The Carpentries.

In summary, while maintaining the role of the Code of Conduct Committee (CoCc) as a Code of Conduct enforcement body, going forwards in The Carpentries, Code of Conduct Facilitators will be actively available to the community as a trusted and neutral point of counsel on Code of Conduct-related matters, monitor Carpentries online spaces and physical meetings and escalate Code of Conduct incidents for the attention of the CoCc or otherwise certify that the community is functioning as expected.

A big thank you to our CoCc chair Malvika Sharan who, in 2019, prepared detailed suggestions about how a future Code of Conduct Facilitators Program could operate. Our Code of Conduct training resources build on these suggestions.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Theory of Codes of Conduct

Overview

Teaching: 15 min
Exercises: 10 min

Questions

• What is the relationship between community norms, participation guidelines and codes of conduct?

• How can one begin to develop a Code of Conduct

Objectives

• Understand the types of agreements that guide collaboration in communities, levels of formality involved with each one, and where each type of agreement is best suited.

We will begin by defining community very broadly as a group of people who come together to work towards a shared goal. In the early days of their interaction, and likely before in-depth collaborative work begins, a newly formed community discusses individuals’ strengths (common interests, areas of expertise) and agrees on

1. modes, frequency and platforms of communication,
2. tasks at hand and persons responsible for each,
3. collaboration and accountability tools as they work

Community Norms

At this stage, individuals are also likely to share their limitations (think availability, time zone differences), pet peeves and terms of cooperation. Altogether, these details help to inform the accepted norms of a newly formed community.

Community norms can be defined as the accepted / positive forms of behaviour that members of a newly formed community agree to adhere to out of respect for one another, and as a necessary precursor to working together effectively. An example of community norms agreed to in the early days for a newly formed community may look like:

• We will be respectful of each other
• We will be responsive and provide feedback in a timely fashion
• We will be collaborative and accountable to each other in any task
• We will be generous with our knowledge and resources
• We will be transparent about our opinions and thoughts.

Community norms are sufficient for smaller and newer communities such as task or project-bound working groups and one-off committees where long-term activity and community growth are not an immediate priority.

Values and Participation Guidelines

As the reach and scope of work of a newly-formed community expands, new individuals, joining the community present a need for more formal, defined processes that constitute onboarding onto the community.

Onboarding can be defined as the process through which individuals interested in joining a community are introduced to the community’s goals, activities and acceptable norms in a way that brings them up to speed and allows them to contribute meaningfully and work collaboratively with others.

At this point, our new community may discover that the community norms stipulated at an earlier point are not adequate to meet needs that the growth of the community demands, and the demand for faster information flow and more specific guidance for new members that comes with it. To do it in a way that scales well,

• the new community decides to elaborate on how existing community members work and engage with one another. The summary of this elaboration is what we refer to as shared community values. You can find The Carpentries Values here, and read about how we worked with our community to articulate them.
• the new community decides to write a set of participation guidelines to help incoming community members feel welcome, guided and empowered to start collaborating with others in the community. It is fair to say that participation guidelines are the sum total of your community’s existing norms and values. To give you a better idea of what these may look like, the CSCCE recently published their own community participation guidelines.

Community Codes of Conduct

As a community grows, it is important to define lines of responsibility more formally. Clarity is a core tenet of transparency, and clear lines of responsibility help to cultivate trust in community processes and set room for activities to run more effectively, with set structures for conflict resolution as it arises. Conflict can make or break a community, and for this reason, codes of conduct are key for the continuity and sustainability of any community.

For anyone looking to write a Code of Conduct for your community from scratch, Mozilla Science Lab’s Getting Started with Codes of Conduct and Frame Shift Consulting’s book on Codes on Conduct are excellent resources to use.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

The Carpentries Code of Conduct

Overview

Teaching: 15 min
Exercises: 10 min

Questions

• How was The Carpentries Code of Conduct developed?

• What are the core tenets of The Carpentries Code of Conduct?

Objectives

• Explain how The Carpentries Code of Conduct was developed, and has changed over the years

• Identify the main elements of The Carpentries Code of Conduct

In this section, we will dive into The Carpentries Code of Conduct, provide historical context on its development, and discuss the elements that make a meaningful and effective Code of Conduct.

A Brief History

The First Carpentries Code of Conduct

Before the 2018 mergers, Data Carpentry, Software Carpentry and Library Carpentry were operating as standalone lesson programs, each with its own staff, steering committee and advisory group. Being the oldest lesson program of the three, Software Carpentry was already subscribed to a Code of Conduct from early on. In 2016, Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry staff collaborated on the first version of a joint Code of Conduct and published it on the two lesson websites. As The Carpentries Associate Director, Erin Becker, explains in this August 2016 blog post, community members then had the opportunity to apply to be part of the very first joint Code of Conduct advocacy and enforcement subcommittee.

Revisions Over The Years

This set a good precedent early on for a community-involved revision process around The Carpentries Code of Conduct in subsequent years. Here are a few notable revision points since the first Policy Committee was set up to enforce the joint Code of Conduct in 2016:

1. November 2016: updates made to address limitations in enforcing The Carpentries Code of Conduct and adjudicating reported Code of Conduct violations. This was done by clarifying the CoC and formalising a committee for handling CoC incidents in The Carpentries.
2. September 2018: following the Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry merger to form The Carpentries, in consultation with Otter Tech’s Sage Sharpe, revisions were made, primarily to (i) reinforce that Code of Conduct enforcement evaluates the outcome of one’s behaviour, rather than the intent in carrying out a given action; and to rename the Policy subcommittee to CoCc.
3. January 2019: A four-member Task Force updated Incident Reporting Guidelines, Incident Response Procedure, and the Enforcement Manual in The Carpentries Code of Conduct; and invited community members to comment on changes before making official updates to the main Code of Conduct at the end of February 2019.
4. July - October 2019: A Task Force was recruited to come up with recommendations on how to address Code of Conduct incidents that take place in non-Carpentries spaces and fall outside the mandate of our CoCc, but involve members of our community. Community members were then invited to share relevant experiences, and recommendations were published in September 2019.

Recommendations 2 and 3 catalysed the creation of this Code of Conduct training as part of the Carpentries Community Facilitators Program to onboard Code of Conduct facilitators to serve as counselors and bridge the gap between incidents occurring and being reported for resolution by the CoCc.

Key Elements of The Carpentries Code of Conduct

Taking an in-depth look into The Carpentries Code of Conduct, it is designed to

1. provide incoming community members with the opportunity to audit our community norms and values against their own so they can determine if joining our community and its activities is a good fit.

2. guide community members and partners of the organisation on how to conduct themselves, broadly, by listing examples of expected and acceptable behaviours.

   Part 2.1 Expected behaviour

   All participants in our events and communications are expected to show respect and courtesy to others. All interactions should be professional regardless of platform: either online or in-person. In order to foster a positive and professional learning environment we encourage the following kinds of behaviours in all Carpentries events and platforms:

   • Use welcoming and inclusive language
   • Be respectful of different viewpoints and experiences
   • Gracefully accept constructive criticism
   • Focus on what is best for the community
   • Show courtesy and respect towards other community members

3. remove ambiguity around our community norms and lines of responsibility by providing clarity on what constitutes unacceptable behaviour, and how to flag these for the CoCc to address,

   Part 2.2 Unacceptable behaviour

   Examples of unacceptable behaviour by participants at any Carpentries event/platform include:

   • written or verbal comments which have the effect of excluding people on the basis of membership of any specific group
   • causing someone to fear for their safety; such as through stalking, following, or intimidation
   • violent threats or language directed against another person
   • the display of sexual or violent images
   • unwelcome sexual attention
   • nonconsensual or unwelcome physical contact
   • sustained disruption of talks, events or communications
   • insults or put-downs
   • sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or exclusionary jokes
   • excessive swearing
   • incitement to violence, suicide, or self-harm
   • continuing to initiate interaction (including photography or recording) with someone after being asked to stop
   • publication of private communication without consent

   Part 2.3 Consequences of Unacceptable behaviour

   Participants who are asked to stop any inappropriate behaviour are expected to comply immediately. This applies to any Carpentries events and platforms, either online or in-person. If a participant engages in behaviour that violates this Code of Conduct, the organisers may warn the offender, ask them to leave the event or platform (without refund), or engage The Carpentries CoCc to investigate the Code of Conduct violation and impose appropriate sanctions

4. offer clear remedial and resolution pathways where individuals’ experiences in the community do not match agreed-on expectations coming into the community. The Carpentries goal is to make our community more inclusive and diverse, and it is important that our intention and promise (to make everyone feel that they belong regardless of their background, ethnicity, skill level, gender, career stage, or beliefs) matches the observations and experiences that individual community members have.

   Detailed CoC Guidelines

   • Code of Conduct Incident Reporting Guidelines
   • Reporting a Potential Code of Conduct Incident
   • Alternative Contact Points
   • Confidentiality
   • Report Data
   • Following Up with Reporter(s)
   • Code of Conduct Incident Response Procedure and Enforcement Guidelines
   • Terminology
   • Incident Response Procedure for The Carpentries CoCc
   • Report Acknowledgement
   • Incident Response Assessment
   • Following up with the Reportee
   • Resolutions
   • Appeal Process
   • Accountability
   • Conflicts of Interest
   • Code of Conduct Termed Suspension Guidelines
   • The Carpentries Termed Suspension Checklist
   • Online Communication and Communities
   • Teaching Workshops
   • Organising Workshops
   • Instructor Training
   • Trainer Training
   • Member Organisation and Local Activities
   • Lesson Development and Maintenance
   • Executive Council
   • Committees, Task Forces, and Other Interactions
   • Other Interactions

TL;DR - The Value of Summary

Our Code of Conduct governs all activities and convenings in The Carpentries, whether online or in-person. In practice, this means that at the start of any workshop, community call, CarpentryCon or CarpentryConnect conference session, we make sure to draw attention to the Code of Conduct and state summarily what is in it.

The Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR) section of our Code of Conduct is designed to ensure anyone needing to quickly talk about our Code of Conduct knows what to highlight. It is also designed to always be the first agenda item in any session, right up there with individual introductions.

The TL;DR helps to set everyone in a collaborative environment up for success - expected behaviour is communicated at the start of any activity, and reporting pathways are shared with everyone.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Code of Conduct Facilitation in The Carpentries

Overview

Teaching: 15 min
Exercises: 5 min

Questions

• What necessitated the introduction of Code of the Conduct facilitators role in The Carpentries?

• How will Code of Conduct facilitators work with the Code of Conduct committee in The Carpentries?

Objectives

• Examine community feedback and activities that have informed the formulation of the Code of Conduct facilitators role in The Carpentries

• Understand the positioning of Code of Conduct facilitators as the bridge between community interactions and the Code of Conduct committee

A big thank you to our 2020-2021 Code of Conduct Incident Response chair, Malvika Sharan and 2018-2020 Code of Conduct chair Karin Lageson for their significant contributions that have shaped this section of the resource.

Before this, (i) we mapped the journey from creation of community norms, values and participation guidelines to writing Codes of Conduct as a community expands its scope and grows in size; (ii) we looked at the history of our community’s Code of Conduct and timeline of key revisions; (iii) we then dissected The Carpentries Code of Conduct and understood the value of the TL;DR section.

In this section, we will discuss:

• community requests and suggestions around the role of a Code of Conduct Facilitator
• the official mandate of Code of Conduct Facilitators
• different scenarios and how to approach them as a Code of Conduct Facilitator

The idea of the Code of Conduct facilitators is not new for Open Communities like The Carpentries. In the existing Code of Conduct documents we recommend our community members to move from being a bystander to being a Code of Conduct facilitator (see: incident response guidelines). Every new Instructor learns about the Code of Conduct, its importance in their events, and how to assist others in reporting an incident to the CoCc. The recommendation to designate a Code of Conduct facilitator at different community spaces and events is a step further in establishing a more welcoming space for our community members and empowering them by creating an accessible reporting mechanism in different community spaces. It will particularly create a secure space for members who face social disadvantages, or those who have experienced harassment or traumatic incidents in the past.

The Code of Conduct facilitators are the trusted volunteers or leads of the events. Designating the Code of Conduct facilitator at different community spaces and events will improve the effectiveness of the Code of Conduct by fulfilling the following duties at an event:

• The Code of Conduct facilitators will be a designated point of contact for the Code of Conduct. Their contact information will be clearly communicated with the participants on the event website, pre-event emails and at the beginning of the event. The Code of Conduct facilitators will share the Code of Conduct with the participants. They will be particularly crucial for helping our participants record any Code of Conduct violation reports and relay them to the CoCc. They will make it clear who will be responsible to take any Code of Conduct related queries and reports at the event and relay them to The Carpentries CoCc Code of Conduct facilitators will address clear cut issues immediately as recommended in the current Code of Conduct, ensuring the safety of all our participants and informing the CoCc as soon as possible.

Community Input on The Role of a Code of Conduct Facilitator

Here are three community discussions from different sessions in 2019 that have played a significant role in the creation of this Code of Conduct Facilitator role as part of the Community Facilitators Program in The Carpentries.

Community Input 1: Discussion held at the Instructor Training event at UKZN Durban, South Africa between 18 to 20 March 2019.

We asked our workshop participants about what possible incidents of a Code of Conduct violation they might face in their workshops/events, and how Code of Conduct facilitators can help address them (see: a summary of their notes).

Main concerns raised were around the possible occurrences of the misconduct or offensive behaviours from a participant or trainer towards other participants or trainers, sexual harassments, and unawareness of the mechanisms to report and address misconduct. These situations can be addressed by creating an accessible mechanism for incident reporting, supplemented by the designation of the Code of Conduct facilitators. It was particularly pointed out that the participants will feel more comfortable to attend a Carpentries event knowing that they have enough support in place.

Community Input 2: Discussion held at the Carpentries Trainers meeting on 18 April 2019 We brought the same discussion to our trainers guided by the set of questions below:

1. Who is eligible to become a Code of Conduct facilitator?
2. What information would they need to take this role?
3. What are the main responsibilities of the Code of Conduct facilitators?
4. Who gets affected by the designation of a Code of Conduct facilitator?
5. how can we incorporate their designation in our existing protocol for event/workshop organisation and training.

Community Input 3: Task force Recommendations 2 and 3 on how to deal with incidents outside of The Carpentries spaces and activities prescribed by a Task Force in September 2019.

Recommendation 2: Volunteer Code of Conduct Facilitators

This task force has determined that neither the Carpentries Staff, CoCc, nor the Executive Council is exclusively responsible for monitoring and/or proactively responding to dialogue in Carpentries spaces (in-person or online), or non-Carpentries spaces where Carpentries community members are active. Our recommendation is for the CoCc, Regional Coordinators, and Instructor Trainers to encourage and empower community members to share any incidents or concerns to an ombudsperson or the CoCc. Additionally, we recommend making the button to report a Code of Conduct violation more prominent on the Carpentries website.

If the community feels it is important to have active monitoring on Carpentries channels, we recommend recruiting volunteer Code of Conduct facilitators for online spaces (GitHub, Slack, TopicBox) and CarpentryCon/CarpentryConnect. Code of Conduct facilitators could share potentially negative behaviours or otherwise certify that the community is functioning as expected. Anything reported to and mediated through the CoCc would adhere to the Code of Conduct Incident Response Procedure and Reporting Guidelines for transparency and consistency. Additionally, facilitators could identify themselves in workshops, but would not be required in workshops.

We recommend leaving the CoCc as an enforcement mechanism, and creating a community Code of Conduct facilitator program. This will serve as an added layer of support before something is reported to the CoCc. The program could be developed and supported by the Instructor Development Committee. The following are characteristics that could be included in the program:

• Anonymous form to send facilitators if a community member wants to talk about a potential incident.
• Consistent online material to train community members to be facilitators at workshops.
• Peer mediation training and other opportunities.

RATIONALE: Only one of the 12 anonymous feedback responses received during our three week feedback collection period was shared with the CoCc. We want to make it clear that the CoCc wants to hear all kinds of incidents, regardless of severity. Additionally, we acknowledge the feedback of community members who are uncomfortable with expanding the scope of the CoCc’s mandate. We also want the community to enjoy basic procedural transparency - for example sharing the outcome and findings of any investigation, and inviting subsequent discussions.

Recommendation 3: Ombudspersons

This task force is aware that The Carpentries makes use of an Ombudsperson, however, we recommend socialising, training and empowering more people to act as counselors (ombudspersons) for community members who might want to discuss potential incidents before reporting them to the CoCc. These ombudspersons can complement Code of Conduct facilitators. The ombudspersons will not be part of the CoCc that rules on reported cases. At least one ombudsperson group should be external to the Carpentries community. We also recommend that the Carpentries identify a conflict resolution expert to hire on retainer to help resolve issues in cases of mediation, restorative justice, etc.

RATIONALE: Only one of the 12 anonymous feedback responses received during our three week feedback collection period dealt with an incident that was shared with the CoCc. It could thus be argued that there might be many unreported incidents that simply go unnoticed. The objective of the Code of Conduct, and the mandate of the CoCc as its enforcer, should be not only to enforce punishments for violations, but to provide a safe space where everyone can share her/his perceived abuse. Filtering of incidents in light of Code of Conduct guidelines would then identify which incidents constitute violations of the Code of Conduct. To this end the ombudspersons, external to the CoCc, would: favor sharing incidents by separating hearing and counseling (ombudsperson) versus evaluation and enforcement ( CoCc); and provide a filtering stage that would prevent overloading the CoCc.

The Mandate of Code of Conduct Facilitators

Who is eligible to become a Code of Conduct facilitator?

This is a volunteer role recommended by the CoCc and incident-response Task Force which can be assumed by any trusted member from the organising team of any event in The Carpentries space - from workshops to community calls and CarpentryCon / CarpentryConnect sessions. They can be a program coordinator or co-chairs on an event’s organising committee, a Carpentries discussion host, workshop instructor or helper.

The Code of Conduct facilitators, like every community participant, must familiarise themselves with the Code of Conduct, the incident response, and incident reporting guidelines. They are expected to undergo the Code of Conduct Facilitators Program before they serve as a designated facilitator role. This training is conducted by The Capentries team and CoCc, who will provide all information to the Code of Conduct facilitators to carry out their work. The Code of Conduct facilitators’ training is offered every 8 weeks, which is open to the interested members from The Carpentries community. The trained facilitators can choose to be listed on The Carpentries website in a dedicated page so that they can be contacted by the future organisers to take on the Code of Conduct facilitators role for their workshops or events.

What are the main responsibilities of the Code of Conduct facilitators?

In practice, in all community spaces, Code of Conduct Facilitators serve as an added layer of support to report incidents to the CoCc (CoCc). Code of Conduct Facilitators actively monitor online spaces during the event and are the in-person point of contact to provide support and guidance to report potential breaches of the Code of Conduct to the CoCc. To efficiently serve as a bridge with the CoCc, Code of Conduct facilitators:

• liaise with the call hosts and, at the start of the event, introduce themselves and summarise the event Code of Conduct to session attendees
• provide clear and straightforward ways for people to reach out to flag CoC issues in the virtual session
  • preferably in a separate place from the event chat
  • should be easy to save content as it is typed
• describe workflow and expected timelines once someone reports an issue to help with accountability and follow-up, and to manage expectations. Code of Conduct facilitators need to read our incident reporting and response guidelines and understand how to report a Code of Conduct Incident with the CoCc.
• liaise with call hosts in a private channel to enforce existing rubrics that specify how to quickly act on Code of Conduct issues during the session i.e. expel bad actors from a virtual call to prevent unnecessary disruption, etc.
• handle information shared with utmost care and discretion, and pledge to not divulge any information shared with them to anyone other than the CoCc or as required by law
• communicate with the CoCc to share all information flagged during the event. The CoCc handles the rest of the process. For more information, please read our incident response procedure for The Carpentries CoCc.

Secondary Role of Code of Conduct Facilitators as Event Buddies

In community events, as proposed in the CarpentryConnect Planning Kit, CoC facilitators may also assume the role of event buddies. While not mandatory, this is a good way to build trust long before the need to carry out Code of Conduct facilitation duties ever arises.

Attending events can be nerve wracking for some people. Event buddies serve as

• venue guides, making signage, giving directions to various amenities and answering all questions that attendees may have
• go-to people for accessibility concerns and questions. Event buddies should be briefed and equipped to address accessibility needs.
• first point of contact at the event by attending to the registration desk to help people find their badges and understand what different types of lanyards mean, for example.
• facilitators of the Hallway Track over breaks and meals - make themselves available for conversation and running fun activities to help people engage with each other

How do facilitators get assigned in various community activities?

1. Event organisers and program coordinators: The event organisers will be responsible to designate Code of Conduct facilitators in their event. The program coordinators will be introducing this recommendation in their workflow. They will provide all the information and resources necessary for the Code of Conduct facilitators to carry out their tasks.
2. Community members: The designation of Code of Conduct facilitators will positively affect our community members by creating a more welcoming space for them. They will be aware of the people who they can reach out to for the necessary support if any emergency or non-emergency incident occurs.

Code of Conduct facilitators will not only make our participants’ feel secure in the Carpentries event but will assist the work of the Code of Conduct committee in managing Code of Conduct related incidents. In order to implement this effectively, you are encouraged to share your questions and suggestions on this topic by emailing the CoCc.

Who designates the Code of Conduct facilitators?

Here are a few suggestions for how we can approach the issue of designating Code of Conduct facilitators:

1. Instructor Training: This information should be introduced in the training material so that the new instructors are informed about this role and encouraged to sign up for Code of Conduct facilitation training so that they can help workshop organisers in designating a Code of Conduct facilitator for their workshops, or double up in this role if need be.
2. Workshops: When someone requests a workshop, they will be asked to specify in the request form who the designated Code of Conduct facilitator(s) will be for their workshop. The main organiser can be encouraged to look for a workshop helper who can take this role at their event, and where none is available, any of the workshop instructors who have been trained as Code of Conduct facilitators can take on this role.
3. Bigger events: CarpentryCon and CarpentryConnect Task Forces can be directly contacted by the CoCc to make sure that Code of Conduct facilitators for their events have been designated.
4. Online meetings: The hosts of an online event should either request a trained Code of Conduct facilitator prior to the event to take on the role of the Code of Conduct facilitator or act as a Code of Conduct facilitator themselves if they are trained. In both cases, they should inform their participants at the beginning of the event that The Carpentries Code of Conduct applies to the event, what the recommended and unacceptable behaviors for their meeting are, and who is the designated facilitator for the meeting.

In the case that the organizers of an event cannot find any trained Code of Conduct facilitators to assume the role in their event, they will prominently share the CoC information and communicate how their attendees can report incidents that occur.

An email to coc@carpentries.org will be seen by all of the CoCc. If you are uncomfortable reporting to the CoCc, incidents can also be reported to Cam Macdonell, the designated ombudsman for The Carpentries, at confidential@carpentries.org.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Code of Conduct Facilitation Scenarios

Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 30 min

Questions

• What are example situations that may require Code of Conduct facilitation in The Carpentries?

Objectives

• Discuss, practice and learn firsthand about approaches for alleviating tension and facilitating Code of Conduct issues as they arise in various community spaces

First Set of Examples

Below are scenarios that can cause discomfort or Code of Conduct (CoC) violation at a workshop and recommended approaches on how to try and address them. These are summarised from a discussion with community members at UKZN Durban, South Africa. This discussion was conducted on the topic of designating CoC facilitators at The Carpentries spaces to address CoC related incidents. Participants in small groups discussed the challenging scenarios that they had to deal with in past events or any possible scenario that may occur in the future. These scenarios can be commonly faced by our community members, and the recommendations will help the organisers, CoC facilitators, and Participants to address them.

Scenario 1

A participant faced an uncomfortable situation during the event/workshop. Who can they contact to report bias incidents?

Solution

• Organisers: The organiser will designate a trained Code of Conduct facilitator to help in reporting of these incidents and what resources they will have to support them
• CoC facilitators: The CoC facilitators will already have guidance on how to take reports or respond in case of potential CoC violations from their onboarding and training. They should agree with the organisers about the mechanisms to ask questions, get clarifications regarding CoC, addressing incidents, timeframe, etc particularly in situations where institutions have a separate CoC process from that of The Carpentries.
• Participants: Participants should take note of the precise contact information of the person(s) who can be contacted in case of an emergency that they or their colleagues may face at the event. These contacts should be listed on the website, shared by email and mentioned at the beginning of each day at the workshop for the event participants.

Scenario 2

A participant is constantly interrupting the instructor or helper at a workshop What should be done to stop such behaviors?

Solution

• Instructor/helpers: They can call for a 5 minutes break. During this time, the instructor can personally talk to the participant letting them know that their interruption may be bothering other participants. They can take this chance to designate a helper to address their concerns without disturbing the rest of the attendees.
• CoC facilitators: A CoC facilitator is also in a position to act as an ally for instructors and helpers who can personally talk to the participant to point out that their interruption may be bothering other participants, and offer them help to ask their questions individually to a helper. If these interruptions are intentional and a potential breach of CoC, the CoC facilitator must report this to the CoCc.

Scenario 3

Some participants who may have experienced bullying in the past may be unsure if they want to attend this course in an unfamiliar location.

Solution

By listing contact of CoC facilitators, the organisers make clear that they take their CoC seriously and won’t tolerate unacceptable behavior. Participants would feel more secure by knowing the contact details of the people that they can reach out to for help when needed. It is important for CoC Facilitators to assure participants that keeping their information confidential is of paramount importance and that it will only be shared with the Code of Conduct Committee

Scenario 4

A participant wants to suggest some improvement in the existing CoC. Who can they talk to at an event?

Solution

They can directly contact the CoCc however if there is a CoC facilitator, they can be encouraged to be open about making such suggestions to the CoC facilitators who take notes and submit to the CoC committee. CoC facilitators can better channel these issues and feedback by emailing the CoCc, checking with other Code of Conduct facilitators in Slack or mailing list, or opening an issue in GitHub to start a publicly visible discussion about this.

Scenario 5

The instructor is rude or offensive and is violating the CoC. What is in place to object such behaviors?

Solution

When the CoC facilitator is different from the Instructor, other instructors or participants can immediately contact them to address the issue by talking to the involved parties as in Scenario 2, or escalating the issue and facilitating reporting to the CoCc as soon as possible.

Scenario 6

The trainer is new and nervous teaching the class. How can they take care of any possible disruption that can occur in the class?

Solution

By assigning a CoC facilitator, the Instructor can completely focus on their teaching and make sure that there is someone to address any disruption. Moreover, if someone from the classroom has to be individually addressed, CoC facilitators can do that without disturbing the Instructor who can focus on the rest of the class. These individual interactions may often mean reminding a participant that they are disrupting the class and instead, inviting them to direct further questions to a helper or supporting instructor in the workshop.

Scenario 7

Participants with more knowledge can speak a lot and unknowingly discourage the rest of the students. How can one avoid such a demotivating situation from occurring?

Solution

• The CoC facilitators should privately point out that the objective of the workshop is to make sure that everyone is learning and politely ask them to allow others to talk.
• The Instructors should make sure that they don’t completely focus on how some participants with advanced knowledge are progressing, but focus on people who are new to the topic.
• If these students create any sort of discomfort in the class, Instructors or helpers can individually approach them to explain that their behaviors might disturb others.
• They can encourage advanced participants to help other students in the class.
• Sometimes assigning one helper to such participants allows the instructor to focus on the rest of the class more fairly.
• Since these days people like to interact on social media such as Slack or Whatsapp groups, Instructors can suggest students help each other using these channels after the class if they can’t address all the questions in the workshop due to the time limit.

Scenario 8

Someone noticed a violation of CoC but they don’t feel authorised to address the situation.

Solution

By designating a CoC facilitator we can empower individuals to speak for others and authorise CoC facilitators to become the contact person to receive reports and to an extent address minor incidents as discussed in previous scenarios.

Second Set of Examples

Some scenarios that can be considered before the event to ensure that the Code of Conduct is fairly implemented:

Scenario 1

A person with a disability is unsure if they can attend a course.

Solution

• Mention on the website that the workshop organisers want to make sure that everyone feels welcome to attend the workshop and are available to address any personal request to accommodate the needs of participants with special requirements.
• Try to always choose a location that is wheelchair accessible, if this is not possible, then mention that on the website and list any possible workshop in future that can be organised at an accessible location.
• Send a pre-event survey with questions concerning accessibility and individual’s needs (food, equipment, mobility, etc.).

Scenario 2

People cannot concentrate for very long sessions.

Solution

Indicate on the website that the schedule will include several breaks and also list if refreshments will be provided

Scenario 3

Language barriers.

Solution

When trainers are teaching in different countries where English is not the first language, it’s important that a local person who understands the local language is listed as one of the organisers who can be contacted for questions related to venue, accessibility, schedule or other concerns.

Scenario 4

Issues related to the Internet, electricity (load shedding in some countries), limited equipment at the venue, participants’ computers and possible incompatibility with the software required in the class.

Solution

• On the course page and personal communication by email, indicate the system requirement along with the exception that the workshop participants might face.
• Make sure that the course is to a higher degree independent of internet usage.
• Create some exercises that don’t require electricity by including group activities and discussions.
• Encourage students to work in pairs or groups so not everyone needs to have a computer, but get to learn together by sharing resources.
• If possible, keep a laptop with the required configuration for backup. Also, have USB sticks with all the materials so that participants can access data or materials even in the absence of high-speed internet.

Scenario 5

Oversubscription of the workshop.

Solution

• Keep a list of interested participants who can be contacted regarding future events.
• Make sure that registered participants have confirmed to come. If they don’t confirm their place should be given to the next person on the waiting list.
• Ask for motivation statements (1-2 sentences) to make sure that the participants are serious about attending the course.
• In some cases, a small amount of registration fee can be charged that ensures participants are interested and are willing to attend the course.
• Since it is not always possible to charge a fee in the university, a no-show fee can be listed for participants who don’t show up without any warning.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Community of Code of Conduct Facilitators

Overview

Teaching: 5 min
Exercises: 5 min

Questions

• How will Code of Conduct facilitators interact with one another in the community?

Objectives

• Identify community spaces available to Code of Conduct facilitators to confer and build rapport with one another in the community

Summarily, the role of Code of Conduct facilitators is to serve as visible points of contact and bridge the gap between incidents occurring and being reported for resolution by the CoCc. As with any other skills developed in The Carpentries, we believe that trained Code of Conduct Facilitators are able to exercise their mandate to advocate for others in The Carpentries and in other collaborative communities not associated with The Carpentries.

Trained Code of Conduct facilitators will be invited to a closed Slack group and invite-only mailing list to facilitate centralised support and discussion on sensitive subjects. Although conversations will occur in closed groups, Code of Conduct facilitators will be required to abide by the Code of Conduct, act with integrity, exhibit a high degree of empathy, and honor the trust afforded to them by the community when raising items for discussion. These spaces will serve as a resource-share point, and afford Code of Conduct facilitators the opportunity to check-in with their mentors - the Carpentries CoCc. Periodically, Code of Conduct facilitators will be able to request for, organise and/or receive invitations to roundtable discussions around pertinent issues.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Code of Conduct Facilitators Onboarding Schedule

Overview

Teaching: 5 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• How long are onboarding sessions for incoming Code of Conduct facilitators?

Objectives

• Understand how initial Code of Conduct facilitation training and onboarding sessions are structured

Code of Conduct committee members are brilliant folk with lots of expertise, knowledge and resources to share. Up until this point, you will notice that the CoCc has little to no interaction with our global community outside the scope of investigating, addressing and resolving conflict and interactions that affect our collaboration-driven ethos and impact our interactions negatively. Formal opportunities for the CoCc to mentor and guide others in The Carpentries have been missing.

The work of the CoCc is non-trivial - in fact, because conflict can make or break a community, we view the work of the CoCc as core to the continuity and sustainability of our community. We also think it is important to cultivate positive interactions between the CoCc and our global community. Having the CoCc lead the onboarding and oversight of Code of Conduct facilitators in The Carpentries will help make this possible.

Code of Conduct facilitation training will be open to everyone who is interested in taking on the role in the community. Training sessions will take place once every eight weeks, and will be limited to groups of ten (10) to twenty (20) people at a time.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Communications Facilitation

Overview

Teaching: 0 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• Content Pending

Objectives

• First learning objective. (FIXME)

Work on this module will begin in Q3 2021.

The Communications facilitation module of the Community Facilitators Program hopes to prepare community members to, among other things,

- join a community-led committee to help translate key communications so we can share these in languages other than English across our socials
- Scout for good candidates across our community to speak in panel-style, monthly Carpentries conversations 

If you are interested in collaborating with us to co-create a specific community facilitation module that may also be of interest for your community, please reach out to the Community Development Team via email.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Technology Facilitation

Overview

Teaching: 0 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• Content Pending

Objectives

• First learning objective. (FIXME)

Work on this module will begin in Q3 2021.

The Technology facilitation module of the Community Facilitators Program hopes to prepare community members to run a community-facing and community-led helpdesk for all everyday ‘how-do-I’ questions that newcomers have as they collaborate with others on platforms that the community uses i.e. GitHub

If you are interested in collaborating with us to co-create a specific community facilitation module that may also be of interest for your community, please reach out to the Community Development Team via email.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Resource Enhancement Facilitation

Overview

Teaching: 0 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• Content Pending

Objectives

• First learning objective. (FIXME)

Work on this module will begin in Q3 2021.

The Resource-enhancement facilitation module of the Community Facilitators Program hopes to prepare community members for content design facilitation that will inform the publication and archival of community-created resources in a way that makes them accessible to all, and lowers barriers to knowledge acquisition by other community members i.e. replacing sea of text with images, GIFs, videos, illustrating workflows to make them easier to understand, managing tags and their use to collate resources across Carpentries platforms, etc

If you are interested in collaborating with us to co-create a specific community facilitation module that may also be of interest for your community, please reach out to the Community Development Team via email.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Accessibility Facilitation

Overview

Teaching: 0 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• Content Pending

Objectives

• First learning objective. (FIXME)

Work on this module will begin in Q3 2021.

The Accessibility facilitation module of the Community Facilitators Program hopes to prepare community members to review Carpentries accessibility guidelines that guide interactions in online and in-person spaces, as well as the creation of written and audio-visual content and choice of platforms. Ideally, these guidelines will be authored by Core Team and passed along to community facilitators for expansion, enforcement and maintenance i.e. update guidelines as nature of interactions or platforms evolve.

If you are interested in collaborating with us to co-create a specific community facilitation module that may also be of interest for your community, please reach out to the Community Development Team via email.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)

Community Buddy System

Overview

Teaching: 0 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• Content Pending

Objectives

• First learning objective. (FIXME)

Work on this module will begin in Q3 2021.

The Community buddy system module of the Community Facilitators Program hopes to prepare community members to ideate on and design pathways for providing a safe and welcoming environment for the onboarding of new community members.

If you are interested in collaborating with us to co-create a specific community facilitation module that may also be of interest for your community, please reach out to the Community Development Team via email.

Key Points

• First key point. Brief Answer to questions. (FIXME)