Help us articulate The Carpentries Values

[serahkiburu]

Shared values and goals have long been the starting point of communities of practice as they identify changes they want to see and start working together towards these changes. The Carpentries started out with a clear goal - teaching foundational computational skills to researchers worldwide. Something that is also important and unique about our community is how we work and engage with each other. As a community, values are important to us and we consider that we have a set of shared values. However, we have not yet articulated what these values are.

The Carpentries Executive Council did some preliminary work on this at their in-person meeting in 2018, and The Carpentries team has also done some initial exercises in this regard.

To be truly reflective of the community however, we believe that it is important for community involvement to be an integral part of creating these value statements. We would love to hear from you, our community, and we intend to use this information to inform and create a beta draft of a set of value statements for The Carpentries.

Help us articulate The Carpentries Values by answering these three questions:

1. Envision people you think of as representative of The Carpentries community. What words would you use to describe these people? (No need to identify them, briefly outline their characteristics.)

2. The workshops we run, calls we hold, interactions we have on various platforms, and guidelines we use to uphold these interactions are but a few things that make us who we are as a community. With this in mind, in 2-3 sentences, how would you describe The Carpentries community culture?

3. From your understanding of our community culture and the demeanour of individuals that constitute The Carpentries, what specific actions would you like The Carpentries community to take up or uphold in everyday Carpentries conversations going forwards?

Please answer these two questions by

• leaving comments directly under this issue, or
• responding to this discuss thread on TopicBox, or
• filling out this Google form anonymously

Issue updated on September 12 2019 to include the question above

[jduckles]

My thoughts are encapsulated over here in my adaptation of The Social Dynamics of Debian to The Carpentries: https://github.com/carpentries/conversations/issues/17

[remram44]

Seem related: previous discussions for mission statement and vision statement

[hoytpr]

1. The most impressive individuals encountered representing the Carpentries core values are those with extraordinary knowledge, and even power, who recognize the importance of contributing to the scientific community by embracing those with less knowledge, and/or less power, but who share a passionate ideology of inclusiveness, and truth. These individuals recognize that everyone can learn. As such these individuals use their positions to influence policy for expanded, improved mentorship, and expanded, improved inclusion both socially and in interdisciplinary science.

2. The Carpentries community culture is an important representation of new paradigms in the community of scientists that will uplift scientific reputation (through openness and reproducibility) scientific accountability, self-care, and proper perspective to the effort and accuracy involved in developing scientific knowledge. By recognizing the need for new approaches to interdisciplinary science, the Carpentries represent a community of support to improve community interactions that increase the rate of knowledge acquisition without the destructive or counterproductive aspects of publish or perish. It's commitment to spread that culture makes it a rare and potentially disruptive platform to improve science for the greater good.

[malvikasharan]

1) Words to describe people in this community, and also the 2) community culture:

Inclusive, largely positive, forward and global thinking, adaptive, growth-mindset, skill-building, transparent decision-making, low-barrier, interactive, promotes fairness and value exchange, affirmative and active

2) The community culture is based on the listed values. I will think about it in concrete sentenced and add them later :)

[naupaka]

1. Enthusiastic, welcoming, inclusive.
2. A place for the intersection of tech knowledge/skills and pedagogy in the context of inclusive and welcoming attitudes towards all peoples and paths.

[chrispunjoku]

Q. 1: My answer

Passionate

Composed

Caring

Respectful Selfless

Q. 2: My idea: This is a community with a culture of oneness in diversity, collaboration, openness, and passion for sharing essential computing and data skills with best practices and utmost respect for one another. We learn as much as we teach, because to us a learner is also a teacher.

My 2 kobo.

Chris Prince Udochukwu Njọkụ, Ph.D. Computer Communications Centre University of Nigeria, Nsukka 410001 @DrCPUNjoku

We mustn't remain with old ways of doing things,

especially if they're not yielding optimum results.

On Thu, Aug 8, 2019 at 7:28 PM Naupaka Zimmerman notifications@github.com wrote:

1. Enthusiastic, welcoming, inclusive.
2. A place for the intersection of tech knowledge/skills and pedagogy in the context of inclusive and welcoming attitudes towards all peoples and paths.

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[zjsteyn]

Envision people you think of as representative of The Carpentries community. What words would you use to describe these people? (No need to identify them, briefly outline their characteristics.)

• Passionate about seeing growth and enabling others. Compassionate. Understanding, supportive

The workshops we run, calls we hold, interactions we have on various platforms, and guidelines we use to uphold these interactions are but a few things that make us who we are as a community. With this in mind, in 2-3 sentences, how would you describe The Carpentries community culture?

There is a sense of family, there can be challenges sometimes but my experience is that we try to grow as a family. That means addressing challenges and supporting each other where we can. But also as the extended family grows in the future thinking broader about support would be important.

[kariljordan]

On November 18, 2019, we introduced The Carpentries Core Values (see below). Thank you so much for this issue. I will close it now, but if there is more feedback that anyone has feel free to reopen.

The Nine Core Values of The Carpentries

At The Carpentries we… Act Openly We believe that transparency, honesty, and fairness are keys to fostering trust within an open community.

Empower One Another We help people build knowledge by creating a conducive environment for the exchange of skills, perspectives and experiences that empower people and enable them to reach their potential.

Value All Contributions We value all contributions by individuals and entities to our community, code, lessons and broader ecosystem as long as those contributions adhere to The Carpentries Code of Conduct.

We are… Always Learning 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.

Inclusive of All We advocate for inclusivity - welcoming and extending empathy and kindness - to leverage contributions from all community members, regardless of their identity or expression.

We champion… People First We believe that the individuals who make up our community are the most important part of our organisation and our strongest resource. We strive to make decisions that lower barriers for individual participation.

Access for All We value accessibility as core, and create multiple avenues for participation where all people can learn and contribute.

Community Collaboration Our curricula and programs are developed by and with community members. We see collaboration across borders, domains and initiatives as a pathway to empower people and realise shared goals.

Strength through Diversity Appreciating that identities are complex and individual, we believe in empowering a diverse group of people to work with data and code to answer the questions important to them and address challenges in science and society.