Code of Conduct on The Carpentries

The Carpentries Partnership Program is Now Live!

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After many months in the making, we are thrilled to announce that The Carpentries Partnership program is finally launching today!

This is an exciting outcome of efforts by The Carpentries Core Team and broader community to redesign our former Membership program into a program that is responsive and best meets the needs of our partnering organisations and institutions.

Over the coming weeks, we will release a series of blog posts expanding on the value of having a Partnership with The Carpentries. In this blog post we provide an outline of the service offerings that can be included in a Partnership agreement beginning today.

Join the Code of Conduct Committee: Help Foster a Welcoming and Inclusive Carpentries Community

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries is committed to providing a welcoming and supportive environment for all people, and our Code of Conduct (CoC) serves as the framework for this commitment. The Code of Conduct Committee (CoCC) is responsible for managing the Code of Conduct, handling reports of conduct violations, and advocating for the CoC in the community.

The Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee is currently recruiting new members. We seek 3-4 community members who are passionate about ensuring that The Carpentries is a welcoming space, who have time to dedicate to the committee, and who bring diversity to the committee. Additionally, although it is beneficial, having previous experience with this kind of work is not a requirement.

Sharing our new Code of Conduct Facilitators Module

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In summary, while maintaining the role of the Code of Conduct Committee (CoCc) as a Code of Conduct enforcement body, in the near future, Code of Conduct Facilitators will be trained and 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.

Recruiting new members to the Code of Conduct Committee

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries are committed to providing a welcoming and supportive environment for all people, and our [Code of Conduct]({{ site.code_of_conduct_url }}) (CoC) is the framework for this commitment. The Code of Conduct Committee (CoCC) is responsible for managing the Code of Conduct, handling reports of conduct violations, and advocating for the CoC in the community.

The Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee is currently recruiting new members. We seek 3-4 community members who are passionate about ensuring that The Carpentries is a welcoming space, who have time to dedicate to the committee, and who bring diversity to the committee. In addition, it is beneficial, but not necessary, to have previous experience with this kind of work.

With gratitude, to the Code of Conduct Committee

Wed, 04 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

We have a deep appreciation for the Code of Conduct Committee (CoCc). Though its main goal is to maintain, update, and enforce The Carpentries Code of Conduct (CoC), this committee has contributed to instructor training material (pull requests #950 and issue #897 , clarified overlapping responsibilities with core team members and the Executive Council, onboarded two new members (welcome Ivo and Benjamin!) and finalised its governance structure.

Additionally, the committee contributed to recommendations for incidents that fall outside its mandate (see recommendations), all while exhibiting our core values.

Code of Conduct Mandate Task Force Releases Recommendations

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The global Carpentries community is growing. Community members are running more workshops, engaging with each other and sharing our content broadly, and speaking on behalf of The Carpentries at various meetings and on social media. With our growth comes an added awareness of the different ways our community engages with each other inside and outside our spaces and in the broader open scholarship/open data ecosystem. As such, potential conflicts or breaches of our Code of Conduct can arise. Currently, some incidents we may want to be aware of and respond to are outside our Code of Conduct Committee’s (CoCc) formal guidelines and processes. As a vanguard organisation with a digital and technological purpose, the organisation needs to respond to these incidents transparently, respecting multiple countries traditions and practices, and legal considerations. To address this, a Code of Conduct Committee Mandate Task Force was convened to make recommendations to help respond to incidents that happen outside the existing mandate of the Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee.

Your experiences will help us recommend support for our CoCc

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries has convened a task force to make recommendations for support structures and potential guidelines for incidents outside our Code of Conduct Committee’s (CoCc) mandate. This undertaking has come about as our community continues to grow and expand in the number of workshops we run, communities we reach, and diversity of our instructors and learners. Our Code of Conduct and CoCc are serving its purpose, but when incidents fall outside its mandate what can we do?

Recruiting Task Force Members for Incidents Outside the mandate of The Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

With a growing community and an increasing number of Carpentries spaces (online and in-person), The Carpentries is encountering circumstances where we feel we should respond to cases of inappropriate conduct that happen outside of our formal guidelines and processes. Our Code of Conduct (CoC) and Code of Conduct committee are now quite mature with a fairly tightly defined scope. There is less clarity around incidents outside the Code of Conduct committee’s current 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. These incidents may impact the ability of members to feel safe working in our community. We want to respond to these events in a timely manner and in a consistent way that balances transparency, confidentiality and legal considerations.

Code of Conduct Documentation Revised for Transparency and Clarity

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In September 2018 the Code of Conduct Committee released revisions to The Carpentries Code of Conduct. The updated Code of Conduct now provides straightforward examples of both beneficial and unwanted behaviour in order to clarify expectations for our community members. The committee quickly realised during this process that updates to our reporting guidelines, and enforcement manual were needed as well. The Executive Council authorised a small committee to make updates to these documents, and to our Incident Response Procedure. A request for comments for the drafts of these documents was open from 31-January through 17-February, and the documents have been revised. Check out the documentation in [our handbook]({{ site.code_of_conduct_url }}).

Code of Conduct Documentation Open for Comments

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Updates to The Carpentries Code of Conduct Documentation

The Carpentries Code of Conduct is core to who we are, because it describes how we interact with each other in our community. The Code of Conduct isn’t just a piece of (virtual) paper though; it’s how we communicate about it, the guidelines for how we handle reports, and how the Code of Conduct committee - a group of volunteers committed to working with staff and the Executive Council - responds to incidents and updates guidelines as needed.

Updates to The Carpentries' Code of Conduct

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Since its inception as Software Carpentry, The Carpentries community has always subscribed to a Code of Conduct (CoC). Our Code of Conduct helps explain to community members and others what behaviours are acceptable and expected, and what constitutes unacceptable behaviour. Our CoC is a crucial part of making our community more inclusive and diverse, because it extends a welcome to everyone regardless of their background, ethnicity, skill level, gender, career stage, or beliefs.

The Centrality of the Code of Conduct

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

This is the first in a series of posts about Carpentries’ teaching practices. Subsequent posts will cover the other practices - live coding, sticky notes, helpers, challenges, etherpads - that make Carpentries’ workshops the success that they are.

I gave a talk recently for the Australian National Data Service on ’teaching the Carpentries way’. Originally I planned to cover six reasons why our workshops are effective, but ended up covering thirteen, with the thirteenth being the Carpentries’ Code of Conduct.

Forming a Community-Developed Code of Conduct: What we learned.

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Codes of Conduct are important because they define behavior expectations for a community and encourage positive relationships, and because of their importance, care must be taken when they are being developed. Defining the standards to which people will be held when they act as part of a community is inherently difficult. Everyone has slightly (or sometimes radically) different ideas about what counts as acceptable behavior, and most people are surprised that their idea of “acceptable” isn’t shared by all. On the other hand, some people reject the notion that any (legal) behavior should preclude them from being part of a community. In a group like the Carpentry community, with a fluid membership and a culture of co-operative, consensus based decision-making, the development of these standards must be a community process that can handle this complexity. How does this collective ‘you’ decide on behavioral rules for the community that reflect the diverse voices present? And how does this ‘you’ balance the need to provide clear boundaries without writing a comprehensive rule book?

Code of Conduct and Call for Volunteers for Policy Subcommittee

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

The Carpentries are proud to share a common Code of Conduct (CoC), which outlines acceptable standards of behavior for our community members and those interacting with the Carpentries at in-person events and online spaces. Historically, however, we have not had an official process for reporting potential Code of Conduct violations or for adjudication and resolution of reported incidents. Thanks to input from our community, we recognise that defining these procedures is an important step in ensuring that any such issues are dealt with transparently in order to keep our community welcoming and safe for all.

Our Code of Conduct

Mon, 09 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The amazing Software and Data Carpentry community of instructors and learners is the foundation of our organizations. We have more than 500 instructors from 30 countries and have had over 20,000 learners in our workshops.

Software and Data Carpentry are community driven organizations. We value the involvement of everyone in this community - learners, instructors, hosts, developers, steering committee members, and staff. We are committed to creating a friendly and respectful place for learning, teaching and contributing. All participants in Software and Data Carpentry events or communications are expected to show respect and courtesy to others.