Instructor Access to Workshops

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Software and Data Carpentry share a mission to spread computational and data literacy to the broader research community at a wide range of institutional types across the world. We also share core community values of openness and inclusiveness.

Recently, we learned that some of our host sites have selective criteria that limit physical access to their sites on the basis of nationality. These policies have the effect of excluding some Carpentry instructors from teaching at these sites. We recognize that often these criteria are imposed by the broader security and bureaucratic apparatus at the organization that the host operates within and are beyond the control of our contacts at those sites. Nevertheless, these policies can cause conflict with our mission and core community values.

We are committed to promoting inclusion and access to workshops. When policies exist outside our control, we will be as up-front as possible with our instructors about any such restrictions that may be in place. We will be asking all host organizations using our workshop coordination service about any site-restrictions that are in place, and will communicate such restrictions with our instructors when we announce volunteer instructor opportunities. If you have questions or thoughts on this issue, we welcome your comments to Tracy Teal at tkteal@carpentries.org.