Standing with our Code of Conduct

We operate in a broader ecosystem of training in digital skills and do, in our lessons, provide recommendations to other training resources. The recommendations that we make should also be consistent with our organizational values. We had previously recommended DataCamp in our lessons, so we want to respond to the recently-disclosed incident of sexual assault at DataCamp. References to DataCamp materials had previously been removed as we were made aware of the incident before it became public, and we noticed and removed a final instance this week. The Carpentries does not have any formal relationship with DataCamp, nor will we pursue any relationship while this incident remains unresolved.

We also know that many of our community members have interacted with the company, either as course developers or by taking courses. In addition, the victim of the assault is a member of our community. We appreciate and support the stances that many of these people and others in our community have made. See Noam Ross’ post Do Not Take My DataCamp Course, There Must be Consequences for Sexual Assault for a summary of the overall community response.

Our goal as The Carpentries is to build a community teaching software and data skills. We teach essential computing skills to thousands of people in the research and library community each year. Our Code of Conduct governs all of our events, our team and online spaces. Sexual harassment is not tolerated at Carpentries events or online spaces by any member of the staff, leadership, or volunteer community, and our enforcement manual lays out the procedures for handling such cases, including temporary / permanent suspension from participation in the organization. We are committed to continuing to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for learning in The Carpentries.

Our Data Carpentry, Software Carpentry, and Library Carpentry lessons cover a range of foundational topics in data and computational science for people new to working with data and software. As a non-profit project, we always welcome new learners at our workshops, new instructors to teach the material, and new lesson developers and maintainers. See our website or get in touch with us at team@carpentries.org for information on any of our programs. Additionally if you’re interested in open education and community lessons in general, join our Slack channel on #openeducation.

Please contact the Executive Council or Executive Director, Tracy Teal, if you have inquiries regarding this statement.

Signed,
– The Carpentries Executive Council and Executive Director