Code of Conduct
The Environmental Data Science Innovation & Inclusion Lab (ESIIL) is committed to building, maintaining, and fostering an inclusive, kind, collaborative and diverse transdisciplinary environmental data science community, whose members feel welcome, supported, and safe to contribute ideas and knowledge.
All ESIIL community members are responsible for creating this culture, embodying our values, welcoming diverse perspectives and ways of knowing, creating safe inclusive spaces, and conducting ethical science as guided by FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics) principles for scientific and Indigenous data management, governance and stewardship.
Our values
ESIIL’s vision is grounded in the conviction that innovation and breakthroughs in environmental data science will be precipitated by a diverse, collaborative, curious and inclusive research community empowered by open data and infrastructure, cross-sector and community partnerships, team science, and engaged learning.
As such, our core values center people through inclusion, kindness, respect, collaboration, and genuine relationships. They also center innovation, driven by collaborative, cross-sector science and synthesis, open, accessible data and tools, and fun, diverse teams. Finally, they center learning, propelled by curiosity and accessible, inclusive training, and education opportunities.
When and how to use these guidelines
These guidelines outline behavior expectations for ESIIL community members. Your participation in the ESIIL network is contingent upon following these guidelines in all ESIIL activities, including, but not limited to, participating in meetings, webinars, hackathons, working groups, hosted or funded by ESIIL, as well as email lists and online forums such as GutHub, Slack, and Twitter. These guidelines have been adapted from those of the International Arctic Research Policy Committee, the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, The Carpentries, and others. We encourage other organizations to adapt these guidelines for use in their own meetings.
Note: Working groups and hackathon teams are encouraged to discuss these guidelines and what they mean to them, and will have the opportunity to add to them to specifically support and empower their team.
Collaborative and behavior commitments complement data use, management, authorship and access plans that commit to CARE and FAIR principles.
Behavior Agreements
ESIIL community members are expected to act professionally and respectfully in all activities, such that each person, regardless of gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, age, body size, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, level of experience, language fluency, political affiliation, veteran status, pregnancy, country of origin, and any other characteristic protected under state or federal law, feels safe and welcome in our activities and community. We gain strength from diversity and actively seek participation from those who enhance it.
In order to garner the benefits of a diverse community and to reach the full potential of our mission and charge, ESIIL participants must be allowed to develop a sense of belonging and trust within a respectful, inclusive, and collaborative culture. Guiding behaviors that contribute to this culture include, but are not limited to:
Showing Respect
Listen carefully – we each bring our own styles of communication, language and ideas, and we must do our best to accept and accommodate differences. Do not interrupt when someone is speaking and maintain an open mind when others have different ideas than yours.
Be present – when engaging with others, give them your full attention. If you need to respond to outside needs, please step away from the group quietly.
Be kind – offer positive, supportive comments and constructive feedback. Critique ideas, not people. Harassment, discrimination, bullying, aggression, including offensive comments, jokes and imagery, are unacceptable, regardless of intent, and will not be tolerated.
Be punctual - adhere to the schedule provided by the organizers and avoid disruptive behavior during presentations, trainings, or working sessions.
Respect privacy - be mindful of the confidentiality of others. Always obtain explicit consent before recording, sharing, or using someone else’s personal information, photos, or recordings.
Practice good digital etiquette (netiquette) when communicating online, whether in emails, messages, or social media - think before posting online and consider the potential impact on others. Do not share or distribute content generated by or involving others without their explicit consent.
Being Inclusive
Create space for everyone to participate – be thoughtful about who is at the table; openly address accessibility needs, and provide multiple ways to contribute.
Be welcoming – ESIIL participants come from a wide range of skill levels and career stages, backgrounds and cultures. Demonstrate that you value these different perspectives and identities through your words and actions, including through correct use of names, titles, and pronouns.
Be self-aware – recognize that positionality, identity, unconscious biases and upbringing can all affect how words and behaviors are perceived. Ensure that your words and behavior make others feel welcome.
Commit to ongoing learning – the move toward inclusive, equitable and just environmental data science is a collective journey. Continue to learn about and apply practices of inclusion, anti-racism, bystander intervention and cultural sensitivity. None of us is perfect; all of us will, from time to time, fail to live up to our own high standards. Being perfect is not what matters; owning our mistakes and committing to clear and persistent efforts to grow and improve is.
Being Curious
Check your presumptions – we each bring our own ideas and assumptions about how the world should and does work – what are yours, and how do they affect how you interact with others? How do they shape your perception of new ideas?
Ask questions – one of the strengths of interdisciplinary and diverse teams is that we all bring different knowledge and viewpoints; no one person is expected to know everything. So don’t be afraid to ask, to learn, and to share.
Be bold – significant innovations don’t come from incremental efforts. Be brave in proposing and testing new ideas. When things don’t work, learn from the experience.
Invite feedback – new ideas and improvements can emerge from many places when we’re open to hearing them. Check your defensiveness and listen; accept feedback as a gift toward improving our work and ourselves.
Being Collaborative
Recognize that everyone is bringing something different to the table – take the time to get to know each other. Keep an open mind, encourage ideas that are different from yours, and learn from each other’s expertise and experience.
Be accountable - great team science depends on trust, communication, respect, and delivering on your commitments. Be clear about your needs, as both a requester and a responder, realistic about your time and capacity commitments, and communicate timelines and standards in advance.
Make assumptions explicit and provide context wherever possible - misunderstandings are common on transdisciplinary and cross-cultural teams and can best be managed with intentionality. Check in about assumptions, and be willing to share and correct misunderstandings or mistakes when they happen. Make use of collaboration agreements, communicate clearly and avoid jargon wherever possible.
Respect intellectual property and Indigenous data sovereignty – ESIIL recognizes the extractive and abusive history of scientific engagement with Native peoples, and is committed to doing better. Indigenous knowledge holders are under no obligation to share their data, stories or knowledge. Their work should always be credited, and only shared with permission. Follow guidelines for authorship, Indigenous data sovereignty, and CARE principles. Acknowledge and credit the ideas and work of others.
Use the resources that we provide - take advantage of the cyberinfrastructure and data cube at your disposal, but do not use them for unrelated tasks, as it could disrupt the hackathon, introduce security risks, undermine the spirit of collaboration and fair play, and erode trust within the event community.
Be safe - never share sensitive personal information; use strong passwords for your Cyverse and GitHub accounts and do not share them with other participants; be cautious of unsolicited emails, messages, or links; and verify online contacts. If you encounter any illegal or harmful activities online related to this hackathon, report them to Virginia Iglesias or Susan Sullivan.
Finally, speak up if you experience or notice a dangerous situation, or someone in distress!
ESIIL takes all concerns seriously. We will follow up on every report and take all appropriate steps to keep our community safe, respectful, and inclusive. See our Reporting Process and Consequences, below.
Code of Conduct: Unacceptable behaviors
We adopt the full Code of Conduct of our home institution, the University of Colorado, details of which are found here. To summarize, examples of unacceptable and reportable behaviors include, but are not limited to:
Harassment, intimidation, or discrimination in any form
Physical or verbal abuse by anyone to anyone, including but not limited to a participant, member of the public, guest, member of any institution or sponsor
Unwelcome sexual attention or advances
Personal attacks directed at other guests, members, participants, etc.
Alarming, intimidating, threatening, or hostile comments or conduct
Inappropriate use of nudity and/or sexual images in public spaces or in presentations
Threatening or stalking anyone
Unauthorized use or sharing of personal or confidential information or private communication
Continuing interactions, including but not limited to conversations, photographies, recordings, instant messages, and emails, after being asked to stop
Ethical and scientific misconduct, including failing to credit contributions or respect intellectual property
Engaging in any illegal activities, including hacking, cheating, or unauthorized access to systems or data
Using the cyberinfrastructure provided by the organizers for activities unrelated to this hackathon.
Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting.
The University of Colorado recognizes all Federal and State protected classes, which include the following: race, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, marital status, disability, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, political affiliation or political philosophy. Mistreatment or harassment not related to protected class also has a negative impact and will be addressed by the ESIIL team.
Anyone requested to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.
If there is a clear violation of the code of conduct during an ESIIL event—for example, a meeting is Zoom bombed or a team member is verbally abusing another participant during a workshop— ESIIL leaders, facilitators (or their designee) or campus/local police may take any action deemed necessary and appropriate, including expelling the violator, or immediate removal of the violator from any online or in-person event or platform without warning or refund. If such actions are necessary, there will be follow up with the ESIIL Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) team to determine what further action is needed (see Reporting Process and Consequences below).
Addressing Behavior Directly: For smaller incidents that might be settled with a brief conversation, you may choose to contact the person in question or set up a (video) conversation to discuss how the behavior affected you. Please use this approach only if you feel comfortable; you do not have to carry the weight of addressing these issues yourself. If you are interested in this option but unsure how to go about it, please contact the ESIIL DEI lead, Susan Sullivan, first—she will have advice on how to make the conversation happen and is available to join you in a conversation as requested.
Reporting Process and Consequences
We take any reports of Code of Conduct violations seriously, and aim to support those who are impacted and ensure that problematic behavior doesn’t happen again.
Where there has been a potentially serious policy or Code of Conduct violation, we will work with the University of Colorado Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance or other campus resources to address the issue, including notifying supervisors and/or the offender's home institution as required.
The process for ESIIL leadership, facilitators and community members to report a Code of Conduct violation after it has occurred is as follows:
Making a Report
If you believe you’re experiencing or have experienced unacceptable behavior that is counter to this code of conduct, or you are witness to this behavior happening to someone else, we encourage you to contact our DEI lead:
Susan Sullivan, CIRES, susan.sullivan@colorado.edu
You may also choose to anonymously report behavior to ESIIL using this form.
The DEI team will keep reports as confidential as possible. However, as mandatory reporters, we have an obligation to report alleged protected class violations to our home institution or to law enforcement.
Specifically:
Cases of potential protected-class harassment will be reported to the CU Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance.
If the violation is made by a member of another institution, that information may also be shared with that member’s home institution by the CU Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance under Title IX.
In some instances, harassment information may be shared with the National Science Foundation, who are the funding organization of ESIIL.
When we discuss incidents with people who are accused of misconduct (the respondent), we will anonymize details as much as possible to protect the privacy of the reporter and the person who was impacted (the complainant). In some cases, even when the details are anonymized, the respondent may guess at the identities of the reporter and complainants. If you have concerns about retaliation or your personal safety, please let us know (or note that in your report). We encourage you to report in any case, so that we can support you while keeping ESIIL members safe. In some cases, we are able to compile several anonymized reports into a pattern of behavior, and take action based on that pattern.
If you prefer to speak with someone who is not on the ESIIL leadership team, or who can maintain confidentiality, you may contact CU Ombuds at 303-492-5077 (for guidance and support navigating difficult conversations) or the CU Office of Victim Assistance at 303-492-8855. If you want more information about when to report, or how to help someone who needs to report, please review the resources at Don’t Ignore It.
Note: The reporting party does not need to be directly involved in a code of conduct violation incident. Please make a bystander report if you observe a potentially dangerous situation, someone in distress, or violations of these guidelines, even if the situation is not happening to you.
What Happens After a Report Is Filed
After a member of the ESIIL DEI team takes your report, they will (if necessary) consult with the appropriate support people at CU. The ESIIL DEI team will respond with a status update within 5 business days.
During this time, they, or members of the CU Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance, will:
Meet with you or review report documentation to determine what happened
Consult documentation of past incidents for patterns of behavior
Discuss appropriate response(s) to the incident
Connect with the appropriate offices and/or make those response(s)
Determine the follow up actions for any impacted people and/or the reporter
Follow up with the impacted people, including connecting them with support and resources.
As a result of this process, in minor cases ESIIL DEI may communicate with the respondent to:
Explain what happened and the impact of their behavior
Offer concrete examples of how to improve their behavior
Explain consequences of their behavior, or future consequences if the behavior is repeated.
For significant infractions, follow up to the report may be turned over to the CU Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance and/or campus police.
Possible Consequences to Code of Conduct Violations
What follows are examples of possible responses to an incident report. This list is not inclusive, and ESIIL reserves the right to take any action it deems necessary. Generally speaking, the
strongest response ESIIL may take is to completely ban a user from further engagement with ESIIL activities and, as is required, report a person to the CU Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance and/or their home institution and NSF. If law enforcement should be involved, they will recommend that the complainant make that contact. Employees of CU Boulder may also be subject to consequences as determined by the institution.
In addition to the responses above, ESIIL responses may include but are not limited to the following:
A verbal discussion in person or via phone/Zoom followed by documentation of the conversation via email
Not publishing the video or slides of a talk that violated the code of conduct
Not allowing a speaker who violated the code of conduct to give (further) talks
Immediately ending any team leadership, membership, or other responsibilities and privileges that a person holds
Temporarily banning a person from ESIIL activities
Permanently banning a person from ESIIL activities
Nothing, if the behavior is determined to not be a code of conduct violation
Do you need more resources?
Please don’t hesitate to contact the ESIIL DEI lead, Susan Sullivan, if you have questions or concerns.
The CU Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance is a resource for all of us in navigating this space. They also offer resource materials that can assist you in exploring various topics and skills here.
If you have questions about what, when or how to report, or how to help someone else with concerns, Don’t Ignore It.
CU Ombud’s Office: Confidential support to navigate university situations. (Most universities have these resources)
The CU Office of Victims Assistance (counseling limited to CU students/staff/faculty, though advocacy is open to everyone engaged with a CU-sponsored activity. Please look for a similar resource on your campus if you are from another institution).
National Crisis Hotlines
How are we doing?
Despite our best intentions, in some cases we may not be living up to our ideals of a positive, supportive, inclusive, respectful and collaborative community. If you feel we could do better, we welcome your feedback. Comments, suggestions and praise are also very welcome! Please complete this form to provide anonymous feedback.
Acknowledgment
By participating in an ESIIL event, you agree to abide by this code of conduct and understand the consequences of violating it. We believe that a respectful and inclusive environment benefits all participants and leads to more creative and successful outcomes.
Batchelor, R.L., Sullivan, S.M., Iglesias, V., Nagy, R.C., Parker, J.N., Stavros, E.N., Gold, A.U., Balch, J.K.
2024. ESIIL Code of Conduct and Inclusive Collaboration Guidelines. Environmental Data Science Innovationand Inclusion Lab (ESIIL). https://doi.org/10.25810/2rdy-c188.
ESIIL Guidelines for Intellectual Contributions and Credit
ESIIL's guidelines for intellectual contributions and credit take a comprehensive and inclusive approach to contributorship, as per Allen et al. 2019 and the CRediT taxonomy (Brand et al. 2015). We advocate for contributions that adhere to the principles of open science while also respecting data sovereignty (Carroll et al. 2020). We urge all ESIIL participants to implement these guidelines in all our endorsed research and educational ventures. We acknowledge that different disciplines, sectors, and institutions may have unique approaches to contributions, credit, and authorship. However, we strongly advise teams to develop an agreement around contributions and credit, which should be regularly revisited and updated throughout the project. When in doubt, lean towards giving credit rather than withholding it.
Guidelines:
1. Initiate early and ongoing conversations among teams about expectations and roles, acknowledging that these may change over time. Teams should document these discussions and formalize their decisions (e.g., such as through an authorship agreement form and contributions table).
2. Honor various forms of contribution, for example, the categories from the CRediT taxonomy: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, and Writing – review & editing (and there may be other forms of contribution not adequately addressed here);
3. Consider including author contributions in publications, even if it is not a requirement of the journal or other outlet;
4. Clarify how credit is attributed to early-career scientists, and ensure that mechanisms are in place to actively involve them in the contribution process;
5. Create leadership opportunities for, and promote the contributions of, members of underrepresented communities in work outputs;
6. Where appropriate, provide open access publication of products throughout the entire scientific process, including pre-prints (Hoy 2020) and for data, tools, code, models, educational materials, manuscripts, and other intellectual contributions;
7. Consider alternative author listings that provide better recognition of contributions, such as
shared and indicated lead author roles, team author names for very large author groups, and/or tiered authorship based on efforts;
8. Consider open source licenses when publishing;
9. Explore ways to track success beyond traditional publication citations, for example, altmetrics that capture attention and engagement on digital platforms, patents and inventions, policy impact, among others.
These guidelines on intellectual contribution and credit are intended to create a safe intellectual space for idea exchange, acknowledgment of individual contributions, and facilitation of large-scale collaborations.
References:
Allen, L., A. O’Connell, and V. Kiermer. 2019. How can we ensure visibility and diversity in research contributions? How the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) is helping the shift from authorship to contributorship. Learned Publishing 32:71–74.
Brand, A., L. Allen, M. Altman, M. Hlava, and J. Scott. 2015. Beyond authorship: attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit. Learned Publishing 28:151–155.
Carroll, S. R., I. Garba, O. L. Figueroa-Rodríguez, J. Holbrook, R. Lovett, S. Materechera, M. Parsons, K. Raseroka, D. Rodriguez-Lonebear, R. Rowe, R. Sara, J. D. Walker, J. Anderson, and M. Hudson. 2020. The CARE Principles for Indigenous data governance. Data Science Journal 19:43.
Hoy, M. B. 2020. Rise of the Rxivs: How preprint servers are changing the publishing process. Medical Reference Services Quarterly 39:84–89.
Balch, J.K., Nagy, R.C., Posa, M.R.C., Sullivan, S.M., Batchelor, R.L., Tuff, T. 2024. ESIIL Guidelines for
Intellectual Contributions and Credits. Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab (ESIIL). doi.org/10.25810/sgrt-2w66