Code of Conduct

Why have a Code of Conduct?

Our goal is to create the best possible community for becoming a better economist and a better coder. We want every member of the Programming Practices for Research in Economics community to be able to focus their full attention on these goals. This is impossible to do if you are being harassed, stalked, or discriminated against.

Accordingly, all students, faculty, and invited guests are expected to show respect and courtesy to each other in all interactions, whether in person, in our online community, or in other contexts.

To make sure that everyone has a common understanding of "show respect and courtesy to each other," we have adopted the following code of conduct. The code of conduct is enforced by the course instructors.

Report a violation here.

Unacceptable behavior

The following types of behavior are unacceptable in our course, both online and in-person, and constitute code of conduct violations.

Abusive behavior

Harassment - including offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion, as well as sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual or romantic attention.
Threats - threatening someone physically or verbally. For example, threatening to publicize sensitive information about someone's personal life.

Unwelcoming behavior

Blatant -isms —saying things that are explicitly racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. For example, arguing that some people are less intelligent because of their gender, race or religion. Subtle -isms and small mistakes made in conversation are not code of conduct violations. However, repeating something after it has been pointed out to you that you broke a social rule, or antagonizing or arguing with someone who has pointed out your subtle -ism is considered unwelcoming behavior, and is not allowed in our course.
Maliciousness towards other course participants - deliberately attempting to make others feel bad, name-calling, singling out others for derision or exclusion. For example, telling someone they’re not a real marketer / programmer or that they don’t belong in our course.
Being especially unpleasant - for example, if we've received reports from multiple students or faculty of annoying, rude, or especially distracting behavior.
Bringing guests into the course space - you may not bring non-course participants into our course spaces except in very specific contexts. It’s important that everyone can trust that only other course participants will be in the space - it allows people to speak freely, feel comfortable leaving their belongings unattended, and trust that everyone is being held to the expectations in this code of conduct. This is different from all the rest, but is nevertheless a code of conduct violation.

Behavior that jeopardizes class credibility

While the class is a learning community, it's also a community of friends. We ask you to be aware of the fact that conversations that may be appropriate within the context of a specific friendship or relationship with another course participant may be inappropriate in our course spaces or in a group conversation with course participants you don't know well.

Scope

Students, faculty and invited guests are held to the standards outlined in this code of conduct when interacting in-person, and online on the course's tools like Zoom, Teams and GitHub.

When in doubt, please report unacceptable behavior to us. If someone's behavior outside of the confines of our course spaces makes you feel unsafe within them, that is absolutely relevant and actionable for us.

Enforcement

We've categorized unacceptable behavior into abuse, unwelcoming behavior, and behavior that jeopardizes our class's credibility in the sections above.

If we witness or receive a report about abusive behavior, we will contact the perpetrator to have a conversation with them and verify what has transpired. We will also report the behaviour to the appropriate contacts at the University where the university administration can decide on the next steps.

If we witness or receive a report about unwelcoming behavior or behavior that jeopardizes us as a class, we will contact the course participant involved to explain why their behavior was unacceptable, and warn them that a second code of conduct violation will result in further action.

This is the protocol that the instructors will use to respond to reports of code of conduct violations.

Reporting

If you see a violation of our code of conduct, please report it to the course instructors.

Why should I report?

You are responsible for making the course a safe and comfortable space for everyone. Everyone in our community shares this responsibility. Instructors are not around the to observe all interactions relevant to our course, so we cannot enforce the code of conduct without your help. The consequences for the course community of not reporting bad behavior outweigh the consequences for one person of reporting it.

Where and how to report

Please report all code of conduct violations via the reporting form. If you would rather discuss the matter in person with a faculty member, book office hours with one of us on the calendar, or email us to schedule a time to talk.

In your report, please include:

Your name - this is incredibly helpful for us to be able to follow up with you, and ask questions to better understand the situation. The form allows you to report anonymously. Please only use this option if you really need to, and know that we might not be able to take action without knowing who you are.
A detailed description of what happened
If the violation happened online, please link to or send us the relevant text.
If the violation happened in person, please detail what exactly the other person said or did. In order to take action, we need to know the concrete actions that someone took.
Where and when the incident happened
Any other relevant context. Do you have examples of a pattern of similar behavior from this person before? D o you have a relationship with this person outside of the class?
If/how you’ve already responded - this lets us know the current state of the situation.

Confidentiality

We will keep all reports confidential, except if we've discussed with you and agreed otherwise. When we discuss incidents with people who are reported, we will anonymize details as much as we can to protect reporter privacy.

However, some incidents happen in one-on-one interactions, and even if the details are anonymized, the reported person may be able to guess who made the report. If you have concerns about retaliation or your personal safety, and do not want us to share the details of your report with anyone (including the perpetrator) please let us know explicitly in your report. Unfortunately, in that situation we may not be able to take any action.

In some cases we may decide to share an update about a major incident with current course participants. If that's the case, the identities will remain confidential unless those individuals instruct us otherwise.

In addition to having a code of conduct, we have four lightweight social rules. The social rules are different and separate from the code of conduct. They help us create a better learning environment by giving names to counterproductive behavior and acting as a release valve so that frustration doesn't build up over time. We expect people to unintentionally break the social rules from time to time. Doing this doesn't make you a bad person. When this happens, it's not a big deal. Take the approach of apologizing and moving on.

The enforcement provisions in this code of conduct do not apply to the social rules. We definitely won't give you a strong warning or report you to University administration for these.

If you have any questions about any part of the code of conduct or social rules, please reach out to the course instructors.