| title | tags |
|---|---|
The journey towards an inclusive conference |
useR |
Potential coauthors: Andrea, Joselyn, Liz, Rocío, Sara, Pao, Heather, David
At useR! 2020, there was a Forwards panel named Supporting diversity in the R community. In it, the panelists and chairs discussed the future of useR! events and other conferences in online venues and the opportunities for inclusion of marginalized communities and for diversifying the attendance to them. The communities represented included users with disabilities, MiR, LatinR and AfricaR. They discussed the diversity scholarship programs and new ideas to implement them in an online context, and how to uplift and allow for the occupation of the community spaces by people from diverse backgrounds.
The members of the Global organizing team of useR! 2021 carried that torch forwards when they decided to make useR! 2021 a global and inclusive event. [creation of the div team in the spirit of the whole team]
At useR!2021, we believed that diversity was our strength and that inclusion leads to quality. An inclusive conference can only be organized by an inclusive organizing team. And what a team. With around 80 members, we had people from Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, France, Germany, Hungary, Kenya, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, the UK, the US, and Venezuela. Approximately ⅔ of the team were women or non-binary people. We had a teammate who is blind and several with color vision deficiencies. This diversity challenged us at every stage, from meeting at odd times due to different time zones, up to reviewing carefully our choice of words for emails, tweets and our website, to be respectful of every culture and situation. When selecting keynote speakers, the program committee and session chairs, we looked for the best in their subject, making sure to look beyond our close and often limited networks and taking into account different dimensions of diversity such as gender, geography, language, career stage and physical ability. Our Program Committee members and session chairs together represented 24 countries. We hope that this number will grow in the following years.
The diversity statement for the conference was the starting point for some of the discussions in the team. We wanted to have clear expectations about the composition and leadership of our teams, and to reach diverse people all around the world.
Our inspiration for this was the Accountability Appendix in Data Feminism, in which the authors set expectations and clear indicators for them.( <---- no creo que quieran saber esto pero es verdad, la idea era poner indicadores numericos pero es complicadisimo)
The aim of UseR 2021! is to build a high-quality conference in a kind, inclusive, accessible, and safe environment for everyone participating.
As a global event, we wish to honor and celebrate all dimensions of human diversity, including, but not restricted to: age, body ability, career stage, gender, gender identity, gender expression, geographic origin, language, neurodiversity, political views, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background. This list is not exhaustive and does not pretend to rank dimensions of diversity as more or less important. Some of these dimensions are not going to be explicitly addressed in the context of the event but respect regarding every aspect of it is expected from the organizers, the presenters, and the attendees.
Our goal is to look proactively for the participation of people from all backgrounds in the organizing committee, the program committee, the speaker composition, the chairs, and the attendees to the event.
With our Div state, we want to state explicitly that in addition to the high-quality conference that we are already used to, we wanted to create a space for the R community as a whole, from newbies to expert maintainers
From the decision to make an online event, the Zurich team decided to gather a Global team that would represent better the aims for a global event. Today we are over 60 people from more than 20 different countries, spread in more than 17 time zones. We speak more than 12 native languages. Representatives of these R user communities are part of the organizing committees in all teams of the event, from technology, finance, and communication, to the diversity team itself.
Our program committee has also a global composition.
https://user_2021.gitlab.io/useR_diversity_survey/#1
It is common to have Diversity Scholarships in in-person events, to bring a selected group of people to the location of the event and cover their expenses. In this online edition of the conference, we decided to replace the figure of the Diversity Scholar with extended waivers to reach the largest possible group. [maybe explain more why, what would be the consequences 1. no one is singled out as a div scholar 2. lots of more people attained]
We are also destined resources to have a financial support system for those who would not be able to attend the conference without it.
childcare/care in general, internet connection
challenges: communication, tranfers , how to do this in future editions, online or hybrid
- What a Code of Conduct is --The Code of Conduct of a community is the document where all the unacceptable behavior in the spaces of the conference is defined, and consequences for such behavior.
- Before we started we knew this was important but didnt understand the implications for not doing this correctly. Gordana from vIsec was key to help us see this.
- Having a CoC is not enough, being ready to enforce it is essential. We knew we would need a team, clear communication channels, and a global capacity to respond.
- We set up a Global Code of Conduct response team, slightly larger than in other occasions. The CoC Response Team is composed by eleven members that acted to ensure the safety of our community at all times before and during the conference.
- We trained ourselves by reading the book [link, brief summary and recommendation]
- Edition of the CoC for the R foundation [idk if we include details about this edition process> behaviors specific for online venues, good faith/bad faith reports and any phrasing that would deter reporting, promise to recuse ourselves]
- Online Training workshop: made us realize the challenge for report taking in several languages
- Schedules, groups, pre-formatted forms and internal guidelines to guide us when something arrives
- Displaying it proeminently in all spaces of the conference.
- Our Code of Conduct is here.
- Include in maRmots and zoom hosts training
- Challenges: do not create a policive atmosphere, act as an active bystander