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Mission Statement

The Software Carpentry Foundation (SCF) is a non-profit membership organization devoted to improving basic computing skills among researchers in science, engineering, medicine, and other disciplines. It is a member of NumFOCUS, and as such, it qualifies under the US Internal Revenue Code as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) scientific and educational public charity, and conducts its business according to the rules for such organizations.

Our long-term goal is to ensure that every researcher learns the skills that Software Carpentry teaches early in their career, whether through us or because what we teach has become part of the standard curriculum for their discipline. What's more, we want to:

  • partner with a steadily growing group of like-minded organizations who can provide or help support core staff, coordinate training, act as regional hubs for our activities, and/or give our learners and instructors somewhere to go next;

  • foster sibling organizations to cater to the needs of other learning communities;

  • have a significant fraction of learners become instructors, so that we can continue to grow;

  • have a significant fraction of instructors regularly contribute to our teaching materials, so that they can also continue to grow;

  • be financially self-sustaining;

  • systematically assess what they have learned, used, and passed on, so that we can improve our content, delivery, and instructor training; and

  • most importantly, have a significant, demonstrable impact on the quality of scientific research, on the productivity of the average researcher, and on the adoption of reproducible and open science.

In aid of these goals, the SCF:

  • Coordinates development of the core Software Carpentry lessons, which are made available to the public free of charge under a liberal open access license.

  • Establishes those licenses for SCF material to ensure the rights of the public to freely obtain, use, redistribute, and modify intellectual property held by the SCF.

  • Holds Software Carpentry's intellectual property rights.

  • Protects the Software Carpentry name, and the names, service marks and trademarks associated with all other intellectual property held by the SCF.

  • Solicits and manages contributions to Software Carpentry's lessons, both for its own purposes and on behalf of other open educational projects.

  • Partners with like-minded organizations to coordinate training and advocate for adoption of better computing practices and more openness in research.

  • Raises funds to support SCF programs and services in ways that are consistent with its standing as an open source project and non-profit organization.

  • Publicizes, promotes the adoption of, and facilitates the ongoing development of Software Carpentry's lessons and related materials. This includes, but is not limited to, maintaining a public web site, planning workshops and similar events, and offering instructor training to people who wish to teach at such events.

  • Encourages and facilitates research in the public interest related to open education, particularly to the impact of Software Carpentry training in specific, and to the adoption of better computing practices and greater openness in research in general.