Collect and share DEI-related metrics

[NickleDave]

Understanding the demographics of the US-RSE membership will inform our decisions about what DEI goals to focus on as well hold us accountable on our progress in achieving a more diverse membership.

Sample Guidlines: Best Practices for Collecting Demographic Data from Submittable.com

• Draft Survey Plan #12

• Determine the purpose and goals

• Keep it brief

• Get help from diverse groups when designing questions

• Explain why you are collecting this information

• Research best practices

  • Allow multiple selections and always include a blank option for write-in
  • Make questions optional

US-RSE Survey Planning

Adding this presentation [Scipy 2020] Scipy by the Numbers.pdf that @celiacintas very kindly shared with me -- SciPy conference usually reports something like this every year during the Diversity BoF

I think having a visualization like this that we regularly update somewhere (DEI working group page?) could help us hold ourselves accountable

[sk8forether]

I have created a new project for the annual survey we are working on putting together, which will include this initiative. I will be adding our full list of tasks there, and we will be coordinating with @cmaimone and the Steering Committee to make sure the survey covers the questions we need to ask as an organization beyond just metrics.

[cmaimone]

Hey all - all you looking for demographic distributions for related sets of people (to compare our membership demographics to, once they are collected)? Or is this item just about work on a member survey more broadly - couldn't quite tell, but I think it's the latter?

[sk8forether]

@cmaimone The project I linked above is about the survey. The metrics collection is one core piece of the survey, but yes, we're expecting to collect more than just metrics.

[usethedata]

Discussed some September 7, 2022 at the DEI WG meeting. The suggestion is a few basic questions (4-5). Track who answered, but not keep the who with the what. There are tools for doing that (Qualtrics has this). Need to determine what level of approval is needed (whose IRB, for example). And where the information gets stored, and with what level of protection. IRB is needed for publication, but what constitutes publication?