The Carpentries Privacy Policy

Effective date: 25 May 2018

This Privacy Policy covers personally identifiable information that may be provided to The Carpentries, including data provided at in-person events (e.g., workshops and conferences) and online. Changes to this Privacy Policy will be posted on this page. Any changes will only apply to information collected after the posted date of any such change. Additionally, information may be provided to governmental bodies and other entities as required by law. Information obtained and how it is used is described in sections below for

Definitions

  • Workshop participants - people participating, including but not limited to as learner, helper, or instructor in a Carpentries workshop
  • Hosts - people organizing a workshop at their local site
  • Instructors and Trainers - people who are teaching a Carpentries workshop
  • Instructor applicants and trainees - people who have applied to become instructors or are in the process of completing certification
  • Lesson contributors and maintainers - people who contribute to or maintain lessons
  • The Carpentries staff - people employed by The Carpentries
  • Authorized administrators - personnel, contractors or volunteers operating in an administrative capacity for The Carpentries as workshop or volunteer coordinators

How is personally identifiable information stored?

Personally identifiable information is stored in secure databases. Refer to Limitations section below.

Who has access to personally identifiable information?

Access will be limited to The Carpentries staff and Authorized administrators.

Section I: Workshop Participants

Workshop participants include Learners, Helpers and Hosts

What information do we obtain?

We may obtain the name, email address and event attended of workshop participants. If you are a learner or helper, this information may be provided by you or by the workshop host. See Section V: Opt-in Surveys for information on our Opt-In surveys.

How is this information used?

We use this information to communicate with participants, including sending workshop information and program evaluation forms. Names and email addresses may be shared with the workshop host for the purpose of workshop logistics. Additionally, we may use your information to contact you about additional opt-in opportunities for training, teaching, surveys and/or community engagement. This information may also be used for statistical purposes. We do not provide personally identifiable information to any third party. However, we may share de-identified aggregate or summary information regarding participants publicly or with volunteers, partners or third parties, including but not limited to funding entities. See Section VI: All Participants for further information

Section II: Instructors

Instructors includes Instructors, Trainers, Instructor Trainees and Instructor Applicants

What information do we obtain?

We may obtain the name and email address of participants at instructor training events and of current instructors. This information may be provided by the participant or event host. If you choose to complete a volunteer/instructor profile, we may store your name, email address, gender, nearest airport location, organizational affiliation, occupation, ORCID ID, GitHub and Twitter handle, and personal URL.

How is this information used?

We use this information to communicate with Instructors, including for instructor training events, training completion materials, communication about the organization, and opportunities to volunteer. Additionally, we may use volunteer information to contact you about additional opt-in opportunities for assessment, training, teaching, volunteering and/or community engagement. This information may also be used for statistical purposes. We do not provide personally identifiable information to any third party. However, we may share de-identified aggregate or summary information regarding instructors publicly or with volunteers, partners or third parties, including but not limited to funding entities. See Section VI: All Participants for further information

Section III: Other Volunteers

Other Volunteers includes Lesson contributors and maintainers and Volunteers for subcommittees or programs

What information do we obtain?

We may obtain the name and email address of Other volunteers. If you choose to complete a volunteer/instructor profile, we may store your name, email address, gender, nearest airport location, organizational affiliation, occupation, ORCID ID, GitHub and Twitter handle, and personal URL.

How is this information used?

We use this information to communicate with Other volunteers, including communication about the organization and opportunities to volunteer. Additionally, we may use volunteer information to contact you about additional opt-in opportunities for assessment, training, teaching, volunteering and/or community engagement. This information may also be used for statistical purposes. We do not provide personally identifiable information to any third party. However, we may share de-identified aggregate or summary information regarding volunteers publicly or with other volunteers, partners or third parties, including but not limited to funding entities. See Section VI: All Participants for further information

Section IV: Online Spaces

This Privacy Policy is applicable to information that you provided/collected through physical (such as a paper form) and online means, including through our websites or other external online spaces (including but not limited to GitHub repositories, Etherpads, Google Documents, EventBrite and mailing lists). By using these spaces, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. Some of these tools and services (including but not limited to GitHub, Google Documents, EventBrite and SurveyMonkey) have their own independent privacy policies. See Section V: Opt-In Surveys, for information specifically on survey information.

What information do we obtain?

We may collect information about visitors’ devices and browsers, such as browser version and type, IP address, website referred from and country of visitor. In addition, we may collect textual input (e.g. Etherpad entries) from you which may be associated with your name, affiliation and/or social media handles. If you provide financial information to pay for a workshop or partnership or make a donation, the transaction information will be processed on a third-party secured site. This information will only be accessible to our staff or authorized adminstrators and to the staff of our fiscal sponsor who is involved in processing financial transactions. We engage with third-parties (including but not limited to Square, WeDidIt, Eventbrite) to gather and collect this information securely and do not have access to or store any payment details in our systems

What do we do with this information?

We use this information to improve our sites and services. In addition, we may use contact information that you provide to contact you about additional opt-in opportunities for assessment, training, teaching, and/or community engagement. This information may also be used for statistical purposes. We do not provide personally identifiable information to any third party. However, we may share de-identified aggregate or summary information regarding vistors publicly or with volunteers, partners or third parties, including but not limited to funding entities. We may use publicly available data of the external online services in programmatic analysis and evaluation. See Section VI: All Participants for further information

Section V: Opt-in Surveys

Community and workshop participants are invited to participate in a variety of opt-in surveys to better serve our community. These include but are not limited to pre-workshop and post-workshop surveys of learners and various survey instruments to evaluate programs or events.

What information do we obtain?

Opt-in surveys are entirely voluntary and information is not collected in a way that it is linked to personally identifiable responses without the respondent’s consent to self-identify. Surveys collect information particular to the event or program being evaluated and optional information about the participant. Gender and ethnicity data, when collected, is only collected from participants in the United States.

What do we do with this information?

We use this information to help evaluate and improve programs, report on impact and outcomes and understand the needs and interests of our community. This information may be used for statistical purposes. We do not provide personally identifiable information to any third party. However, we may share de-identified aggregate or summary information publicly or with volunteers, partners or third parties, including but not limited to funding entities. Where we share open-ended responses or testimonials, we always do so anonymously or ask for explicit consent to allow de-indentifed responses. See Section VI: All Participants for further information

Section VI: All Participants

Can I decide what communications to receive?

Yes. All communication with us is opt-in, except for participants receiving information about their program and for instructors, information required to maintain instructor status. You may occasionally be sent emails asking if you would like to opt-in to communication channels that we feel may be of interest to you (for example, a mailing list dedicated to your geographical area). In the absence of specific action from you, we will assume you choose not to join these channels.

Removing personal information

Participants may choose to disallow us from retaining their personal information at any time by notifying admin@carpentries.org. If you choose to exclude your information, we will delete your personal information from our databases. This may interfere with our ability to give you credit for training events you have completed or to contact you about upcoming events in your area.

Limitations

Your privacy is very important to us. However, due to the existing legal and technical environment (e.g., third party interception of information), we cannot ensure that your personally identifiable information will not be disclosed to third parties in ways not described in this policy. We may disclose information when we believe such disclosure is necessary to comply with the law; enforce our agreements, or protect the rights, property or safety of our users or others.

Who should be contacted regarding this Privacy Policy?

For questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact admin@carpentries.org.