Code of conduct

Open Repositories (OR) is dedicated to providing a welcoming and positive experience for everyone, whether they are in a formal session or a social setting, are taking part in activities online, or are conference staff or hosts. OR participants come from all over the world and bring with them a wide variety of professional, personal and social backgrounds; whatever these may be, we treat colleagues with dignity and respect. We all represent the OR community. OR does not tolerate harassment and discrimination in any form.

We the OR community:

  • Encourage discussions that focus on the work, not the person.
  • Practice active listening and engagement.
  • Assume good intentions, but own negative effects.
  • Give credit where credit is due.
  • Value openness and transparency.
  • Support one another’s work and welcome support for our own.
  • Strive to express ourselves simply and clearly.

International Participation:

OR participants communicate primarily in English, though for many of us this is not our native language. We therefore strive to express ourselves simply and clearly, remembering that unnecessary use of jargon, acronyms, country-specific terminology, and slang will be a barrier to understanding for many of our colleagues. We are sensitive to the fact that the international nature of OR means that we span many different social norms around language and behaviour and we strive to conduct ourselves in ways that are unlikely to cause offence.

Behaviours not tolerated:

Discrimination and harassment include, but are not limited to:

  • offensive verbal comments related to sex, gender, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, age, race, religion;
  • sexual or discriminatory images, video, or text;
  • deliberate intimidation;
  • deliberate misgendering;
  • stalking;
  • harassing photography or recording;
  • sustained disruption of talks or other events;
  • inappropriate physical and online contact; and
  • unwelcome sexual attention.

How to report a violation of the code of conduct

If you have been involved or witnessed an incident during the Open Repositories Conference that you believe violates this Code of Conduct, please report this as soon as possible, you can report by emailing the Code of Conduct Committee members.

The OR Code of Conduct and Steering Committees will promptly and confidentially examine all incidents reported before, during, and after the conference. We reserve the right to take actions we deem necessary at any time to remedy disruptive behaviour that renders the conference experience unsafe for participants. Anyone found to be in violation of this Code of Conduct will be expected to immediately stop harassing or disruptive behaviour. If a participant engages in harassing behaviour, event organisers and Steering Committee representatives (or their designees) may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender, expulsion from the current and/or future OR conferences, contacting local authorities as needed, or contacting a representative from the offender’s institution.

This code of conduct is a living document, updated by the OR Code of Conduct Committee on 8th May 2023 and is subject to change.

Code of Conduct committee members

We expect all participants to adhere to the Code of Conduct at all conference venues, conference-related social events, and online communication channels.

We value everyone’s participation in the Open Repositories community, and will all work to keep Open Repositories a safe and friendly conference for all.

This Code of Conduct was inspired by and references codes of conduct drafted by Global Digital Humanities Symposium Code of Conduct, Museum Computer Network, The Digital Library Federation, Digital Frontiers, Code4Lib, and the University of Kansas Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities.

Last Updated May 2023