Lab Manual/Code of Conduct Brainstorm

[LGCarlson]

During our discussions on 10/8/2021, we discussed developing and publishing our own Lab Manual (specifically for onboarding/offboarding) as well as a Code of Conduct. We agreed to review other lab's manuals/codes of conduct and bring forth ideas that would be useful to developing our own. Please use this workspace for brainstorming, linking, and commenting.

Here are some examples to start: https://github.com/Openscapes/how_we_work

[LGCarlson]

@adamkemberling will you please assign this issue to everyone? I don't have permissions for that apparently.

[abkfenris]

@adamkemberling You may want to bump up the permissions of the gulfofmaine/tidal-exchanges team to write or maintain which will allow assigning the issue.

[adamkemberling]

I don’t know if I can, it asked me for GitHub credentials and idk if it wanted the organization’s

On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 10:47 AM Alex Kerney ***@***.***> wrote: @adamkemberling <https://github.com/adamkemberling> You may want to bump up the permissions of the gulfofmaine/tidal-exchanges team to write or maintain which will allow assigning the issue. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIBSM5P642FNTSKMSAQ6B6TUGRDBLANCNFSM5FUEWLKA> .

-- Adam A. Kemberling, MSc. Quantitative Research Associate Gulf of Maine Research Institute 350 Commercial Street Portland, Maine 04101 ***@***.*** ***@***.***> www.gmri.org

[abkfenris]

Nope, just yours. Github has two security auth modes. Normally you don't need to re-login due to a long lasting cookie, but anytime that you might be doing something more secure it asks you to confirm your password if you haven't done so recently, including when you change other's permissions.

[adamkemberling]

So you're saying I should know my password...

…

On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 12:58 PM Alex Kerney ***@***.***> wrote: Nope, just yours. Github has two security auth modes. Normally you don't need to re-login due to a long lasting cookie, but anytime that you might be doing something more secure it asks you to confirm your password if you haven't done so recently, including when you change other's permissions. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIBSM5L35QFOLWMALRG2WCLUGRSJ5ANCNFSM5FUEWLKA> .

-- Adam A. Kemberling, MSc. Quantitative Research Associate Gulf of Maine Research Institute 350 Commercial Street Portland, Maine 04101 ***@***.*** ***@***.***> www.gmri.org

[Jamie-Behan]

As someone new to the GMRI, I think a lab manual or codes of conduct are great ideas and would help for onboarding and offboarding processes, amongst other benefits.

I think once we determine what best practices we want to use for Box/GitHub/ which ever platform(s) we end deciding upon, it would be great to write up or create some sort of orientation or tutorial for best GMRI practices when using Box, GitHub, or other resources, and make sure to include it in the manual/CoC. I feel like I am not utilizing these sources to their fullest potential, and having some sort of guide to help streamline the process, or if there are any ways that our labs use these resources that wouldn’t typically be found in a generic YouTube tutorial or something, that would be helpful/ of interest to me. Or, if something like this already exists somewhere, if someone could point me in the direction of where I could find it, that would be great!

Some other thoughts:
• Would the Kerr and Mills lab each construct their own manuals? One manual with overall commonalities, and then different lab subsections that contain things that are specific for each lab? Tradeoffs between attending to differences between labs and potentially loosing management efficiency across labs?

Besides that, after looking through some of the other lab manuals and codes of conduct, some of the sections that stood out to me as being potentially helpful include:

• How we share things
o Specific sections for GitHub/Box?
• Onboarding/ offboarding
• Resources
• Pet peeves
o Knowing what to avoid doing or common mistakes/ bad habits to avoid before they potentially start would be helpful to be aware of ahead of time.

[jerellejesse]

I like all of Jaime's ideas and would add a section on GMRI norms and common practices would be helpful. I think there is some of that in the general employee handbook, but maybe research centric ones. For example, eating lunch together, happy hours, or just where to find things around the building that we might need/ who to contact with different questions.

[aallyn]

Great ideas already. Here's some information we pulled together for Kathy's lab a while back. This hasn't been kept up as the initial GitHub attempts largely fizzled out, though there might be some helpful things there. It does seem like there are multiple levels interacting here. There's a general GMRI code of conduct, "new employee" manual level -- I'd almost say if there are suggestions/concerns there, that should be passed off to culture club? Then there are things that seem best suited for RES Team and other things that would be lab specific? To make sure folks in the labs can collaborate, there are some decisions that I think we would want consensus at the RES Team level (how we work, Git/GitHub/Box, RStudio project setups, etc). At the lab level, there could be specific lab meeting norms, how a PI likes to have project progress tracked, etc.

[LGCarlson]

As I have been thinking about offboarding, I have been thinking about what kinds of things would be nice to pass on for future onboardings. Here are my ideas so far:

1. A succinct but thorough document describing the location of shared datasets, shapefiles, etc (like a treasure map of fisheries data). This would live as a README in the RES_Data folder (or other highest order folder)
2. Lab-wide naming conventions for Box folders, etc
3. Lab-wide file structure conventions
4. Centralized literature storage location... I tried to implement a group library on Mendeley, but only I use it ;)
5. I really like the Pinsky Lab's "To Do List"

With regards to offboarding, it would be nice to get some clarity on policies for allowing people access to the GMRI GitHub organization (or not) after their departure.

With regards to the code of conduct, I forgot that @aallyn has already written a pretty great one! Some things I like while looking through other codes of conduct are:

1. "Open, transparent, and rigorous. Scientific studies are conducted openly where possible, and dissemination is transparent and thorough. We use this transparency, thoroughness, and accountability to prevent errors in research and publishing. We value thoroughness and completeness, and actively attempt to disprove our own findings and hypotheses." From the Kaiser Lab
2. "Take care of each other. Alert a member of the Code of Conduct Committee (named below) if you notice a dangerous situation, someone in distress, or a potential violation of this Code of Conduct, even if it seems inconsequential." From rOpenSci
3. Lab authorship guidelines - From the Ingvarsson Lab
4. Land acknowledgment statement? - As in Fraser Lab
5. Links to trainings and additional resources - As in Bolnick Lab