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DEI Project Statement

Since the inception of Epiverse-TRACE, our fundamental mission has revolved around enabling the development of rapid, robust, and reproducible modeling solutions to support policy decision-making. Our community recognizes that effective software development and open-source community management is not only defined by technical standards but also the human experience, as ensuring an enriching experience and expanding software drives more profound impact. We already have documented our values in detail in our code of conduct and in blog posts.

Our project prioritizes and reflects on DEI through a regular review of project policies and performance. This reflection is documented, in part, in the following DEI.md file based on specific CHAOSS DEI metrics.

This document results from collaborative work from team members at the University of Javeriana, the Medical Research Centre Gambia, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and data.org. The writing process has helped us to uncover shortcomings in our approach and we are continuously working on improving our DEI strategy. This document only reflects the current state of our community and we hope to keep adding to it.

Project Access

From the start, Epiverse-TRACE has been designed as an international, multi-stakeholder project. This has lead to a series of principles to work well across time zones, geographies, and individual needs:

  1. In virtual meetings held on Zoom, members are given the option to join either via computer or phone. Video is not required to participate as this helps preserve bandwidth for team members that may experience connectivity issues.
  2. We continuously seek ways to introduce Epiverse-TRACE to other regions in Latin America, beyond Colombia, by engaging with other projects (eg; Mexico, Peru, Bolivia). We understand that infrastructure or capacity may look different in other countries, so we improve project access and by working with these teams and adjust our tools or resources to fit different needs.
  3. To allow all to join, virtual meetings reasonably accommodate team members’ time zones and working hours. We follow a rough, rather than exact, cadence of meetings to account for different public holidays and events.
  4. We have set up GitHub Actions automated workflows to ensure that our websites include alternate texts on all images to make them accessible to people with visual impairments.
  5. We are working towards translating our materials in multiple languages, with an initial focus on Spanish and French.

Communication Transparency

We work in the open, as a way to ensure accountability, and to offer engagement opportunities for the wider community:

  1. All our GitHub repositories are public, even for early proof of concepts or work in progress.
  2. We openly collaborate on new project or repository ideas; these are pitched on our GitHub discussion board. Project follow ups are conducted on Slack, and are complemented by issues filled on GitHub.
  3. After each event, whether internal or external, slides are shared on our developer website, alongside questions from the audience and their answers.
  4. Prior to each internal meeting, we share agendas and always ask for new topic or item suggestions. After each meeting, notes and meeting summaries are shared with the group.

Newcomer Experiences

Epiverse-TRACE is designed to be a community project and newcomers are welcome:

  1. Ways to contribute and engage with the project are documented on our developer site.
  2. We have a Welcome Pack for new and existing users, which includes our Blueprints and Code of Conduct. This allows people to easily see into our work, as well as expectations for ways of working and conduct.

Inclusive Leadership

We believe inclusive leadership is necessary to build an inclusive community:

  1. Our global chapters are led by people from those regions, and they are able to lead project direction to those region’s specific needs.
  2. Chapters in Colombia are women-led.
  3. Participation and opportunities to lead/contribute to working groups are open and based on voluntary contributions of individual members.
  4. We have sub-committees that exist to help further the project, and these opportunities provide good chances for others to lead certain components of the project.

We recognize that the inclusion of the DEI.md file and the provided reflection on the specific DEI metrics does not ensure community safety nor community inclusiveness. The inclusion of the DEI.md file signals that we, as a project, are committed to centering DEI in our project and regularly reviewing and reflecting on our project DEI practices.

If you do not feel that the DEI.md file appropriately addresses concerns you have about community safety and inclusiveness, please let us know. You can do this by reporting your concerns to our Code of Conduct team to raise concerns you have.

Last Reviewed: 2023-12-21