On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 7:05 AM, Ethan White <et...@weecology.org> wrote:
1. I agree with Greg and others that, in general, choosing not to
participate in workshops at certain locations due to ethical concerns
should primarily be the choice of individual instructors regarding
whether
they want to teach or not, not a broader SCF decision on whether to
run the
workshops at all.
2. I like the idea of a split fee structure for for-profit vs. non-profit
groups. I understand Greg's point about rich vs. poor, but that's more
difficult to handle (e.g., what are we measuring to represent wealth,
what's the dividing line, should it be a sliding scale, etc.). My general
feeling is that any extra funds from for-profits (or rich) institutions
should go to SCF rather than the instructors, at least until SCF is on a
very firm financial footing.
I agree with Ethan and many of the folks here and Marianne's point in
particular about the difference between for-profit and not-for-profit
being the important distinction because of the difference in mission.
The next question is whether there should be a different fee structure
for the two groups. Different fee structures does seem to be standard
practice, even for conference attendance, so this seems reasonable to
pursue and the Steering Committee can work to set those rates, with
feedback from the community.
I also agree that community members can decide whether to teach these
workshops or not. If we are asking people to teach them on a volunteer
basis, they can decide whether it's worth their time. If it's seen as an
opportunity to network or get exposure to more corporate environments
and therefore worth time away from their other work, then people will
volunteer to teach. If there is a different fee structure, then teaching
these workshops could be also be seen as a contribution to SWC as a
whole, since the volunteer will be contributing to the financial
sustainability of the organization. If it's not seen as worthwhile from
a personal or organizational perspective, then we won't be able to get
instructors, and in that case we would have to re-evaluate whether or
not to accept these workshop requests.
The point of self-organizing workshops and charging market rate fees is
another issue. Since the materials are CC-BY, there's nothing to prevent
this. There does maybe need to be a clearer policy of whether these
workshops can be called Software Carpentry or not (I believe under
current guidelines it can since Software Carpentry labeled workshops
just need to use the materials and have one trained instructor) and that
can be a part of the policy the Steering Committee works to propose,
again with community feedback.
It's been great to see the community engagement in this discussion as
SWC is being opened up to new possibilities, and we have to think about
how best to handle these new opportunities.
-Tracy
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