Code of Conduct

WoSM Academy is a learning community. This code describes how we treat each other and what happens when someone does not.

Our pledge

Students, instructors and staff all pledge to make taking part in WoSM Academy free of harassment for everyone, regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, colour, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

We act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive and healthy community.

Our standards

Behaviour that helps everyone learn includes:

  • being patient and kind, especially with people who are new to a subject;
  • asking questions freely, and answering them without condescension;
  • giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback;
  • taking responsibility for our mistakes, apologising to those affected and learning from them;
  • focusing on what is best for the community as a whole, not only for ourselves.

Unacceptable behaviour includes:

  • sexualised language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind;
  • trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks;
  • public or private harassment;
  • publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or email address, without their explicit permission;
  • other conduct that could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a place of learning.

Academic integrity

Learning only works if the work is honest. At WoSM Academy:

  • submit work that is your own, and say clearly where you had help or used other sources;
  • do not share solutions to assessed exercises unless the instructor says you may;
  • do not help others to misrepresent their work;
  • discussing ideas and helping each other understand is encouraged — doing someone else’s work for them is not.

Instructors may set more specific rules for their course. Where they do, those rules apply.

Scope

This code applies in every space the Academy runs: Moodle, our Discord server, the website’s GitHub repository and Discussions, email, and any event we organise. It also applies when someone is officially representing the Academy elsewhere.

Reporting a problem

If you experience or witness unacceptable behaviour, email hello@wosm.academy. Include what happened, where and when, who was involved, and links or screenshots if you have them.

Every report is reviewed promptly and fairly. We respect the privacy and safety of the person who reports.

Enforcement

Academy staff, led by the Director, are responsible for enforcing this code. They may remove, edit or reject messages, contributions and course submissions that break it, and will explain their decisions when appropriate. Depending on how serious and how repeated the behaviour is, they may respond with:

  1. Correction. A private, written explanation of what was wrong, and possibly a request for a public apology.
  2. Warning. A warning with consequences for continued behaviour, including no contact with the people involved for a period of time.
  3. Temporary suspension. A temporary ban from Academy spaces, including Moodle courses and Discord.
  4. Permanent ban. A permanent ban from all Academy spaces, for a pattern of violations or a single serious one, such as sustained harassment.

Attribution

This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 licence. We added the section on academic integrity and adapted the rest to a learning community.