Appendix A — Interview Questions for DEI Respondent

Astropy Community Research

Improving diversity, equity, and inclusion is a high priority for Astropy. With that in mind, we’ve designed an interview schedule that we will use to query a small subset of the Astropy community. We will ask them about their perceptions of the state of DEI in the community, what they think can be improved, and where Astropy might best direct its resources to addressing DEI issues.

Our broad research questions are as follows; specific interview questions appear later in the document.

  1. Can we identify ways on how we can improve DEI in the Astropy community?
  2. What types of workshops would help with DEI?
  3. How should any available funding be used to improve DEI?
  4. What should Astropy be doing, concretely, around DEI?
  5. How can we help people “cross the threshold” to be an active, contributing member of Astropy?
  6. Are there distinctions/disconnects between social media forums? FB vs. slack vs. twitter?
  7. What should the role of the community manager be in Astropy’s DEI efforts?
  8. What feedback mechanisms would help advance DEI, beyond the Code of Conduct?

Housekeeping for Interviewee

Thanks so much for being here, I really appreciate your willingness to do this. Let’s get some of the housekeeping out of the way and then we’ll get into the conversation. We are interested in understanding community thoughts around diversity, equity and inclusion. We are conducting this work on behalf of Astropy. There’s no right or wrong answers, and you’re welcome to ask me to clarify any question. Your participation is voluntary. You can choose to skip or not answer a question and you can stop the interview at any time. We will not be attributing any of your responses by name in the report we create from this, however some members of Astropy will be aware of your name and what you’ve said. We’d like to record this for our use internally for our research team. The recording will not be shared with Astropy Some colleagues are observing this session. They may have some questions at the end of our session but for most of the time it’ll just be us chatting. What questions can I answer for you about the research we’re doing?

Questions

  1. Tell us about your involvement with Astropy:

    • How did you get started?
    • What is your experience with the astropy community?

  2. What comes to mind when we bring up the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion?

  3. Tell us about your perspective on the issue of diversity, equity and inclusion… (tailor this question to their background)

    • In astronomy?
    • In computing?
    • In open source?
    • [for everyone] in Astropy?

  4. We’re thinking of DEI broadly and we made a list of types of equity issues. We are especially interested in DEI efforts focused on the contributor and development community. Which do you think needs the most attention for Astropy?

    • Race
    • Gender
    • Sexuality
    • Socioeconomic status
    • University resources/background (e.g. HBCU vs. R1 vs. SLAC)
    • Geographic location
    • Non-English speakers
    • Available Funding
    • Academic Status (grad student, postdoc, tenured, untenured, resourced/not resourced)
    • Non-academic involvement with astropy

  5. Let’s say that Astropy has time and resources to devote to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. What would you put them towards? Here’s a list of other possibilities (feel free to add to it). What do you think would be the most impactful for the Astropy project?
    -List of things: Mentorship programs; Workshops (general or targeted); DEI audit; More resources for Code of Conduct and reporting; Update Code of conduct in other ways; Bug barbeques and other community events; Reach out to communities not represented well in the Astropy project; Non american astronomers; Amateur astronomers; Instructors who use astropy for teaching; Publicize Learn Astropy resources; Inviting folks to online forums such as discourse, stack exchange or facebook.

    • Why does that seem like a good approach?
    • Are there other things you’ve experienced in other communities that might help?

  6. What are some ways that initial contributions to the Astropy project could be more accessible, particularly for people from groups that are underrepresented in the Astropy community?

  7. How did you first contribute to AstroPy? (this doesn’t just mean code, it can mean anything, documentation, sticker design, supporting others)

  8. Have you helped others contribute? (Probe for why or why not)

  9. Let’s consider DEI from the perspective of project leadership and the astropy community. With that in mind…

    • What do you think leaders could do better?
    • What types of training and workshops might leadership take to better understand DEI needs?
    • Do you feel that there are sufficient feedback mechanisms for community members who may feel uncomfortable interacting with the community or otherwise engaging with Astropy? (e.g., beyond the Code of Conduct)

  10. If you could design a mentorship program with Astropy, what would you build into it?

    • How would you design it?
    • What would be the best way to deliver it (e.g., length of time, virtual/in-person, etc.)?

  11. Anything else we should know about DEI, or other comments for the astropy community?

Thank you so much for your time.