Growth Labs Academy’s Code of Conduct

Growth Labs Academy is committed to providing a welcoming and inspiring community for all and requires our Code of Conduct to be honored. Anyone who violates this Code of Conduct may be immediately removed from any current classes, refunded according to the terms of their student contract, and banned from the community.

Community Goal: Be Kind

Our community of staff, mentors, and current & former students strives to be kind. This is the guiding principle for conducting oneself within the Growth Labs Academy. While kindness can be generally understood, we recognize that kindness in a professional setting means (but is not limited to):

Be friendly and patient.
Be welcoming: We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes but is not limited to, members of any race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, color, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, political belief, religion.
Be considerate: Your work will be used by other people and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect students, mentors and colleagues and you should take those consequences into account when making decisions. Remember that we are a worldwide community primarily cooperating online, so you might not be communicating in someone else’s primary language or time zone.
Give attribution, engage honestly: Since our code often depends on the work and assistance of others, we will be sure to give proper attribution. As members of the community, we agree to represent ourselves truthfully, claim only work that is our own, properly attribute collaborations and engage honestly in all assignments.
Be respectful: Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It is important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. The presence of each student should not interfere with others’ learning opportunities, considering factors like distractions, personal responsibility for one’s success, and the diversity of learning styles within a group.
Be careful in the words that we choose: We are a community of learning professionals, and we conduct ourselves professionally. Be kind to others both within the community and beyond the community. Do not insult, minimize, marginalize, or put down other participants, cultures, or subcultures. Contribute positively to the learning environment.
Try to understand why we disagree: Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Remember that we are different. The strength of our community comes from its diversity — people from a wide range of backgrounds. Different people have different perspectives on issues. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint does not mean that they are wrong. Do not forget that it is human to err and blaming each other does not get us anywhere. Instead, focus on helping to resolve issues and learning from mistakes.
Harassment and exclusionary behavior are not acceptable.

Definitions

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the re-use of someone else’s code, without the permission or license of the author.
Claiming someone else’s work as your own is disrespectful to the author and to your learning process. This term in software programming is called “Cargo culting,” which means utilizing the techniques of another without applying your own thinking, and it is considered plagiarism. For example, if you blindly copy-paste code from open-source website like Stack Overflow without understanding how the code works, you are guilty of cargo cult programming.

Violating the terms of a license in a professional software development setting can result in lawsuits and endanger businesses. Doing so in the classroom can result in loss of assignment points, bad references from mentors, removal from all Growth Labs Academy courses, and community bans. The consequences will depend on severity and are at the discretion of the Growth Labs Academy Management team.

Attribution

We encourage an open-source work ethic, and we solve problems collaboratively. The difference between properly attributed work and plagiarized submissions is found in citing source material and permission of the original author. Proper attribution includes a description of what code was used or what help was given. A link back to the original source material or ideas should be included whenever possible. This belongs in a section titled “Attributions” of the README file for the relevant code.

Please note: an online code repository that has no license is presumed to be closed source and should not be used as a reference. Please include a license file in your own publicly published code.

Harassment

We share a common understanding of what constitutes harassment, as it applies to a professional setting. Although this list cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honor diversity in age, gender, gender identity or expression, culture, ethnicity, language, national origin, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and mental capacity or technical ability.

Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

Offensive comments (or “jokes”) related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro-typicality, physical appearance, body size, race, age, regional discrimination, political or religious affiliation.
Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment.
Deliberate misgendering. This includes deadnaming or persistently using a pronoun that does not correctly reflect a person’s gender identity. You must address people by the name they give you when not addressing them by their username or handle.
Threats of violence, both physical and psychological.
Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to engage in self-harm.
Deliberate intimidation.
Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
Sustained disruption of discussion.
Unwelcome sexual attention, including gratuitous or sexual images or behavior.
Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent, except as necessary to protect others from intentional abuse.

Publication of non-harassing private communication.

We encourage everyone to participate and are committed to building a community for all. We thrive to treat everyone both fairly and equally. Whenever a participant has made a mistake, we expect them to take responsibility for it. If someone has been harmed or offended, it is our responsibility to listen carefully and respectfully, and to do our best to right the wrong.

Examples

We do not require students to participate in formal conduct training. Rather, we rely on common sense and a commitment to follow these guidelines. To provide greater clarity, here are some examples of how this should be interpreted:

If someone solicits feedback, focus on the material. Do not comment on physical appearance.
In a learning environment, you will find you have knowledge or insight someone else has not yet attained. Do not make others feel bad for not yet learning what you may find obvious. Our community constitutes people from a wide array of backgrounds. This is a great strength. Talk to people about their backgrounds and histories as a learner and a listener. “Tell me more about that,” is a better option than, “Well, that’s not what I experienced.”
Copying code from Stack Overflow, blogs, Google searches, online tutorials, etc., and pasting it into your own project is considered plagiarism. If you would like to use someone else’s code, at least retype the relevant portions yourself, and include a link back to the original in your project’s README file.

Reporting Issues

Our community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort.

We will not act on complaints regarding:

Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as: Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts
Communicating in a “tone” you do not find congenial
Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions
Diversity Statement*

* Diversity statement is statement where one expresses their commitment to promoting and valuing diversity and inclusion (and even creating equal opportunities).

If you experience or witness unacceptable behavior — or have any other concerns — please report it by contacting us via conduct@growthlabsacademy.com. All reports will be handled with discretion and are confidential. In your report please include:

Your contact information.
Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of any individuals involved. If there are additional witnesses, please include them as well.
Your account of what occurred and if you believe the incident is ongoing. If there is a publicly available record (e.g., Slack channel, a mailing list archive, or a public IRC logger), please include a link, reference, or screenshot.
Any additional information that may be helpful.

After filing a report, a representative will contact you personally, review the incident, follow up with any additional questions, and decide how to respond. The response team has a broad latitude to remove an offending student from class, or offer a warning, depending on the severity of the offense. No more than one warning will be given; a second offense will result in a release from class, a refund according to the student contract, and a community ban. If the person who is harassing you is part of the response team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. If the complaint originates from a member of the response team, a different member of the response team will handle it. All reports shall be deemed confidential, for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse.

Confidentiality

It is imperative that all Growth Labs Academy students, employees and contractors understand the importance of protecting the confidential, personal information of (other) students, and actively enforce its protection. If you are ever in doubt with regard to a request for student information, forward the request to your manager or academy coordinator.