Code of Conduct
In both in-person and remote interactions, it is the responsibility of every researcher to abide by community standards of ethics and scientific integrity. The inception of a new team provides a unique opportunity for explicitly articulating their commitment to such principles. Codes of conduct help provide a container within which reserachers can show up to do their best work, without fear of harassment, discrimination or violations of academic integrity.
Professional societies have recently updated their code of conduct policies, for example the American Geophysical Union's Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics. Drawing everyone's attention to these policies early in the project can be a useful starting point for group discussions.
Norms of Behavior
In addition to reaffirming a commitment to codes of conduct, we recommend teams also develop a set of behavioral norms. These norms articulate intentions around how individuals aspire to conduct themselves so as to maximize opportunities for collaboration and the building of successful relationships.
Short experiments in collaboration
The University of Washington hosts week-long "hacks" that focus on building software in collaborative settings. Acceptance into the program is contingent on each participant explicitly agreeing to abide by the workshop code of conduct. Then throughout the event, the organizers lead participants in exploring norms of behavior that foster positive learning communities.
Team norms around both data sharing and attribution of effort must be worked out very early in the project and will be treated in detail in the following sections.