Survey: Demographic Data

Survey: Demographic Data#

These questions are based on questions 100-112 in the quantitative section of the NumFOCUS Contributor Diversification and Retention Research Project Baseline Survey (link pending).

English version#

These questions are based on questions 100-112 in the quantitative section of the NumFOCUS Contributor Diversification and Retention Research Project Baseline Survey (link pending).

Here is an English version of the survey in Google Forms.

Translated versions#

Here are preliminary versions of the survey in French, Spanish, and Russian. Additional translations are encouraged!

Recommendations for administering#

For NumFOCUS#

  • Administration of a pilot version - An initial campaign would be made to the 20 projects that participated in the CDR project, with a goal of confirming five projects who will commit to issuing the Demographic Survey to their contributor bases and provide feedback on the administration process and completion rate.

For open-source projects#

  • Timing - When first beginning to collect demographic data on the contributor base, a project should encourage as much of the existing contributor base to complete the survey. Following the initial survey, the survey should be delivered on an individual basis as part of an onboarding package to new contributors to a project, or within a certain time frame of opening a first pull request.

  • Channel of delivery - Project leads can send the survey questions to contributors via platforms such as Google Forms or Survey Monkey.

  • Voluntary participation - Project leads should emphasize that completing the survey is not mandatory in order to participate as an open-source contributor. Suggested language:

E.g of introductory statements that can be used by the project. Thank you for your time to participate in the [Survey]. [project] is collecting this data in order to guide our strategy in attracting and retaining diverse contributors. Your participation will require approximately 10 minutes. There are no known risks or discomforts associated with this survey. Your responses will be kept strictly confidential. Taking part in this study is completely voluntary, but your views are very important to us. Thank you in advance for your collaboration. Do you agree to proceed?

  • Reminders - To ensure a higher level of survey completion, project leads could schedule automated follow-up communications to remind contributors to complete the survey upon opening a new PR. Linking survey reminders to the opening of pull requests can help ensure that both existing and new contributors are prompted to complete the survey.

Contents