Issues I've noted when completing the 2018 survey from a SA RSE perspective

[pvanheus]

Unfortunately Anelda and I could not complete South African proposed changes to 2018 survey due to time pressure, so I'll note these in an issue for next year.

1. Qualifications: We have a 4 year qualification called Honours that is the first year post-graduate. We should include this as an option.

2. Contract: Some people are on multiple contracts from different sources - e.g. some uni funding, some additional external funding. Need to include space for this kind of answer.

3. Decision to accept current position is missing some options. A few I can think of:

   • Job security
   • Interest in "contributing to the greater good" (not sure how to word this)

4. Need to include questions to address "research systems engineers" / devops people.

5. Race/Ethnicity needs to be included in demographic questions.

6. Sexuality needs to be included in demographic questions.

7. Family responsibilities needs to be included in demographics questions (are RSEs able to support a family? ;) )

[pvanheus]

Incentives: can there or should there be incentives for participation?

[Oliph]

1. 2. 3. it is easy fix and should not raise any problem
2. It is a good point, addressing other roles than just developing software. Maybe in the questions about the time spend on activities
3. Race and ethnicity are put at the end because they are sensitive questions and often lead participants to drop the survey. However, putting the demographic section at the end should be better
4. We will not add sexual orientation, there is no reason for that. (or I did not understand that point and it was about the gender?)
5. Family responsability: also outside our scope. The salary, the contract should provide that information (about ability to support a family).
6. Incentives: I would be happy to offer some incentives but we need a budget for that, which I do not have. But we can think about that possibility next year (like amazon voucher or something more techie and specific to dev, but it will need to be virtual).

[pvanheus]

As to 4. sexual orientation is an unrepresented minority in STEM (see e.g. http://www.bu.edu/research/articles/lgbt-issues-stem-diversity/ and an attempt to address this http://colorcode.org.za/#about), thus my suggestion for its inclusion.

Perhaps 5. gets captured by a combination of age + salary - the key question I'm aiming at is whether there is a drop out of RSEs as they acquire additional family responsibilities as salary / job stability in industry becomes a more important factor.

As to 6. - does this raise ethical issues?

[Oliph]

4. Ok I see the purpose. If we include that one we will have to carefully state the purpose for participants. Otherwise it will see invasive without reason (I, for instance, will not expect questions about my sexual orientation when I fill a survey about job/work).

5. The problem with the drop out is the bias. People that have dropped out will probably not answer the survey anyway. But that could be added, again with a careful description of the purpose of the question.

6. The incentive is not that problematic regarding the ethics. It just need to b mentioned in the application, but it is a common practice.

[pvanheus]

Thanks for the reply. I know we need to tread carefully (I live on a continent where 4. can expose you to criminal prosecution). Thanks for all your work. I will continue to promote the survey and look forward to working together in the future.

[Oliph]

Thank you for your feedback. I leave the issue open for discussion.