Tech for Social Good
Participate in our new research project on standardized GitHub metrics
Mala Kumar @malakumar85
Director of Tech for Social Good, GitHub Social Impact
Cynthia Lo @csmlo
Program Manager, Skills-Based Volunteering, GitHub Social Impact
Peter Cihon @pcihon
Policy Manager, GitHub Policy
Tarunima Prabhakar @tarunima
Co-Founder, Tattle
February 15, 2022 // Tech for Social GoodOpen Source for Good
Please use this form if you want to get involved in the research!
Standardized GitHub metrics
GitHub is the home for more than 73 million developers around the world. With its expansive geographic adoption, GitHub's usage metrics can play a valuable role in research across non-software engineering disciplines, like international development, public policy, and economics. To meet this opportunity, GitHub has launched a new research project to provide official guidance on how standardized platform metrics data could be used to represent key topics in these disciplines, such as the technology maturity, digital literacy, or digital engagement in a given country.
With this project, we are aiming to create a simple, public, and aggregated standardized set of metrics for all countries that have GitHub users. Platform usage metrics may be the number and location of active entities, which include users, repositories, and organizations. Metrics may also include pull requests, repository forks, and engagement on issues and discussions. Our guidance may detail, for example, which platform metric to use to model for digital engagement, how to account for prolonged disruptions in connectivity, or how to adjust for population or digital divides in a country.
Following our request for proposals (RFP) in August 2021, GitHub will be partnering with Tattle to lead the qualitative research and inform the quantitative methodologies of the project. Tattle is an open source, civic tech project that builds tools and datasets for research and response to misinformation in India. The organization will draw on their collective experience in building datasets for research and growing an open source project in a low-income country.
As part of the project, GitHub and Tattle are connecting with practitioners and experts from around the world. If you want to participate in our research through an interview, recommendations, or feedback, please fill out this form by Monday, March 14, 2022. We'll be in touch on a rolling basis.
To hear more from Mala about the standardized metrics research project, watch this video (starting at minute 53:25). Check back here on the GitHub Social Impact site in the coming weeks for updates.
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