India Community Outreach

[walshbr]

India continues to be a particularly strong part of our user community. There was interest during the January call in exploring our connections to this community more fully to determine their interests, needs, and uses of the Programming Historian. Assigned people here had a number of ideas that included:

• Exploring our own contacts at ADHO
• Reaching out to folks on twitter (though I'd do this in a last resort, if the others don't pan out).
• Potential Programming Historian meetup at DH focused on this community or others

[acrymble]

We can start by highlighting what we already know in a blog post, which can act as a line in the sand from which we can move forward. I'll see if I can find some time to mock something up.

[drjwbaker]

@acrymble Ping me if you want support/input/coauthor on that.

[acrymble]

@drjwbaker I'd love some help with that so we're singing from the same hymn sheet moving forward.

Here's some data that I'll plunk here for the minute:

Country	Visitor Increase	Percentage Increase
Peru	2,426	1,193
Ecuador	1,821	1,090
Colombia	5,682	1,073
Chile	4,373	946
Mexico	9,868	714
Argentina	3,699	551
Spain	11,468	402
TOTAL	39,337	508
Top Five by Traffic
United States	100,853	219
India	43,906	276
Great Britain	24,688	252
Canada	11,575	215
Germany	11,645	225

Top Ten Cities | Traffic Volume 2017 |   Bengaluru, India | 18,222 |   London, UK | 13,113 |   New York, USA | 12,102 |   Chennai, India | 7,387 |   Hyderabad, India | 5,997 |   Toronto, Canada | 4,796 |   Sydney, Australia | 4,447 |   Pune, India | 4,297 |   Chicago, USA | 4,006 |  

[drjwbaker]

@acrymble Okay. Well if you are happy to throw together a sketchy v1, I can take v2.

[acrymble]

The Images from Tashrih al-aqvam on the BL flickr would be great for an accompanying image (I think): https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/12459181963/in/album-72157640831988343/

[acrymble]

---

title: The Programming Historian and India layout: post categories: posts

When the Programming Historian launched its open access tutorials in 2012, historians were the target audience. By 2014 our audience statistics had already presented a surprise: India had emerged as the second largest source of Programming Historian readers - a title it still holds in 2018.

Country	Visitors 2017	Per cent Increase from 2016
United States	100,853	219
India	43,906	276
Great Britain	24,688	252
Canada	11,575	215
Germany	11,645	225

While India is home to many talented historians, we suspect the project may have attracted a very welcome but unintended audience. The traffic is concentrated in four cities, topped by Bengaluru, India's equivalent of Silicon Valley. In fact, four of the top ten cities in the world for Programming Historian traffic, are all in India:

Top Ten Cities	Traffic Volume 2017
Bengaluru, India	18,222
London, UK	13,113
New York, USA	12,102
Chennai, India	7,387
Hyderabad, India	5,997
Toronto, Canada	4,796
Sydney, Australia	4,447
Pune, India	4,297
Chicago, USA	4,006

(Maybe a map?)

Interest seems to be focused on the tutorials that provide Python programming skills (/counting-frequencies, /working-with-text-files, and creating-and-viewing-html-files top the list, with a lot of interest also in /intro-to-augmented-reality-with-unity and /building-static-sites-with-jekyll-github-pages).

This interest has both excited our project team, but also wanting to know more about how people in India are using the project, and how we can better serve the needs of this group....

[acrymble]

@drjwbaker anything you'd add to the above?

[drjwbaker]

@acrymble Sorry. Fell down the list. Some potential words.

Interest seems to be focused on the tutorials that provide Python programming skills (/counting-frequencies, /working-with-text-files, and creating-and-viewing-html-files top the list, with a lot of interest also in /intro-to-augmented-reality-with-unity and /building-static-sites-with-jekyll-github-pages). This suggests two things: first, that a cohort of individuals in or around the Indian "tech industry" are using our lessons to develop their programming skills; and second, that open access Python tutorials fill a gap in the market.

Of course, these figures are modest: 18,222 readers per month from Bengaluru doesn't make the Programming Historian the hottest ticket in town. But the continued way the longitudinal data suggests a sustained use of our lessons by this demographic has both excited our project team and energised us to go beyond the stats, to know more about why and how people in India are using the project, and how we can better serve the needs of this group.

With that in mind, we'd love to hear from our readers in India about why and how they use the Programming Historian, from academics in India or scholars working on contemporary India (anthropologists, researchers in development studies) with ideas about what might be happening, and from comparable projects - such as our friends at Software Carpentry - with comparable stories to tell.

[acrymble]

I came across an article today that outlines Indian Universities that teach DH: https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/new-bytes-digital-humanities-courses-are-becoming-a-hit-among-students/story-0h0IjdLYhDcskSk7scNHpK.html

It's in the Hindustan times, and outlines the following programmes:

Bengaluru's Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology (MDes programme) Jadavpur University, Kolkata (PG diploma) Pune University (certificate course) Koti Women's College, Hyderabad (BA in computer applications-digital humanities).

As well as the following instructors:

Padmini Ray Murray (Srishti) Amlan Dasgupta (Jadavpur University)

These would be good leads if we wanted to re-open an Indian outreach initiative.

[drjwbaker]

Good spot Adam. I contacted Padmini in the past re PH and India but I didn't receive a reply. Amlan I don't know.