A call for standardized GitHub usage metrics
GitHub's Social Impact and Policy teams have issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking a researcher to define a standardized list of publicly available GitHub platform usage metrics broken down by country. The goal is to support research in international development, public policy, and economics.
With more than 65 million developers, GitHub is the largest code hosting platform in the world. Its usage data has already informed assessments of digital engagement, readiness, and tech maturity at national and regional levels—for example, the Portulans Institute's Network Readiness Index 2020. Yet GitHub does not currently publish a standardized, publicly available set of usage metrics by country. Its annual State of the Octoverse reports offer a global snapshot, but not the granular, regularly updated data that researchers in these fields need.
Researchers have typically relied on third-party sources such as GHTorrent, which geocodes user entries and has served the computer science community well. However, GHTorrent was not designed for international development or public policy research. What researchers have asked for instead is a smaller set of metrics, updated on a regular basis, grouped by country, and delivered in an accessible format such as a .csv file.
Scope of the RFP
GitHub is looking for background research and recommendations on what such a country-level metrics list should include and how frequently it should be refreshed. The intended audience is researchers in international development, public policy, and economics, though the data could be useful in other disciplines as well.
Example metrics could include the number and location of active entities—such as users, repositories, and organizations—along with pull requests, repository forks, and engagement on issues and Discussions. Data from private repositories and GitHub Enterprise accounts is explicitly out of scope.
Individual researchers and organizations were invited to apply by Monday, 1 November 2021. Clarifying questions were to be directed to the contacts listed in the full RFP document. At present, submissions are closed.
