add community impact metrics

[moritz-gross]

It'd be interesting for new contributors (and me) to have some information about who's using MathCAT where and how.
This may include installation or usage metrics in NVDA or JAWS maybe.

I'm more familiar with SaaS software and I'm not sure how to best to this for an open-source project.

Another idea I'm less sure about would be tracking mentions in user forums: https://nvda.groups.io/g/nvda/search?q=MathCAT

[NSoiffer]

NVDA will be collecting some data when it is built into NVDA. Other than that, the only other data is the download data from github you referenced. Potentially JAWS collects some data, but I don't know.

I'm reluctant to put metrics into MathCAT because that raises privacy issues and I just don't want to go there. I don't even know which companies use MathCAT in their products. The MIT license doesn't require anyone to notify me that they are using the code.

[moritz-gross]

I understand. Another idea would be to see how similar projects (maybe with same licensing) are handling this, for some inspiration

[NSoiffer]

Feel free to look.

If you don't see anything applicable, close the issue.

[ways2read]

At DAISY we want to do a better job of usage metrics for our open-source tools so we are grappling with this question at the moment. Our requirements include opt-in only, go beyond no PII, and no impact on performance. That's for tools though. Not sure how usage metrics could work for MathCAT as a component.

I can help with community impact measures that aren't metric based.

[moritz-gross]

I'm not sure what "impact measures that aren't metric based" are.
What are some you have in mind?

[ways2read]

Yeah, that could have been clearer. I was thinking in terms of describing the AT and other solutions leveraging MathCAT and describing their reach (we usually have metrics from them). Also, illustrating impact through case study examples.

[moritz-gross]

ok got it.

In the README, there is

MathCAT is used in many assistive technologies including NVDA and JAWS.

We'd ideally just expand that paragraph a bit then?

[ways2read]

We'd ideally just expand that paragraph a bit then?

Or a lot! 🤞 If George and I keep doing our advocacy jobs this will soon be significantly more impressive.

[NSoiffer]

It would be great to get a list of the AT that uses MathCAT. That's something that hopefully others can do the outreach to get answers.