Programming Historian

What Programming Historian does

Programming Historian is an open-access, peer-reviewed publishing platform that delivers novice-friendly tutorials on digital tools, techniques, and workflows for humanities research and teaching. Administered by ProgHist Ltd (a UK registered charity, Charity Number 1195875; Company Number 12192946), it publishes 284 lessons across four language editions — English (119 lessons, ISSN 2397-2068), Spanish (68, ISSN 2517-5769), French (42, ISSN 2631-9462), and Portuguese (55, ISSN 2753-9296) — all released under a CC-BY license. Its audience comprises humanities scholars, educators, students, and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) professionals who need accessible introductions to programming languages (Python, R), data analysis, text mining, GIS mapping, database design, NLP, and computer vision applied to historical sources.

The platform is built on Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages, with content authored in Markdown through an open editorial workflow on GitHub. Lessons undergo a transparent peer review process; the organization maintains a formal lesson retirement policy and an automatically-generated translation concordance that maps cross-language relationships between editions. Operational scale is modest — approximately 10 staff based in Brighton, UK — with content produced by a distributed community of volunteer authors, peer reviewers, and regional translators.

Programming Historian is a non-commercial entity. It generates no revenue from lesson content; all material is free to access. Funding comes from individual donations via Patreon and an Institutional Partnership Programme (IPP) that engages academic and cultural heritage organizations. A core strategic partnership with Jisc and The National Archives supports collaborative lesson publication. The organization's go-to-market is community-led: academic conferences, GitHub visibility, RSS feeds, and word-of-mouth within the digital humanities community. There are no funding rounds, equity investments, or commercial product lines.

Name

Programming Historian

Legal name

ProgHist Ltd

Website

https://programminghistorian.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Programming Historian is a UK-registered charity operating an open-access, peer-reviewed publishing platform that provides novice-friendly digital humanities tutorials across four languages, supported by donations and institutional partnerships.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Digital Humanities Education Publishing

NAICS

Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (5192)

SIC

Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721), Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731)

akta.pro primary industry

Humanities & Arts Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAE)

akta.pro secondary industry

Microlearning Content Libraries (Bite-Sized Lessons) (EDAFACAI)

Keywords

• Digital humanities education
• Open-access tutorials
• Academic publishing
• Humanities computing methods
• Peer-reviewed lessons

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Individual Donations: The organization accepts individual donations through Patreon, supporting the ongoing operations and maintenance of the open-access publication.
2. Institutional Partnerships: The Institutional Partnership Programme (IPP) provides funding and support from academic and cultural heritage institutions.
3. Charitable Organization Status: Administered by ProgHist Ltd as a UK registered charity (Number 1195875), enabling tax-efficient donations and institutional support.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Programming Historian publishes peer-reviewed, novice-friendly tutorials that teach humanists to use digital tools, computational techniques, and research workflows. The platform offers 284 lessons across four language editions (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese) covering programming, data analysis, visualization, GIS mapping, NLP, and machine learning for humanities research, all freely accessible under CC-BY license.

Product overview

Programming Historian is a multi-language, open-access educational publishing platform operated by ProgHist Ltd (UK Charity 1195875). The platform consists of four language editions (English with 119 lessons, Spanish with 68, French with 42, and Portuguese with 55) totaling 284 peer-reviewed tutorials. All content is published under CC-BY license. The platform publishes novice-friendly lessons on digital humanities methods including Python and R programming, data analysis and visualization, GIS/mapping, natural language processing, machine learning for historical research, database design, web scraping, and linked open data. The platform operates on a peer-review model with GitHub-based infrastructure and does not offer a commercial SaaS product.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Programming Historian (English Edition) The flagship English-language edition publishing peer-reviewed, novice-friendly tutorials to help humanists learn digital tools, techniques, and workflows for research and teaching. Contains 119 lessons covering programming, data analysis, visualization, and digital humanities methods. ISSN: 2397-2068.
• Programming Historian en español Spanish-language edition publishing 68 peer-reviewed tutorials for humanists in Latin America and Spain, covering digital tools, computational techniques, and research workflows. ISSN: 2517-5769.
• Programming Historian en français French-language edition publishing 42 peer-reviewed tutorials for humanities scholars, covering digital tools, computational methods, and research workflows. ISSN: 2631-9462.
• Programming Historian em português Portuguese-language edition publishing 55 peer-reviewed tutorials for Lusophone humanists, covering digital tools and computational methodologies. ISSN: 2753-9296.
• Translation Concordance An automatically-generated cross-reference listing translation relationships between lessons published across all four Programming Historian language editions, enabling identification of which lessons have been translated.
• Lesson Retirement Policy Editorial policy framework for managing lessons that become outdated due to technological changes, including criteria for retirement, URL redirects from original to retired location, community notification protocols, and guidelines for creating updated derivative lessons.
• Jisc and The National Archives Partnership Lessons Collaborative publication program with Jisc and The National Archives producing lessons published across language editions for UK cultural heritage and academic infrastructure audiences.
• Institutional Partnership Programme (IPP) Partnership program for academic and cultural heritage institutions to provide funding, support, and collaboration with Programming Historian.

Quantifiable outcome

• 284 peer-reviewed lessons published across 4 languages
• +2 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability13 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Jisc and The National ArchivescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLessons have been published in partnership with Jisc and The National Archives, indicating strategic collaboration with major UK cultural heritage and academic infrastructure organizations. This partnership has contributed to lesson development and validation.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Open Library of Humanities: Open-access scholarly publishing platform for humanities journals using a library partnership model. Comparable as an open-access, community-supported humanities publishing initiative using CC-BY licensing, though it focuses on journals rather than tutorials.
• Software Carpentry: Original Carpentries lesson program teaching foundational coding and computing skills to researchers. Highly comparable to Programming Historian in audience (researchers learning computational skills), pedagogical approach, and open lesson format.
• The Carpentries: Community-driven organization teaching coding and data skills to researchers through peer-reviewed open lessons. Most directly comparable to Programming Historian due to its similar mission of open, peer-reviewed lessons for non-technical researchers using a community editorial model.
• Library Carpentry: A lesson program (now under The Carpentries) focused on data and coding skills for library professionals, with similar community-led peer review. Comparable in offering novice-friendly tutorials to a GLAM-adjacent audience with CC licensing.

Broad incumbents

• ADHO (Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations): Umbrella organization supporting digital humanities associations globally. Comparable as the broader organizational ecosystem in which Programming Historian operates, though it is a federated body rather than a direct content publisher.

Others

• Wikibooks: Open-content textbook and tutorial platform with CC-BY-SA licensing. Comparable as an open-content educational resource model with similar global reach, though not peer-reviewed and far broader in topical scope than digital humanities.

Emerging players

• Scalar: Digital publishing platform from USC for multimedia scholarly publishing. Comparable as a digital humanities publishing tool with academic institutional backing, though focused on authoring platforms rather than peer-reviewed tutorials.
• eLife: Open-access journal publisher with innovative peer review models and CC-BY licensing. Comparable as an open-access scholarly publishing platform experimenting with peer review processes, though focused on life sciences rather than digital humanities.
• DARIAH-EU: European Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities supporting DH research and training across Europe. Comparable as a digital humanities ecosystem player with educational and infrastructure components, though primarily EU-funded rather than donation-based.
• HASTAC: Network of scholars and educators exploring intersections of humanities, arts, and technology. Comparable as a digital humanities and pedagogy community, though it operates as a network and discussion forum rather than a peer-reviewed tutorial publisher.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/programminghistorian/jekyll
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/prog-hist

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Programming Historian