Attic Inscriptions Online

Site launch (10 December 2012) - 31 July 2020

Users: 148,620

Sessions: 231,905

Page views: 817,024

Avg. session duration: 2 min. 52 sec.

1 August 2013 - 31 July 2020

Sessions: 228,604. Countries from which AIO visited most frequently in this period:

Not set: 48,662 sessions

UK: 36,996

USA: 36,700

Italy: 15,235

Greece: 14,621

Netherlands: 13,334

Germany: 9901

Australia: 6655

France: 6063

Japan: 4202

Canada: 3964

1 January 2018 - 31 July 2020

Sessions: 155,242, which equates to an average (mean) of 5,008 sessions monthly

Number of different visitor locations (“cities”): 5846

OVERVIEW OF RESULTS OF 2019/20 ANONYMOUS ON-LINE SURVEY OF AIO USERS

Total number of survey responses: 114

Professional academic/researcher: 59 (52%)

Postgraduate student: 32 (28%)

Undergraduate student: 10 (9%)

Other (including School teachers and museum curators): 12 (11%)

Left blank: 1

Cardiff University: 3 (3%)

Other UK University: 19 (17%)

University outside the UK: 66 (58%)

Other (including museums and Schools): 24 (21%)

Left blank: 2

Transformative: 24 (21%)

Significant: 52 (46%)

Minor: 10 (9%)

Not applicable: 20 (18%)

Left blank: 8

Transformative: 19 (17%)

Significant: 29 (25%)

Minor: 3 (3%)

Not applicable: 37 (32%)

Left blank: 26

Transformative: 16 (14%)

Significant: 18 (16%)

Minor: 4 (3%)

Not applicable: 41 (36%)

Left blank: 35

Examples of replies

"Superb resource facilitating interactive and integrated research at pace"

"I use AIO every day"

"AIO provides very accurate translations and commentaries on Attic inscriptions. A very helpful tool"

"The commentaries are updated more recently than most publications, which is amazing"

"With the translations, the massive density of information is accessible for non-specialists like me and will definitely increase the impact of epigraphy in the Classics"

"AIO has completely revolutionized the accessibility to inscriptions both in terms of "bringing these texts to our homes" and from the point of view of commentaries that are easy to understand and at the same time erudite. The supplementary AIO papers are an excellent addition introducing the user of AIO to the knowledge, importance and beauty of Ancient Athenian History"

"AIO is a pioneering project which has the power to transform the landscape of the the study not only of Ancient Athenian inscriptions but also of the humanities as a whole. It is a major tool for the dissemination of classics and the subsequent appreciation by larger segments of the population of their importance"

"AIO has also made it much much easier to include Athenian inscriptions (indeed epigraphic material at all) in my teaching. I can tell my students to look at a dozen or more inscriptions in preparation for the next class without worrying that this is too heavy a load or that they will get the wrong end of the stick"

"Both as a student, as a teacher, and as a researcher AIO has had a great impact on my work. It significantly improves our ability to find, understand and further investigate these inscriptions and makes the work less time consuming"

"AIO has made access to the inscriptions I need so easy"

"Research on attic inscriptions is facilitated by AIO in the sense that everything can be done much faster, because translation and most important references are at one's fingertips. For teaching, a whole set of evidence is opened up to students that would otherwise never be able to work with it - those who have no working knowledge of Greek. Immensely useful for them"

"AIO for the first time allows students and researchers alike to browse and search the corpus in an interactive way. What is more, the information is not only cutting edge, it also is up to date, something that was unattainable before the digital age and has only now been made possible"

"Inscriptions are a very important source for me and it is very helpful to be able to work with original texts from the time I am studying"

"The notes and comments to the texts are highly valuable and up-to-date; AIO provides an easy way of searching for particular data. ... For teaching, epigraphical texts in translation transformed my classes on Athenian history for non-Greek reading students"

"A Museum curator, even though retired, frequently needs to research an object. Many of those objects bear inscriptions. I am a retired Musem curator, but still engaged in research ... since I currently do not live near a research library, I rely upon resources easily accessible on-line. Therefore AiO is extremely useful and valuable to me and many others like me"

"By far the most efficient and informative source for Attic inscriptions"

"The AIO is a resource that cuts down on research time drastically. As I have come to understand the field of classics, it requires researchers to be able to draw connections among disparate pieces of evidence in order to make new arguments. The AIO aids in that endeavor for Attic inscriptions. The search features, commentaries, and links to external sources are easy to navigate and provide a wealth information"

"An incredible amout of information, excellent translations, top scholarship-- all accessible on one computer"

"I started using AIO while writing my bachelor thesis in 2017 ... The AIO proved to be a priceless tool in all my research concerning ancient Athens. I am currently researching for my PhD thesis ... and AIO will significantly ease my readings of ancient Athenian inscriptions"

"The site makes in possible to have non-Greek reading students interact with actual epigraphic data"

"AIO is very easy to use and extremely reliable. Translations are very good, commentaries are always interesting and enriching. The links between the texts and to the images (very important!) make research quick and easy. AIO made possibile to use inscriptions in courses where students do not know any Greek or not enough to read complicate inscriptions: unthinkable before! Epigraphy has been made accessible to students whose majors is not classics or philology. I hope this example will be followed for other regions"

"AIO helped me a lot while writing my bachelor and master theses. It introduced me to a world of Greek history preserved only (or mostly) through inscriptions which narrative sources do not mention. It changed my perspective on doing and researching history and showed me new paths to writing history"

"Before I knew of your webpage it was really expensive for me to get access to the printed editions of the AI, as I live abroad (South America) and my university is not eager to invest in such books. After coming to know your website, my research has profited from all the information you have"

"AIO has really helped me out during some of my courses. It is great to have a decent and clear database at hand to look up the most important/well-known inscriptions and their translations"

"AIO is simply fantastic as a research and teaching tool!"

"Having only just begun learning ancient Greek, having these inscriptions translated and available online is extremely useful, allowing me to use these within my work and provide a better understanding of Classical Athens"

"The website is really helpful and allows me to find reliable information on most Attic inscriptions very quickly"

"AIO is vastly superior to currently available editions in translation for undergraduate university students in the following ways: 1) translations are updated and accurate; 2) format is much easier to read than the format of, e.g., xxx; 3) notes are informative: 4) images are a huge plus; 5) ability to toggle between Greek and English texts is great for the few students in an undergraduate class who have some Greek"

"Inscriptions and sources from AIO have been very helpful for writing my senior thesis"

"Greek inscriptions have not always been used to the fullest potential. AIO Online makes Attic inscriptions accessible for the widest possible audience and gives helpful links and notes"

“It is transformative for pedagogy, where one is working with students for whom untranslated Greek is either challenging or impossible to work with"

“I used the site recently to prepare materials for a sixth form 'Classics extension trip' to the British Museum - AIO was excellent for this”

“The explanatory notes are really helpful. I think all of this combined helps students connect with and understand epigraphic evidence much better"

“It helped a lot for my studies, [e]specially in lessons [like] Greek Epigraphy, and it made the start of every investigation much more easy and comfortable”

Transformative: 1 (1%)

Significant: 6 (5%)

Minor: 1 (1%)

Not applicable: 56 (49%)

Left blank: 50

Transformative: 5 (4%)

Significant: 9 (8%)

Minor: 5 (4%)

Not applicable: 48 (42%)

Left blank: 47

Examples of replies

"It is very useful to have up-to-date details on current locations of inscriptions, so that you can know in advance what you are actually going to see in a particular museum"

"You can use AIO searching tools in order to find translations of and/or notes on inscriptions being displayed in a museum ... This is very helpful since there is often a lack of information regarding inscriptions in museum exhibitions"

"I am particularly happy with the AIUK series, as an access guide to inscriptions not easily accessible to the wider public"

"I am a curator of our museum of antiquities, and plan to use AIO in future"

"I am the manager of xxx project to digitize the xxx collection of Greek epigraphic squeezes . . . the ability to link to AIO pages significantly increases our ability to present our squeezes accessibly to a large audience"

"Inscriptions have been historically difficult to display and visitors often walk past, sometimes finding it easier to interpret figurative art. This project has the great benefit of making inscriptions more accessible both visually and in terms of their content. This will allow us to display the written word in better context and with visual aids. It will also allow visitors to see the object while checking the text online, something that museum labelling and interpretation does not usually allow because of space and word length of labels. Hopefully this will also allow visitors to see how inscriptions were used - not just texts on walls, but statue bases, honorary and votive texts accompanying figures, lists of war dead and commemorative sporting or performing arts victories in competitions"

"I am planning to use it for the collection I manage at xxx as we have Attic inscriptions on display and coursework assignments too"

"We are hopeful of including inscriptions as a didactic within one of our exhibitions. The inscriptions here are well organized and the notes are extremely helpful for me as an educator who is not an expert in the area"

“The historical background and translations provided by AIO finally allow to see inscriptions not as texts on stone but provide the necessary historical context for the texts to be understood”

Excellent: 82 (72%)

Good: 24 (21%)

Adequate: 3 (3%)

Poor: 0

Left blank: 5