Client Tracker: Open Geolocation for Editorial Analytics and Audience Mapping

Abstract

Introduction: Measuring the territorial reach of academic content informs internationalization statistics. The interruption of third-party services offering reader maps, which was used by Cuban scientific journals, left numerous journals without a simple, open, and reproducible geolocation tool. Objective: To describe the design and development of an open-access web application to identify the approximate location of users and display it on interactive maps. Method: A technological development and innovation research project was conducted in April 2024. The web application was designed on the Ubuntu 24.04 operating system using Microsoft Visual Studio Code and the Chrome browser. The programming languages ​​used were JavaScript and Python, along with their React and FastAPI libraries, respectively. The application was developed in three stages: information search, programming tool selection, and application creation. Results: The system retrieves the country and, when possible, the region/city (configurable accuracy radius), aggregates real-time events, and displays heat and markers on a map (responsive UI). REST/JS integration, audit trail, and anonymization and retention options are offered. Conclusions: ClientTracker provides a lightweight and auditable alternative for visualizing the geographic reach of academic content, with best privacy practices and improvement paths for accuracy, performance, and data governance.