About

How it works

Every source on WITNESS is a real primary document. Speeches, letters, propaganda, diplomatic cables, newspaper reports. All drawn from the periods covered by the AQA A-level history specification.

When a student starts a session, an AI coach walks them through the source in three stages: provenance, utility, and context. These map to the assessment objectives AQA examiners use when marking source questions. The coach asks questions, responds to what the student actually writes, and never gives the answer away. At the end of every session, the student gets a scorecard rating their performance on each stage.

The coaching is powered by Claude, Anthropic's AI model. The sources, the coaching framework, and the context that makes the coach sound like it has done the reading are built by WITNESS.

Who built this

WITNESS is built by Ralph Lazar, creator of MacroSnaps, a daily macroeconomic data pipeline that pulls live figures from central banks and statistical agencies around the world. MacroSnaps powers macroeconomics.education, a data platform used by A-level and AP Economics students and teachers.

WITNESS applies the same principle to history. MacroSnaps connects economics students to live data. WITNESS connects history students to primary sources, and gives them a coach to work through them properly.