I very much appreciate the robust discussion here! Reflecting on responses, I'm realizing that what's needed is a CMS. In particular, I have tried introducing some of the less technical folks I'd like to work with to GitHub, and gotten clear feedback that it's too hard - the mental model is too cumbersome for a beginner. Jekyll (esp. the limited set of plugins available on GitHub) is a kind of super-minimalist approach, which places further burdens on the content creators, requiring them to do things "by hand." In the end, folks less technical folk have had a strong preference for WordPress (which of course is like nails on a chalkboard for my text-editor-adapted mind).
For other work, I've been looking into a system like Netlify, and there is an accompanying Netlify CMS that supports an editorial workflow (closer to WordPress) but also still backs onto a git repo that's "just files." A simpler but similar approach would be to use prose.io with the standard GitHub + Jekyll setup (as used in the carpentry materials). So, I think I'm going to kick the tires on Netlify (indeed - I already have, and it's pretty easy to support a broad range of static site generators. But I still need to look into CMS features). If other folks have experience in that direction, I'd be keen to hear about it! Best, Dav On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 6:13 AM Anelda van der Walt via discuss < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > What I love about the current workflow and methodology of the Carpentries' > lessons: > > - Anybody can contribute - not only members, invited members, or > steering committee members, or some other designated group of people (if > you can use the tech of course) > - People get recognition (one can point someone - e.g. employer - to > the Github repository to show you have contributed) > - The lessons are published which gives more formal recognition - > Citation via DOI and it gets added to the ORCID (BIG bonus) > - ORCID is something that is pushed at national level by our > National Research Foundation, which means people are slowly starting to > understand what it is and it is becoming easier to explain that a > contribution to a lesson can be added to one's ORCID which will look > good > for an employer in future. > - Once one is actually familiar with the lesson infrastructure, it is > really possible to adapt this workflow for ANYTHING else (be it a Sunday > School lesson or teaching kids at school, or anything else). > - Everything is available through tools that doesn't need an > institutional/personal license (additional costs) > > Context is given below if you want to read something longer: > > This is such a relevant discussion for something I'm working on right now. > We are running a capacity development programme with rural campuses in > South Africa. The programme includes Carpentry workshops among other things > (blended learning topics - not my expertise - and general network > maintenance and IT related training - not my expertise). > > There are loads of resources available in more affluent universities, > specifically, more experienced (in modern research/teaching & learning > practices) and often higher qualified staff to provide support for > academics and students (I've specifically been looking at recent job > adverts on the list and electronic signatures to see which positions people > on the list are filling). Most of the rural (and not so rural) universities > just simply do not have the type of staff and even students which makes up > a large percentage of our international Carpentry community. Often our > learners, which includes staff members, have never heard of Open Science, > Open licenses, reproducible research, let alone R or Python or OpenRefine. > Many of our learners don't even use Google Drive at all let alone in the > way we're used to using it for collaborative writing in the sense that is > discussed here. > > We are hoping to develop a suite of "enabler's" lessons that are > accessible to any student or staff member at these (and other universities) > which can be made available through libraries, research office, and/or IT > when they don't have their own training materials and don't have human > resources (time and/skill set) to develop these BUT with the hope that over > time we can train the relevant staff/students at these universities to > contribute/maintain these lessons or even take them and customise to suit > their needs. > > One of the topics we want to include in this enabler's curriculum for > example, is a lesson on best practices for online meetings. Most of our > community members do not participate in online meetings for work. They > still think that one needs an IT staff member and a dedicated virtual > meeting room to be able to access webinars, online meetings, etc. To show > what one would be capable of putting together, using openly licensed > templates such as the Carpentries' and a workflow that is tried and trusted > (whilst still evolving and not without its problems), I put together this: > https://tenet-rccpii.github.io/video-conferencing-best-practices/. Don't > judge the content as I put it together to show what is possible in a few > minutes without concept maps and Blooms taxonomy in mind ;-). Branding > should probably also be removed. > > But in putting it all together and then wanting to explain this to a > novice to the Carpentry community and to the tools we teach and use, I > realised again how long it will take to get a large body of people to adopt > the workflow and technology that underpins the lessons. If ever... It's > incredibly difficult to explain to novices because there is so much expert > blindspot and actually so many concepts that needs to be covered. > > Even Github remains a MASSIVE problem - maybe not because of Github alone, > but also because of the complex file structure that makes a lesson and the > terminology associated with building the lesson website (includes, assets, > etc). Disclaimer, although I can use git somewhat, I never do anything on > the git CLI anymore in terms of lessons and websites on Github. > > I also think that as the Carpentries community matures, the infrastructure > is getting harder to use for novices. When I ran my first Software > Carpentry workshop, all I had to do to create a workshop website, was to > change the header in the index.html file and some of the contents lower > down in this file in the top level of the website repo. Now I have to > change the index file, understand what includes mean, find the relevant > folder, change schedule, who, etc. It's great, because it means the > infrastructure is getting more robust and built according to best > practices, BUT it's less accessible for novices... The same is happening > with lesson infrastructure. > > I'd be very interested in any other workflows people can point out, but > for now I really appreciate the templates and lesson infrastructure, > because even though it is getting less accessible for novices, it provides > amazing resources that are extensible in wonderful ways if you do know how > to use the tech underlying it. It really saves so much time in order to put > something professional looking, and well structured out. For now, I'll > believe that eventually we will be able to grow larger communities who can > learn the skills required to make use of these tremendous resources that > are built by our community and the Carpentries staff members. Even if it > will take some time. > > Thanks! > > Anelda > > > On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 1:27 AM Rémi Rampin <[email protected]> wrote: > >> 2018-10-08 14:11 EDT, Dav Clark via discuss < >> [email protected]>: >> >>> I would love to have a workflow that mimics something like the GitHub / >>> Bitbucket pull request workflow. BUT, I think wrapping your head around >>> git + web services as a collaborative document production workflow is HARD >>> (bordering on pathology). >>> >> >> GitHub has a decent online editor, making most small changes a breeze. As >> long as maintainers can catch and fix markup/branching mistakes, I feel >> like the contributor doesn't need to "deal" with any of Jekyll's or Git's >> unfriendliness. GitHub has a "preview" tab that shows both a rendered >> version of the markdown, and red/green highlights for your changes. >> >> However I can see how it gets trickier for the initial development of >> lessons, where changes have a bigger scale (and adding pages or links is >> not that friendly). >> >> But I am not sure what concretely can be improved in that area. I don't >> feel like things like wikis are that much more friendly, yet again I am a >> software developer who uses GIt 7 hours per day, so I am very interested in >> hearing about specific pain-points (and GitHub might be >> <https://blog.github.com/2018-09-18-introducing-experiments-an-ongoing-research-effort-from-github/> >> as well? GitLab's web IDE >> <https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/web_ide/> is also really good). >> >> -- >> Rémi >> > *The Carpentries <https://carpentries.topicbox.com/latest>* / discuss / > see discussions <https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss> + > participants <https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/members> + > delivery > options <https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription> > Permalink > <https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T95f755e418d1f2ac-M4de70744e2be85fed0fa3332> > ------------------------------------------ The Carpentries: discuss Permalink: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T95f755e418d1f2ac-M00ba8b8c44fe2fa2ed7c030a Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
