Collaborative development and publishing of open instructional content with GitHub

Jeremy Buhler - Data Librarian
Allan Cho - Research Commons Librarian
Eka Grguric - Digital Scholarship Librarian
Evan Thornberry - GIS Librarian

UBC Library Research Commons

A multidisciplinary hub supporting research endeavours, partnerships, and education.
  • New team, new approach
  • In January 2020
  • Working and learning together

"Pre-GitHub"

  • Many internal shared folders
  • Non-portable & non-reproducible
  • Uncoordinated approaches

Disorganized Workflow

Proposed New Approach

  • Collaborative, using freely available tools accessible outside of the university
  • Git, GitHub, Github Pages & Reveal.js
  • Presentations through Github Pages

Why GitHub?

  • Existing experience on the team with Git and Github
  • Already in use by members of the team for similar cases (GIS workshops)
    • This included workshop content in repo and Reveal.js slides via GH Pages

Why GitHub?

  • Desire to upskill and experiment with new workflows
  • Need to better support consults
  • Need for better ownership, collaboration, and maintenance workflows with growth in size of unit

Community inspiration

  • Inspiration from the Carpentries' OER model
  • Philosophical desire to lower barriers to access and remixing
    • Not a UBC specific platform / approach
    • Content requires only a browser window to access and is downlodable for bad connections

Sustainability

  • Text-based approach easy to move, remix, repurpose
  • Currently, Github Pages is free and unlimited for our use case

The workflow

Setup
  • GitHub account for each contributor
  • GitHub organization for Research Commons
Content
  • Markdown files
  • reveal.js html files
Skills
  • Markdown (everyone)
  • Git/GitHub (everyone)
  • Jekyll themes (someone)
From Markdown content...

          # Introduction to Docker

          This workshop is meant to introduce you to the set of virtualization
          tools referred to as [Docker](https://www.docker.com/), which allow
          you to use, create, and share container images.

          ![Docker dark background icon](content\figures\docker_boyi_wu.jpg)
          Retrieved from [Bo-Yi Wu on Flicker](https://www.flickr.com/photos/appleboy/25660808075), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

          [Containers](https://www.cio.com/article/2924995/what-are-containers-and-why-do-you-need-them.html)
          create small reproducible computing workspaces on your computer, to
          which you can ascribe specific libraries and constraints to
          replicate specific environments.

          ## Workshop Objectives

          We'll first discuss broader concepts from the computing virtualization
          space, disambiguate the many interrelated components of the
          Docker ecosystem, and explore some use cases demonstrating the
          value of containers in both tech and academia.

          Then we'll walk through an overview of install pathways for different
          operating systems and intended uses, touching on some general
          troubleshooting points and the cognitive competencies cultivated
          by dev ops tools like these.
...to published workshop site
Each workshop is a GitHub repo
Introduction to Docker workshop created by Chelsea Palmer
Jekyll theme in its own repo

The Research Commons uses a modified version of the Just the Docs Jekyll theme
Applying theme to workshop sites: _config.yml 

          title: Intro to Docker
          remote_theme: ubc-library-rc/rc-workshop-template
          github_repo_url: "https://github.com/ubc-library-rc/intro-docker/"

          # license information for workshop content
          license_name: "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License"
          license_url: "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
          license_image_url: "https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png"

          # required for building jekyll site locally
          plugins:
            - jekyll-remote-theme
            - jekyll-seo-tag
Applying theme to workshop sites: _config.yml 

          title: Intro to Docker
          remote_theme: ubc-library-rc/rc-workshop-template
          github_repo_url: "https://github.com/ubc-library-rc/intro-docker/"

          # license information for workshop content
          license_name: "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License"
          license_url: "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
          license_image_url: "https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png"

          # required for building jekyll site locally
          plugins:
            - jekyll-remote-theme
            - jekyll-seo-tag
Applying theme to workshop sites: _config.yml 

          title: Intro to Docker
          remote_theme: ubc-library-rc/rc-workshop-template
          github_repo_url: "https://github.com/ubc-library-rc/intro-docker/"

          # license information for workshop content
          license_name: "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License"
          license_url: "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
          license_image_url: "https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png"

          # required for building jekyll site locally
          plugins:
            - jekyll-remote-theme
            - jekyll-seo-tag
Instructions and documentation
https://ubc-library-rc.github.io/rc-workshop-template/

Improvement and maintenance

  • Content Review Tracking repo for workshop-level
  • GitHub Issues for specifics
  • Pull requests for integrating changes

Workshops are reviewed

Issues are submitted and tagged


Pull requests from students or creators