Workshop 1: Open-source tools for outreach, teaching and research documentation¶

Learn free, open-source tools for publishing research and teaching online. No web development experience needed.

We'll show you tools we actually use, with demos and hands-on practice. This workshop focuses on tools for researchers and teachers, not a comprehensive web design course.

Registration / logistics

When: 19 June 2026
Where: Hepple, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
How: Please register by filling this MS form so we can plan accordingly!

Time
12:30	Arrival and lunch (provided)
13:30	Part 1 — Static websites
15:00	Coffee break
15:20	Part 2 — Lightning talks
15:40	Part 3 — Hands-on & discussion
16:30	Workshop ends
17:00	Optional pub visit — School Gemini Drinks

You should come if you want to build any of these:¶

We expect the workshop to be most beneficial for PGRs and ECRs, but everyone is very welcome to join!

Programme¶

Part 1 — Static websites (13:30–15:00)¶

Explore tools that turn written content and images into websites. We'll help you choose the right tool for your needs.

A quick intro to static site generators
Writing content: Markdown and Notebooks
Turning content into websites:
- JupyterBook / MyST — good for educational / computational content, tutorials, papers, books
- MkDocs & Material — good for software documentation and project websites like this one
- Jekyll — good for fancier personal or project websites
- Honourable mention: Sphinx — the venerable and still well-used software documentation tool
Hosting: GitHub Pages and ReadTheDocs.
Legal aspects — privacy, cookies, and owning the copyright to your images.
Git and GitHub — the basics — what is version control and why you need it to publish on GitHub.

The links above point to the reference pages for each topic — they reflect the structure of the slides and are intended for use during the hands-on session and after the workshop.

Coffee break (15:00–15:20)

Part 2 — Lightning talks (15:20–15:40)¶

5 minutes (or less!) showcases from the participants:

Kara Lamantia: An Open Source Tool for Mapping Key Metrics of Glacier Health from Space
Tom Chudley: Data distribution GUIs on zero budget
Fabien Maussion: Interactive applications to learn and teach about glaciers
Fabien Maussion: OGGM-Hub and OGGM-Classroom — glacier modelling "on the cloud"

Part 3 — Hands-on & discussion (15:40–16:30)¶

This session is unstructured — use it however is most useful to you.

Discussion table — bring your ideas and questions. What would you like to build? A personal website, a teaching platform, project documentation? We can help you figure out which tool fits and where to start. This is also a good moment to discuss what a shared teaching website for the group could look like.
Hands-on — start building your own site with help from Tom and Fabien. Bring your laptop and, if you have one, a use case (a paper, dataset, or course you'd like to put online). See the hands-on tutorial for the available paths (Jekyll, MkDocs, JupyterBook).
Feel free to leave at any point if you have what you need!

How to prepare (optional)¶

Nothing here is required

You can turn up with just a laptop and we'll help you get set up on the day. The steps below give you a head start, but none of them are mandatory.

Helps everyone:

Create a free GitHub account if you don't already have one — it takes a couple of minutes. It's needed to publish the site online quickly, and it's all you need for the easiest path: building a personal website entirely in your browser, with nothing to install.

Only if you already know you'd like to try MkDocs or JupyterBook:

Install Python (Conda or Mamba) — these two tools run on Python. Not sure yet? Skip it: you can decide on the day, and the Jekyll route needs no installation at all.

On the day:

Bring a use case — a paper, dataset, course, or codebase you'd like to put online. It helps us figure out which tool fits your needs and get you started on the spot.
Bring your questions and opinions — the discussion roundtable is for everyone.