An easy, automatic, flexible website template for labs

Introduction

Research labs need a professional and up-to-date website to showcase their work, attract collaborators, and establish an online presence, but developing and maintaining one can be challenging and time consuming. Lab Website Template is an open-source, code-based tool that automates citation generation, repo configuration, and anything else it can, letting labs focus more on research and less on web development and grunt work.

Approach

Before v1.0, we gathered many observations and direct feedback that shaped our approach. Some things we noticed:

• The most common pain points were about the same things, like repo setup and configuring key options.
• Labs can't waste time on basics or low-level details, but still need ways to customize things.
• Labs want to see that a tool is actively maintained, strongly sold by good support.

Some philosophies we adopted to address these needs:

• Doing > instructing. Aggressively experimenting with GitHub Actions and scripting, we found we could automate much more setup/config/etc. than we thought.
• Don't let issues languish. We respond quickly and discuss suggestions to make people feel heard, even if actual resolution takes longer.
• Keep it simple and focused. We earnestly consider all feedback, but also don't accept every suggestion at face value to avoid feature/config bloat (inner-platform effect).
• Code/comments aren't enough. We have a full GitBook docs site with examples, FAQs, diagrams, search, etc. Labs can help themselves for common things, which saves us time for more novel work.
• Cleanly structure content. We separate template content from user content so labs can focus on just what's important to them, but still look "under the hood" when needed.

Technologies

Jekyll Static site generator. Long-lived. Plugin-rich. GitHub Pages for hosting. Actions for automation. Markdown For content. Liquid for templating. Python For auto-cite scripts. Familiar for researchers. Docker Runs template locally. Cross-platform. Single install. Ruby For data filtering. Jekyll plugins, other misc.

Auto-Citations

Who wants to manually manage citations?

Simple input Rich output

orcid.yaml

- orcid: 0000-1111-2222-3333
              

Input your "meta-sources" as simple IDs.

We auto-expand these into full lists of sources from ORCID, Google Scholar, or PubMed (extensible via plugins).

sources.yaml

- id: doi:12345
  image: thumbnail.jpg
  tags: biology, data
              

Input your hand-picked sources as simple IDs (2k+ supported types), and extra rich details.

We auto-generate full citations – title, authors, date, publisher, etc. – with Manubot.

research.md

{%
  include list.html
  data="citations"
  filter="category == 'featured'"
%}
              

Include citations in your site however you want with the list component. Filter with unwieldy Liquid any Ruby expression.

More Automation

Several other automations handle the most confusing and error-prone tasks for you, triggered by events, with little or no manual steps.

Other Features

• Suite of pre-made building blocks...
• Figures, tables, math, banners, and more.
• Team member bios, roles, socials, etc.
• Blog posts with tags and rich content.
• Dark mode. Desktop and mobile design.
• Custom URL with any domain provider.

Outcome

We believe our approach and design lead to a valuable piece of software, evidenced by the template's growing adoption on GitHub, positive feedback, and gallery of active labs using it. This work has likely saved researchers and others significant time and money, reflecting a community resource that effectively serves the needs of its users.

The next evolution could focus on even more convenience, simplicity, robustness, and flexibility. We'd like to use a more modern, type-safe site generator like Astro, make template version upgrades automatic, and make citations even more seamless.