File Locations and Formats

Core teaching materials are stored in the relevant folders including lectures/, materials/, and readings/.

Class specific materials are stored in assignments/, exercises/ and solutions/. Additional files are stored in code/ and data/.

Most of the other folders and files support creating the course website using Jekyll.

Many of the file names and front matter content values are coordinated across course materials. File names and front matter must be revised carefully according to the course structure and file templates.

Manage Files

  • Create or modify a Markdown file in the assignments/ directory.

  • Use the appropriate template to be sure the file content is formatted correctly for Jekyll rendering. Each file needs to start with standard front matter content that Jekyll uses to automate rendering of the website. Use the style guide for formatting page content following the front matter.

  • Add, commit, and push the new or modified file to GitHub to get the content added to the website.

Preview changes locally using Jekyll

If you want to view your changes locally, before pushing them to the live website, you’ll need to setup Jekyll locally. GitHub provides a good introduction on how to do this.

If you have Jekyll properly installed, you can then run

bundle exec jekyll serve

from the command line and navigate to http://localhost:4000/ in your browser to preview the current state of the website. Access a specific file on the web at the url based on where the file is located and what the file name is. So if you made changes to this file manage-files.md from the docs/course/ folder, you could view them

  • locally at: http://localhost:4000/semester-biology/docs/course/manage-files

  • after pushing to GitHub at: https://yourusername.github.io/semester-biology/docs/course/manage-files