Creating an academic website

Presented as part of UConn's SIGSFLAGS Spring 2021 and Spring 2022 seminar series.

Using an existing template

1. Sign up for an account on GitHub.
2. Find a template that you like. I recommend, use, and have contributed to academicpages: https://academicpages.github.io/
3. Fork your desired repository. You can do this by clicking the "Fork" button in the top-right corner.
4. Go to the repository's settings and rename it to be yourusername.github.io. You must use this name, or it won't work for you.
5. Start editing the content! You can do this by editing, uploading, and deleting files directly from your browser or by using the standard practices of editing, committing, and pushing files with git and GitHub. (If you're interested in working locally with git and GitHub, I strongly recommend Atom as a text editor.)

Populating your website

You've got your website---now what? academicpages and other GitHub Pages themes are quite flexible. Your website may be a place where people first discover how you describe yourself; be intentional and thoughtful about what you include on your website. You might want to ask yourself a few questions when figuring out what to put on your website:

1. What story do you want to tell about yourself?
2. What are your professional and scientific goals?
3. Why are you setting up this website?

Many graduate student and other academic professional websites include some core components: name, contact information, a brief biography or professional history, and a list of scientific works. While these might make sense as a starting point, there are many other things that you might consider highlighting. For example, you might want to highlight your service and outreach activities (including links to open science contributions and professional organizations) or advertise your scientific communication efforts (including links to your professional social media accounts or blog posts).

Things to bear in mind

• Simple is often better. Choose a limited color palette, and be judicious in your use of images. Consciously design with accessibility in mind; for example, avoid color palettes that don't work for people with colorblindness.
• One of the hardest parts of having a website is maintaining it. Take a look at my website---some of my "recent" works were from early 2020! It's useful to think about how you'll plan to integrate updates into your workflow. And again, simple is often better: The more content you have on your website, the more often you need to maintain it.
• You can integrate your GitHub Pages repo with your custom domain name! Head over to https://github.com/yourusername/yourusername.github.io/settings, scroll down to the "GitHub Pages" section, and start the process. More information is available at GitHub's custom domain documentation.
• It can take a few minutes for GitHub to process and publish your changes after you push them. You can check the status of them by going to your https://github.com/yourusername/yourusername.github.io/settings and scrolling down to the "GitHub Pages" section. It'll let you know where you if it's been successfully published (if it's green) or if it's still building (if it's yellow).
• Feel free to link to others! For example, if you reference collaborators, add a link to their webpages. Just like with scientific works, it can be a great way of acknowledging them and can help others find them.

Helpful links

• academicpages rendered site and documentation: https://academicpages.github.io/
• Cheatsheet for GitHub-flavored markdown: https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet
• Guide to academic websites from UC Berkeley's Townsend Center: https://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/blog/personal-academic-webpages-how-tos-and-tips-better-site

Some examples of websites made with academicpages

• R. Stuart Geiger (creator of academicpages): https://stuartgeiger.com/
• Alexandra Paxton (me!): https://alexandrapaxton.com/
• Megan Chiovaro: https://mchiovaro.github.io/
• Diya Das: https://diyadas.github.io/
• Mohak Bhardwaj: https://mohakbhardwaj.github.io/
• Naomi Arnold: https://narnolddd.github.io/
• Patrick Pérez: https://ptrckprz.github.io/
• Gilles Gnacadja: https://math.gillesgnacadja.info/
• List of all forks from academicpages: https://github.com/academicpages/academicpages.github.io/network/members