
Show HN: Academic Bio – A simple static site generator for academic webpages - jpallen
http://my.academic.bio
======
jpallen
I set up academic.bio to try to make it easy for academics to have a website
without needing to learn anything new (html, Jekyll, github, etc) and without
the complexity of WordPress et al.

I want to keep it all open though so you still 'own' your website, with the
option to host at academic.bio (simple s3 static site), download the compiled
html/CSS to host yourself, or use the Jekyll theme directly
(github.com/academicbio/academic-minima) depending on the level you're
comfortable at.

Thoughts and feedback welcome!

PS the next step is allowing quick import of publications. Where would people
like to import from? Bibtex? ResearchGate?

~~~
chowes
Looks pretty great - why stop at academia? Many devs would love a quick, good
looking resume or github page.

~~~
athesyn
Because there is a new resume/GitHub static generator every week?? I know it's
not a sole reason to ignore those purposes but he has much better chance
appealing to a niche audience with such a common product.

~~~
slig
I believe GP comment suggestion was to re-use the same code on a different
domain/template for devs.

------
protomikron
I have to admit, I am normally not impressed by "Show HN"s from a practical
viewpoint (most are technical demos, I think), but your page really stood out.
I really like, that you keep it simple and allow to transfer the pages.

A feature request I would have if I published open-access papers (and that is
fortunately more and more the case) would be to host them on your page.

Maybe that's already possible (i.e. adding static files), then I have nothing
to complain. :)

~~~
p4bl0
Open accessing papers should not be done (only) on personnal web pages. Those
may disappear and are less discoverable (or at least, the world depends on
Google Scholar to find such papers, which is a single point-of-failure if
Google discontinues the service sole day).

Instead, open access papers should be hosted in open repositories, which are
dedicated to the organization and the conservation of scientific documents.
I'm of course talking about services that are supported by public
institutions, like arXiv, HAL, Zenodo, etc. Not of those made by startups that
may one day be bought by Evilseer (such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate).

------
newyearnewyou
That's awesome, I can Tweet this out for you. My lowly account has 1600
followers, but concentrated amongst academics.
[https://twitter.com/codonops](https://twitter.com/codonops)

~~~
jpallen
That would be amazing, thanks!

~~~
newyearnewyou
Done!
[https://twitter.com/CodonOps/status/793545902489235458](https://twitter.com/CodonOps/status/793545902489235458)

~~~
p4bl0
Retweeted :)!

------
dougk16
Bah every time I have a good idea it's taken :)

I recently went through the pain of setting up a simple static website for a
math professor[1], and it really is depressing how polarized the options are
considering you want the site to be easily editable by the party in question
once it's all set up. Either monolithic Wordpress-like engines that are really
hard to bend to your will for first-timers (even me, a developer), or FTPing
static files to some shady host provider.

The solution I settled on was hosting everything on github.io[2] and teaching
the person how to use the GitHub interface sort of like a file browser/editor
so they can tweak little things without having to e-mail me.

Anyway my approach seemed to work out, but I would for sure have given this a
try first if I knew about it. Congrats on getting it out there!

1\. [http://piotrkrasonmath.com/](http://piotrkrasonmath.com/) 2\.
[https://github.com/dougkoellmer/piotrkrasonmath.github.io](https://github.com/dougkoellmer/piotrkrasonmath.github.io)

~~~
zokier
Just curious, did you check out Lektor? I haven't experience with it, but I
think it is designed just for that kind of scenarios.

~~~
dougk16
Yup that came up but it looked a little too complex to use for the person for
whom I made the website. He can handle basic HTML tweaks but isn't really a
techie. He also wanted to be able to update his website from any machine,
including his iPad.

------
raghavkhanna
Great work! As a grad student I can definitely say it addresses a need :). For
the publications, importing from bibtex might be a useful alternative, since
all the fields are already there. It would save time compared to manually copy
pasting each individual field and most researchers are familiar with it IMO.

------
pen2l
This is great. I would love to have this.

But my univ gives me an 'OpenScholar' access...
([http://theopenscholar.org/](http://theopenscholar.org/)) it's like this
weird cms that I can't seem to figure out. Here's a question if anyone has
experience with OpenScholar: can I somehow insert HTML pages -- that this tool
will generate, and screw the OpenScholar system... while using OpenScholar?
(because my univ. won't let me simply upload HTML pages, it makes me do
everything in OpenScholar)

------
1337biz
The biggest problem I see with academic websites is that their publications
are always out of date. Google scholar has always more recent publications
listed. Do you have any plans to fix that? I think most academics have their
faculty website profile and naybe a google scholar profile. I think your
generator needs to be automated because otherwise it is just another site you
have to update every tine you publish a new paper.

~~~
santaclaus
Most professors cease updating their websites post-tenure. :) I can pinpoint
the date my former advisor got tenure based on the last publication on his
website...

------
SamPutnam
This looks good. [http://jemdoc.jaboc.net/](http://jemdoc.jaboc.net/) comes to
mind as one precursor that a number of academics have chosen, but it falls in
the (marginally) more complicated categories of 'command line' and 'markup
language'.

------
dorianm
Pretty amazing, maybe you could let universities have their own domains and I
think this would be a huge success!

------
michaelmior
Cool! I'm really hoping we can stop seeing academic web pages that look like
they're trapped in the 90s.

~~~
freetonik
I actually find these 90s style academic websites very charming.

~~~
kleiba
Seconded. Pure HTML ftw.

~~~
p4bl0
Also, the fact that the web page exists is already quite an achievement. I'm
amazed by the number of academics who don't have a personal web page, and this
kind of service may help to decrease that number.

------
p4bl0
I've wanted to do the dame thing for years because I'm always frustrated by
colleagues or other academics with no online presence.

This is awesome. The resulting web pages are very nice, and the openness is
(no lock-in) is really a good thing. Thanks for making this exists!

------
tugberkk
A good idea!

