alpha, n Workforce Development Program Website

Static website for the alpha, n Workforce Development Program, built with Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages.

Live site

URL: https://det-lab.github.io/alpha-n-workforce-dev-website/

---

How to update content

All site content lives in two places: the _data/ folder (for structured content like people and resources) and index.md (for the home page text). You do not need to touch any HTML or CSS to update content.

Add or edit students

Open _data/students.yml. Each cohort year has a list of students:

cohorts:
  - year: 2025
    students:
      - name: "Jane Smith"
        bio: "Jane is a second-year PhD student in Computer Science."
        program: "Computer Science"
        photo: "/assets/images/jane-smith.jpg"   # leave as "" if no photo

• To add a new student, copy one block and fill in the fields.
• To add a new cohort year, add a new - year: block above the existing ones (most recent year first).
• Photos: save the image file to assets/images/ and set the photo: field to /assets/images/filename.jpg.

Add or edit staff

Open _data/staff.yml. Each staff member is one block:

- name: "Dr. Alex Johnson"
  title: "Program Director"
  bio: "Alex directs the program and coordinates with partner institutions."
  email: "alex.johnson@example.edu"
  photo: "/assets/images/alex-johnson.jpg"   # leave as "" if no photo

Add or edit resources

Open _data/resources.yml. Resources are organized by category:

- category: "Getting Started"
  items:
    - title: "Program Handbook"
      description: "Covers expectations, policies, and procedures."
      url: "https://example.edu/handbook"

• To add a new resource, add a - title: block under the appropriate category.
• To add a new category, add a new - category: block.
• Set url: "#" for a resource that doesn't have a link yet — it will display as "Coming soon."

Edit the home page text

Open index.md and edit the text in the About section near the bottom of the file.

---

How to deploy / update the live site

After editing any file, commit and push to the main branch:

git add .
git commit -m "Update student list for 2025 cohort"
git push

GitHub Pages rebuilds the site automatically within about a minute. No other steps are needed.

---

First-time setup (if not yet deployed)

1. Create a GitHub repository.
2. In _config.yml, update:

   baseurl: "/your-repo-name"
   url: "https://det-lab.github.io"

3. Connect the remote and push:

   git remote add origin https://github.com/det-lab/REPO-NAME.git
   git push -u origin main

4. In the GitHub repo go to Settings → Pages → Source and select main branch, / (root) folder.

Local preview (optional)

Requires Ruby and Bundler. From the project root:

bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Then open http://localhost:4000/alpha-n-workforce-dev-website/ in a browser.