4 ms·

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 c

by jpallen 10y ago

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 10y ago
Looks pretty great - why stop at academia? Many devs would love a quick, good looking resume or github page.
- athesyn 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    I believe GP comment suggestion was to re-use the same code on a different domain/template for devs.
- personjerry 10y ago
  Time to make a static page generator generator!
  - kctess5 10y ago
    Which would be much easier if only we had a static page generator generator generator!
    - bbcbasic 10y ago
      In every programming language too
BorisVSchmid 10y ago
Looks nice! I would suggest to enable import from ORCID. Seems to be the best initiative around to give a unique identifier to scientists. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0452-623X http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0452-623X
JorgeGT 10y ago
In addition to already established aggregators such as AuthorID, OrcID, etc. I would say that the main two databases for people who don't have profiles are Scopus and the Web of Science.
rubidium 10y ago
I'd probably import from google scholar, which allows export to BibTex, EndNote, RefMan and CSV.
falkod 10y ago
Great idea. Being able to import publications from inspires would be great for the high-energy physics / math crowd.
ylem 10y ago
I would second google scholar, with a way to edit imports. Will you add an option to export to PDF--it's nice to have a single source of truth. For example, I maintain my CV as a rst file which I then can use to either generate html or pdf...
soneca 10y ago
Just out of curiosity, will it be free forever and you will pay for the hosting? Do you plan to get some revenue from it somehow? Also, do you plan to open source the whole project?
- jpallen 10y ago
  I plan to charge a small monthly (possibly yearly) fee to cover hosting, yes. If there's demand for the front-end being open sourced, then yes. I suspect that the people who'd be willing to host the front-end would have an easier time just editing the Jekyll template YAML directly though, which is already open source: https://github.com/academicbio/academic-minima https://github.com/academicbio/academic-minima
  - p4bl0 10y ago
    Another option would be to allow institutions (e.g., universities, labs) to subscribe to your service to offer it to their members under their own domain name with a custom template? If you are able to interface with OAI-PMH to retrieve publication list for each author automatically from the university local repository (which they increasingly tend to have), I bet they would totally love that (as it would be an incentive for researchers to curate and update their publications list in the university repository).
pazimzadeh 10y ago
I like it. I would love it if it was possible to paste in my publications in APA or MLA format and have the service parse the details out rather than having to manually enter in the name of each author, year, volume number, etc. Thanks for this.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mikesickler 10y ago
Do you see this as competing with or complimenting ResearcherID?
aaggarwal 10y ago
Hi James, this is pretty neat. I think this website could be a big hit among all the graduate applicants since they all are looking for creating a personal academic website at the time of applications. Is there an option to import a latex resume to create the website? That would be handy. I just want to thank you for ShareLatex, I use it for all my academic documents, it's pretty awesome.
p4bl0 10y ago
For import: bibtex of course, as most bibliography managers can import/export bibtex, maybe also orcid, as it is becoming the standard "unique id" service for academia. Also, you should consider allowing users to just input a DOI and fetch all the metadata yourself from BASE or CrossRef. With the DOI, using a service like https://oadoi.org/ https://oadoi.org/ or http://doai.io/ http://doai.io/ (they may merge to unite dev force in a not so distant future, but both domains will still work) would also allow to link directly to an accessible PDF of the publication. I don't think supporting ResearchGate or services like that (academia.edu etc) directly would be a good thing. For interoperability, they should allow bibtex export. If they don't, why encourage them to continue locking-in their users?
jclos 10y ago
Thank you for this. I have been wanting to build something like this for a long time, and never got around to do it, and you made it better than I would have done anyway. As for the import, could you link it to Google Scholar profiles?

by jpallen 10y ago

chowes 10y ago

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

athesyn 10y ago
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 10y ago
  I believe GP comment suggestion was to re-use the same code on a different domain/template for devs.
personjerry 10y ago
Time to make a static page generator generator!
- kctess5 10y ago
  Which would be much easier if only we had a static page generator generator generator!
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    In every programming language too

BorisVSchmid 10y ago

Looks nice! I would suggest to enable import from ORCID. Seems to be the best initiative around to give a unique identifier to scientists. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0452-623X http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0452-623X

JorgeGT 10y ago

In addition to already established aggregators such as AuthorID, OrcID, etc. I would say that the main two databases for people who don't have profiles are Scopus and the Web of Science.

rubidium 10y ago

I'd probably import from google scholar, which allows export to BibTex, EndNote, RefMan and CSV.

falkod 10y ago

Great idea. Being able to import publications from inspires would be great for the high-energy physics / math crowd.

ylem 10y ago

I would second google scholar, with a way to edit imports. Will you add an option to export to PDF--it's nice to have a single source of truth. For example, I maintain my CV as a rst file which I then can use to either generate html or pdf...

soneca 10y ago

Just out of curiosity, will it be free forever and you will pay for the hosting? Do you plan to get some revenue from it somehow? Also, do you plan to open source the whole project?

jpallen 10y ago
I plan to charge a small monthly (possibly yearly) fee to cover hosting, yes. If there's demand for the front-end being open sourced, then yes. I suspect that the people who'd be willing to host the front-end would have an easier time just editing the Jekyll template YAML directly though, which is already open source: https://github.com/academicbio/academic-minima https://github.com/academicbio/academic-minima
- p4bl0 10y ago
  Another option would be to allow institutions (e.g., universities, labs) to subscribe to your service to offer it to their members under their own domain name with a custom template? If you are able to interface with OAI-PMH to retrieve publication list for each author automatically from the university local repository (which they increasingly tend to have), I bet they would totally love that (as it would be an incentive for researchers to curate and update their publications list in the university repository).

pazimzadeh 10y ago

I like it. I would love it if it was possible to paste in my publications in APA or MLA format and have the service parse the details out rather than having to manually enter in the name of each author, year, volume number, etc. Thanks for this.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

mikesickler 10y ago

Do you see this as competing with or complimenting ResearcherID?

aaggarwal 10y ago

Hi James, this is pretty neat. I think this website could be a big hit among all the graduate applicants since they all are looking for creating a personal academic website at the time of applications. Is there an option to import a latex resume to create the website? That would be handy. I just want to thank you for ShareLatex, I use it for all my academic documents, it's pretty awesome.

p4bl0 10y ago

For import: bibtex of course, as most bibliography managers can import/export bibtex, maybe also orcid, as it is becoming the standard "unique id" service for academia. Also, you should consider allowing users to just input a DOI and fetch all the metadata yourself from BASE or CrossRef. With the DOI, using a service like https://oadoi.org/ https://oadoi.org/ or http://doai.io/ http://doai.io/ (they may merge to unite dev force in a not so distant future, but both domains will still work) would also allow to link directly to an accessible PDF of the publication. I don't think supporting ResearchGate or services like that (academia.edu etc) directly would be a good thing. For interoperability, they should allow bibtex export. If they don't, why encourage them to continue locking-in their users?

jclos 10y ago

Thank you for this. I have been wanting to build something like this for a long time, and never got around to do it, and you made it better than I would have done anyway. As for the import, could you link it to Google Scholar profiles?