Week 1 and 2 Tasks

[iamciera]

Things to do for the first two weeks

Please finish these activities before our next meeting on either September 27 or September 28. Feel free to use Slack to discuss problems, comments, cool tutorials while performing these tasks.

Activity 1 - Build database resource list

Objectives: Get a feel for the types of databases out there. Gain an intuition of how these databases could interact with each other. Pick a few that you would be interested in focusing on throughout the semester.

Tasks

To perfrom this activity, we will collaboratively add to the 'list-of-databases.md' file.

• Explore the databases linked in the 'list-of-databases.md' file and gather information on 1. what the data base is about 2. type of data offered, including file formats and standards and 3. how to access data. Be as detailed as possible. It is fine if you add to what other people have already written.
• To add to one file on Github, it is sometimes easier to just edit directly in the repo on Github. In the top right hand corner is a pencil icon that allows you to "edit this file". You can make the changes directly and add a message about what you committed below. Alternatively, if you want to practice the more proper workflow, please follow the "Steps for posting on the Cabinet of Curiosity Site" Workflow posted at the bottom of the README.md in the homebase repo.
• Pick the top two databases that you are interested in pursuing and start documenting how you would begin your exploritory analyses. You will present this work and find a partner for our next meeting on either September 27 or September 28.

Activity 2 - Add to Cabinet of Curiosity Play Site

Objectives: Learn how to use Git to collaborate and host a Jekyll website on Github. Learn basics of Markdown formatting, html, and css.

The end deliverable for the Fall Semester work will be short form articles on how to explore the Natural History databases. There are a few basic skills, software, and organization schemes to learn to be able to work effectively together on the same website.

To gain the skills necessary to post on the Cabinet of Curiosity we will perform an exercise in which we add a small post on a play site which is almost identical to the real site.

You will need install Jekyll on your computer. Jekyll is the platform that Github uses to build websites. Actually, you don't really need to install to have your website work on Github, but you will need it installed to be able to preview your changes on your computer using the jekyll serve --watch command. Please read Jekyll documentation and view tutorials online, such as this one, to gain a full understanding the intricacies of hosting a jekyll website online. If you finish this exercise early, go ahead and start your own personal website using Jekyll and Github and link to it in your profile!

Tasks

These are the steps for posting a profile post on the Cabinet of Curiosity Play Site.

1. Fork the play site repository (repo) into your Github user account.
2. Clone repository onto your local machine.
3. Change onto the gh-pages branch using git checkout gh-pages.
4. Use the 2018-09-13-ciera-profile.md as an example to build your own profile post and place a new post in the _posts/ folder.
5. Pay attention to where the images that are used in the post are located. Find images either found on Wikipedia or the BHL database as your images.
6. git add file to stage file to commit.
7. git commit -m "message about commit" to commit file.
8. `git push origin master~~git push origin gh-pages` to push commit to your remote Github user account.
9. Make a pull request on Github website.
10. Wait for someone (likely Ciera) to approve of your commit.
11. Tada. It should be online here: https://cabinetofcuriosity.github.io/cabinetofcuriosityplaysite/
12. Read each others profiles and fix spelling errors.

[iamciera]

Hey all,

I updated the instructions above. All changes should be made on the gh-pages. The reason is because I have the site being rendered on the gh-pages branch. It is okay if you did it on the master branch, you can either merge master with gh-pages or just submit your pull request on master and I will do the merge. If this doesn't make sense, ask me on Slack. I will help you. Also, remember this is just to practice, so don't worry about messing anything up.