A Proposal to Improve NCB Communication Tools

Author

Max Kuhn

Unmet Need

The Nonclinical Biostatistics website is difficult to update and maintain.

Proposal

I propose that the tools to use for NCB communication be simpler, modern, and functional. I suggest using Quarto1 and GitHub2 as the primary mechanisms to achieve this.

The goal is to improve tooling; I’m not suggesting any change in roles or personnel within NCB.

Specifics:

  • Acquire URLs for a main site and, optionally, a site for the biennial NCB conference. ncbiostats.org is open ($10/y) as is ncb-conf.org ($10/y).
  • Create an ncbiostats GitHub organization (free)
  • Migrate existing content3 to use the simpler markdown format.
  • Have volunteers create the initial NCB website.
  • Extensively document how the site functions, along with templates for common tasks (e.g., news items).
  • Deploy site preview for review and comments.
  • Deploy and communicate the new site.
  • Forward the current ASA site to the new independent site.

After getting the current site’s files, I believe a new site draft would take 1-2 weeks, and documentation would take 1-2 months.

Benefits

  • The site will be easier to maintain and update.
  • A modern web framework is used to provide security and accessibility.
  • Requires a low technical barrier with no coding.
  • GitHub enables users/contributors to collaborate easily and efficiently.
  • Previous content can be migrated without much trouble.
  • Improved SEO to help attract more visitors.
  • URLs are easy to remember and access.
  • We can use free analytics tools to monitor usage and determine which pages are used most frequently.

Drawbacks

  • Additional yearly cost is $20.
  • Something new to learn.
  • For accessibility, we’d need light and dark mode versions of logos and images.

Open questions

We can easily deploy the site(s) to custom URLs via GitHub. Another option is Netlify, which can provide deployment previews to test/review the published site before “going live.” We can get a free Netlify account for nonprofits/open-source projects. I would probably just use GitHub to avoid another dependency. If we think deployment previews are worth it, we can discuss Netlify.

The ASA may have a graphic designer who might improve aesthetics (if needed).

Footnotes

  1. Quarto is an open-source scientific and technical publishing system. It is free. Quarto uses a markdown-based system to create content. It was used to create and publish this proposal. See the code to make this document here.↩︎

  2. GitHub is a proprietary developer platform (owned by Microsoft) that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their projects. For NCB, it would help us collaborate and publish our content.↩︎

  3. I used httrack https://community.amstat.org/biop/events/ncb to pull the current content, including the four previous conference pages, and convert it to markdown.↩︎