DoY Data Handbook

Dynamics of Youth (DoY) has the ambition to make all projects within the strategic theme as FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) as possible.

The DoY Data Handbook is a guide on RDM and FAIRifying data, tailored to the DoY community. It is not meant to reinvent the wheel of existing information, but curate what is available in a brief and practical manner, as well as incorporate resources already circulating within the DoY community.

This repository hosts the source files and configuration used to publish the DoY Data Handbook at https://utrechtuniversity.github.io/doy-data-handbook/.

Repository Structure

/
├── book/                        # All chapters of the handbook (each is a .qmd file)
│   ├── introduction.qmd
│   ├── data-management.qmd
│   ├── privacy.qmd
│   └── ...
│
├── images/                      # Figures and static assets
│
├── styles/                      # Optional custom CSS / styling
│
├── _quarto.yml                  # Main configuration file for the Quarto Book
│                                # (title, chapters, settings, formats)
│
├── DoY-Data-Handbook.Rproj      # R project file
│
├── README.md
└── .github/workflows/           # GitHub Actions for automated rendering + deployment

Required Tools

To work with this repository, you will need:

• R: required for working within the RStudio/Quarto environment
• RStudio: recommended editing environment, but other environments are also usable
• Quarto: required to build and preview the book locally
• Git & GitHub: to clone the project and push updates + deploy website

Installation

Most of these tools are available via the UU Software Center.

• R: https://cran.r-project.org/
• RStudio: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/
• Quarto: https://quarto.org
• Git: https://git-scm.com

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/UtrechtUniversity/doy-data-handbook.git
cd doy-data-handbook

2. Open the project in RStudio

Double-click: DoY-Data-Handbook.Rproj This ensures the correct working directory and integrates RStudio with Quarto.

Working With the Handbook

The handbook is structured as a Quarto Book, where each chapter is a .qmd file located in the book/ directory.

Adding a New Chapter

Step 1 — Create the chapter

Add a new .qmd file inside the book/ directory, for example:

book/my-new-chapter.qmd

Step 2 — Register the chapter in _quarto.yml

Open the _quarto.yml file and find the chapters: section.

Add your chapter to the list, in the correct order:

chapters:
  - introduction.qmd
  - data-management.qmd
  - my-new-chapter.qmd

This determines the chapter sequence in the rendered book.

Step 2 — Use Markdown to write the chapter

For hints on how to use Markdown, see: https://www.markdownguide.org/ Note that any images or assets should be saved in their respective folder.

Previewing the Handbook

There are two ways you can preview the book locally to check layout, navigation, and formatting.

1. From the Terminal in RStudio:

quarto preview

2. Using the Render → Preview Book button in RStudio.

This opens a live-reloading preview in your browser.

Rendering and Deployment

This repository uses GitHub Actions to render and deploy the book automatically. Whenever you push changes to the main branch:

-> GitHub Actions starts running -> The book is rendered to HTML using Quarto -> The book is deployed via GitHub Pages

To trigger deployment, simply push your changes to the repository:

git add .
git commit -m "Update chapter(s)"
git push

The deployed site will update automatically once the workflow completes.

Reference

For more information on Quarto Books, please refer to the extensive documentation: https://quarto.org/docs/books/

Contributors

Neha Moopen, Marc Roelofs, Annetrude de Mooij-van Malsen