How to create a bs4 Cattolica course as a Teaching Assistant • ucscthemes

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the create_bs4_ucsc_course() function in the R package ucscthemes to create a course skeleton that is themed with the colors and styles of Università Cattolica. The benefits of using this function include:

Hosting course materials online for easy accessibility.
Automating shared procedures across multiple courses such as the presentation of course materials, logistics, prerequisites, FAQs, examination procedures and modes.
Saving time by focusing on course materials rather than worrying about CSS and other design elements.
Aesthetic consistency with the UCSC palette and style.
Quick and easy course planning with a pre-populated skeleton.
Contribution to the open-source community by sharing or gaining inspiration for teaching materials and design.

Jumpstart!

You are going to open a new R session in a new directory with New File > New Project > New Directory, then load ucscthemes the package.

library(ucscthemes)
library(bookdown)
library(here)

At this point execute the create_bs4_ucsc_course function specifying the path you expect the course skeleton to be in.

create_bs4_ucsc_course(path = here())

This will autopopulate the folder with these .Rmd files:

.
├── 01-prerequisites.Rmd
├── 02-rpackages.Rmd
├── 03-nicewarmup.Rmd
├── 04-syllabus.Rmd
├── 05-lab-dummy.Rmd
├── 93-answers-to-end-of-chapter-exercises.Rmd
├── 94-courseperform.Rmd
├── 95-askforhelp.Rmd
├── 96-faqs.Rmd
├── 97-symbols-formulas-statistics-parameters.Rmd
├── 98-datasets.Rmd
├── 99-references.Rmd
├── _bookdown.yml
├── _common.R
├── _output.yml
├── book.bib
├── chicago-fullnote-bibliography.csl
├── html
│  └── favicon.html
├── images
│  ├── andrew-tate.jpeg
│  ├── cattolica-logo-favicon.png
│  ├── cattolica-logo.png
│  ├── cpt_1
│  │  ├── 00_r_project_page.png
│  │  ├── 00_rstudio_preferences_basic.png
│  │  ├── 01_r_project_cran_mirror.png
│  │  ├── 01_rstudio_main_page.png
│  │  ├── 01_rstudio_preferences_editing.png
│  │  ├── 02_r_project_os_choice.png
│  │  ├── 02_rstudio_main_page_menu.png
│  │  ├── 02_rstudio_preferences_display.png
│  │  ├── 03_r_project_version_choice.png
│  │  ├── 03_rstudio_preferences_appearance.png
│  │  ├── 03_rstudio_select_version.png
│  │  ├── 04_rstudio_select_edition.png
│  │  └── 05_rstudio_download.png
│  ├── cpt_3
│  │  ├── 00_r_project_file_menu.png
│  │  ├── 00_r_script.png
│  │  ├── 01_r_project_new_directory.png
│  │  ├── 02_r_project_new_project.png
│  │  ├── 03_r_project_specs.png
│  │  ├── 04_r_project_directory_name.png
│  │  └── 05_r_project_new_session.png
│  ├── fyi.png
│  ├── hopr_aa01.png
│  ├── Lightbulb2.png
│  ├── Live-code.png
│  ├── reprex-addins-menu.png
│  ├── salvini.jpeg
│  ├── tristan-tate.jpeg
│  └── Your-turn.png
├── index.Rmd
├── index.yml
├── packages.bib
├── preamble.tex
├── prova_course.rds
├── prova_course.Rproj
├── README.md
└── style.css

Then execute serve_book(). This is going to compile the files and generate a website. From now on every time you save a file the book will recompile itself. If you don’t like this behaviour just restart the R Session.

Please refer to this tutorial to be able to understand how Bookdown compiles the files and generates a website.

Deploy on Netlify a.k.a. host in online

Spin your Cattolica course on Netlify, the fastest way to build the fastest sites for the web. This is completely free up to a limit of n (this is changing now) websites.

drag and drop the folder containing the course skeleton in the panel then specify _book as the deployment folder.