A University Library’s journey in making technology training resources FAIR

Stéphane Guillou (Library, The University of Queensland)

Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

Black, yellow and red Aboriginal flag

Me

  • Masters: botany / plant physiology 🌿

  • University of Queensland:

    • Research Assistant (agriculture) 🌾

    • Technology Trainer (Library) 💻

  • LibreOffice Quality Assurance stint 🐞

  • Papa and husband 👨🏽‍👩🏻‍👧🏻‍🧒🏻

  • Origins in Peru 🦙 and France 🥐

  • Environment 🌳

  • FLOSS, Open Research and knowledge commons ♻️

  • Music, cycling, maps… 😍

UQ

  • “Microsoft university”

  • But:

Publishing learning materials

UQ Library Technology Trainers

  • 4 tech trainers

  • Services: training (short / intensives), support

  • 44+ sessions about 22+ tools

10 years of Tech Training manuals

  • PDFs on Drupal

  • R scripts on GitHub

  • Temporary move to GitLab

  • Markdown

  • More code-focused sessions

  • R Markdown: prose + code + output

  • Jupyter Notebooks for Python

  • Consolidate into Quarto website

Quarto in a nutshell

---
title: "Quarto document"
date: today
author: Stéphane
format: html
---

## Markdown

The prose can be formatted with **Markdown**.

## Palmer penguins

The code chunk below generates @fig-penguins.

```{r}
#| label: fig-penguins
#| fig-cap: "Bill sizes discriminate species with some overlap."
#| warning: false
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(penguins,
       aes(x = bill_len,
           y = bill_dep,
           colour = species)) +
  geom_point()
```

Rendered HTML document showing formatted text, code and generated figure

Why a Quarto website?

  • Prose + code + output
  • All on one page
  • no GitHub interface
  • Navigation
  • Keyword search
  • Quick updates
  • HTML features (interactive elements, collapsible sections, copy button…)
  • Responsive
  • Custom scripts

In practice

  • .qmd files are the source

  • GitHub workflow renders and publishes to HTML

  • Environments for reproducibility

  • Separate assets repo

  • Custom Python scripts

Challenges

  • More technical

    • Give options!
  • Inefficiencies

    • Find solutions! (e.g. freeze)
  • Two websites

    • Integrate!

Screenshot of rich toolbar above a WYSIWYG Quarto document

Visual editor in RStudio

Screenshot of alternative options to contribute: small change online, or work on local copy. Full text in linked section.

Contribution instructions in README

What is FAIR about it?

1. Findable

2. Accessible

  • Public

  • Widespread format

  • Accessibility improvements

3. Interoperable

  • Built with FLOSS tools

  • Git is widespread

  • source is QMD:

    • editable

    • mainly Markdown

    • renders to countless formats

  • HTML in browser of choice

4. Reusable

  • Mainly CC BY

  • Can (shallow) clone, pick and choose

  • Documented

  • renv and venv for reproducibility

FAIR training publications

10 simple rules

The FAIR principles broken down into ten rules: Share; Describe; Unique identity; Register online; Define access rules; Interoperable format; Make reusable for trainers; Make usable for trainees; Welcome contributions; Keep materials up to date.

Figure from “10 Simple Rules for Making Training Materials FAIR” (2020)

The journey continues

  • DOI for each lesson (e.g. with Zenodo) 🆔
  • Listing in DReSA (has rich metadata) 🏷️
  • Give contributors more visibility 💞
  • Accessibility improvements (axe-core, alternative renderings)
  • Improve workflow: sweet spot between efficiency and convenience
  • Improve repo structure and documentation
  • …More lessons! (Inkscape, Blender, Julia, R Spatial, iNaturalist…) 🤪

Acknowledgements

  • My team: David Miles, Nick Wiggins, Cameron West, Brylee Tudge, Jason Cullen

  • Previous tech trainers: Kia Owens, Paula Andrea Martinez, Catherine Kim, Valentina Urrutia, Luke Gaiter, Awais Hameed Khan, Fiona Stroud…

  • All FLOSS contributors!

Thank you!

🐘stragu@mastodon.indie.host

📬s.guillou@uq.edu.au

Slides: https://stragu.quarto.pub/eo2026-fair