Handbook
This handbook is designed to support collaboration and effective learning in our lab. It reduces friction and helps us focus on the work that matters most. Key advantages include:
- Reduced search and communication overhead: Information becomes easily discoverable instead of relying on individual memory or repeated explanations.
- Faster onboarding: Students, assistants, and new collaborators can quickly understand expectations, tools, and workflows.
- Standardization and clarity: Consistent processes and formatting support a reliable, high-quality way of working.
- Support for stigmergic collaboration: Like in open-source projects, visible contributions encourage further improvements and self-organizing progress over time.
- Sustainable knowledge retention: Guidance remains accessible even when responsibilities shift or team members move on.
- Shared learning across labs: We adopt proven practices from others and offer our own experiences openly, strengthening the broader community.
“Civilization advances by increasing the number of things we can do without thinking about them.” — Alfred North Whitehead
By documenting what works, we make everyday tasks simpler and leave more room for creativity, collaboration, and discovery.
How to suggest changes
- Navigate to the page you would like to change
- Click on “Edit this page”, sign in, and the “Edit this file” button
- Add your changes in GitHub markdown
- Commit the changes to a new branch
- Assign the maintainer to review and merge your changes
Principles
- Confidential data, such as grades and student identities, must not be stored in the handbook. Instead, add a link to the confidential data store (see example)
- Checklists should be simple, structured, and actionable
- Add links to other parts of the handbook or external resources to avoid replicating content.
- Headings: Use sentence case (not Title Case) for all headings and subheadings.
- Consistency: Maintain consistent formatting throughout the document, particularly for lists, tables, and citations.
- Formatting resources are available in the Quarto Guide
Each sentence should be in a new line (to ensure that the git diff is readable). To create a paragraph, add an empty line. This makes the history more readable and merging easier (see semantic line breaks{: target=“_blank”}).
---
title: "Title of the page"
---
Text with illustrations/figures/screenshots:
Note: copy and adapt the path as needed.
A [Link](https://website.com){target=_blank} that open in a separate window.
<!-- Comment can be used to add further explanations, links to references/resources, or to keep parts of the paper that were shortened -->
# References
<div class="references">
<p>Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher.</p>
</div>
Callouts (colored boxes, as illustrated below):
::: resource
We use the `resource` callout when resources (external to the handbook) are available.
:::
::: confidential
Confidential data is stored on the [Nextcloud](http://url.com){target=_blank}.
:::
::: callout-important
An important callout (important could also be replaced by note, warning, tip, caution, see [quarto-docs](https://quarto.org/docs/authoring/callouts.html){target=_blank}).
:::We use the resource callout when resources (external to the handbook) are available.
Confidential data is stored on the Nextcloud.
An important callout.
Graphs can be included as Mermaid diagrams ( seeMermaid live editor).
- Terminology:
| Preferred Term | Not This |
|---|---|
| SuSe / WiSe | SS / WS |
| Team Assistant | Secretary |
Deployment
The handbook is hosted on GitHub Pages. The deployment may take a few minutes to complete. You can check the status at
How our handbook evolves
How to copy the handbook
To create a copy of the handbook, clone the repository.