Academic Branch Website Migration Plan

Goal

Move the public website from the current main branch static HTML site to the academic branch Jekyll Academic Pages site.

Use main only as the source for personal content and assets. Keep the Academic Pages structure on academic instead of copying the old index.html, publication.html, others.html, or style.css directly into the new site.

Current local state:

• Target branch: academic
• Current published-content source: origin/main
• Old site type: static HTML/CSS
• New site type: Jekyll Academic Pages

Recommended Workflow

1. Create a Safety Branch

Work on a temporary migration branch first. This keeps academic clean until the migrated site has been checked locally.

git checkout academic
git pull origin academic
git status
git checkout -b academic-content-migration

If anything unexpected appears in git status, stop and decide whether those changes should be committed, stashed, or left alone before continuing.

2. Install and Run the Local Preview

Academic Pages is a Jekyll site, so local preview needs Ruby, Bundler, Node, and build tools.

sudo apt install ruby-dev ruby-bundler nodejs build-essential gcc make
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve -l -H localhost

Preview URL:

http://localhost:4000

Restart the Jekyll server whenever _config.yml changes.

2A. If Ruby Cannot Be Installed Locally

Local Ruby is useful but not required. GitHub Pages can build the Jekyll site remotely after the changes are pushed.

Use this no-admin workflow when local installation is not possible:

1. Do all content migration work on academic-content-migration.
2. Commit and push the branch.
3. Let GitHub Actions or GitHub Pages perform the Jekyll build remotely.
4. Fix any build errors reported by GitHub.
5. Merge into academic only after the remote build is clean.
6. Switch GitHub Pages from main to academic when ready.

No-admin validation options, from safest to simplest:

• GitHub Actions build check: add a workflow that runs bundle install and bundle exec jekyll build on GitHub. This validates the site without requiring Ruby locally.
• GitHub Codespaces: open the repository in a Codespace and run the Jekyll preview there. Codespaces provides a cloud development environment where installing Ruby dependencies does not require administrator access on the local machine.
• GitHub Pages branch deployment: push the completed academic branch and use GitHub Pages to build it. This is enough for deployment, but preview happens only after switching the Pages source.
• Temporary staging repository: push the migrated academic branch to a separate GitHub Pages repository first, verify the rendered site there, then apply the same changes to the real repository.

Recommended no-admin build-check workflow:

name: Jekyll build check

on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches:
      - academic
      - academic-content-migration

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1
        with:
          ruby-version: '3.2'
          bundler-cache: true
      - run: bundle exec jekyll build

Save it as:

.github/workflows/jekyll-build-check.yml

This workflow does not deploy the site. It only checks whether the Jekyll build succeeds.

3. Inventory Personal Content from main

Use origin/main as the source of truth for current personal details.

git ls-tree -r --name-only origin/main
git show origin/main:index.html > /tmp/main-index.html
git show origin/main:publication.html > /tmp/main-publication.html
git show origin/main:others.html > /tmp/main-others.html

Main content sources:

• index.html: About Me, Recent News, Professional Activities, Contact
• publication.html: publication list, paper links, project links, paper figures
• others.html: Teaching, Experience, PhD Supervision, Visiting Students, Awards and Grants
• CV/CV_YangZHAO_2021.pdf: current CV PDF
• profile_Yang.png, Yang_profile.jpg, scholar.jpg, github.png, linkedin.png, orcid.png, latrobe.png: profile and icon assets
• paperFig/*: publication figure assets

4. Copy Assets into Academic Pages Locations

Recommended destination layout:

images/profile_Yang.png
images/Yang_profile.jpg
images/icons/scholar.jpg
images/icons/github.png
images/icons/linkedin.png
images/icons/orcid.png
images/icons/latrobe.png
images/paperFig/*
files/CV_YangZHAO_2021.pdf

Example copy workflow:

git restore --source origin/main -- CV profile_Yang.png Yang_profile.jpg scholar.jpg github.png linkedin.png orcid.png latrobe.png paperFig
mkdir -p images/icons images/paperFig files
mv profile_Yang.png images/profile_Yang.png
mv Yang_profile.jpg images/Yang_profile.jpg
mv scholar.jpg github.png linkedin.png orcid.png latrobe.png images/icons/
mv paperFig/* images/paperFig/
mv CV/CV_YangZHAO_2021.pdf files/CV_YangZHAO_2021.pdf
rmdir paperFig CV

After moving assets, update links in Markdown and HTML to use paths like:

/images/profile_Yang.png
/images/paperFig/MotionAvatar.png
/files/CV_YangZHAO_2021.pdf

Keep file name case exactly the same, for example ATP.PNG is different from ATP.png on GitHub Pages.

5. Update Site Configuration

Edit _config.yml.

Replace the template values with personal and repository values:

title: "Yang Zhao"
name: &name "Yang Zhao"
description: &description "Computer vision and machine learning researcher"
url: "https://yangyangkiki.github.io"
baseurl: ""
repository: "yangyangkiki/yangyangkiki.github.io"

author:
  avatar: "profile_Yang.png"
  name: "Yang Zhao"
  bio: "Lecturer (Assistant Professor), La Trobe University"
  location: "Bundoora VIC, Australia"
  employer: "La Trobe University"
  email: "y.zhao2@latrobe.edu.au"
  googlescholar: "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UrVEK7IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra"
  orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5252-658X"
  github: "yangyangkiki"
  linkedin: "kiki-yang-zhao"

Also check:

• future: true can show future-dated sample posts. Remove sample posts or set this intentionally.
• analytics.provider can stay disabled unless analytics should be migrated.
• talkmap_link should stay false unless talk locations are added.

6. Simplify Navigation

Edit _data/navigation.yml.

Start with a small navigation that matches the current old site:

main:
  - title: "Publications"
    url: /publications/

  - title: "Teaching"
    url: /teaching/

  - title: "CV"
    url: /cv/

Optional later additions:

• Add Talks only after real talk entries are migrated.
• Add Blog Posts only if real posts exist.
• Add Portfolio only if it will be maintained.
• Do not keep the template Guide link on the public site.

7. Migrate Home Page Content

Edit _pages/about.md.

Keep this front matter:

---
permalink: /
title: "Yang Zhao"
author_profile: true
redirect_from:
  - /about/
  - /about.html
---

Replace the template body with content from origin/main:index.html:

• About Me
• Recent News
• Professional Activities
• Contact

Use Markdown headings and lists instead of the old table-based HTML where possible.

Suggested page structure:

## About Me

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, La Trobe University...

## Recent News

- [Jan 2026] One paper "VaseVQA-3D: Benchmarking 3D VLMs on Ancient Greek Pottery" has been accepted to ICLR 2026.
- [Jan 2026] One paper "VaseVQA: Multimodal Agent and Benchmark for Ancient Greek Pottery" has been accepted to EACL 2026.

## Professional Activities

- Journal Reviewer: IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Pattern Recognition, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics...
- Conference Reviewer: Co-organizer of AIiH2024 Special Session, PC member of CASA 2024...

## Contact

- Email: y.zhao2@latrobe.edu.au
- Address: Office 319, PS2 Building, La Trobe University, Bundoora VIC 3083, Australia

8. Migrate Publications

Recommended long-term approach: convert each publication from origin/main:publication.html into one Markdown file under _publications/.

Example file:

_publications/2024-07-01-motion-avatar.md

Example front matter:

---
title: "Motion Avatar: Generate Human and Animal Avatars with Arbitrary Motion"
collection: publications
category: conferences
permalink: /publication/2024-motion-avatar
date: 2024-07-01
venue: "The 35th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC 2024)"
paperurl: "https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.11286"
citation: "Zeyu Zhang*, Yiran Wang*, Biao Wu*, Shuo Chen, Zhiyuan Zhang, Shiya Huang, Wenbo Zhang, Meng Fang, Ling Chen, and Yang Zhao. Motion Avatar: Generate Human and Animal Avatars with Arbitrary Motion. BMVC 2024."
---

[Demo](https://steve-zeyu-zhang.github.io/MotionAvatar/)

![Motion Avatar](/images/paperFig/MotionAvatar.png)

Publication migration rules:

• Use category: conferences for conference papers.
• Use category: manuscripts for journal articles.
• Use one stable permalink per paper.
• Remove the sample _publications/*paper-title-number* files after real publications are added.
• Keep old paper figure assets under /images/paperFig/.

Fast temporary approach: paste a cleaned Markdown or HTML version of the old publication table into _pages/publications.md. This is quicker, but it gives up the Academic Pages collection features.

9. Migrate Other Page Content

Content from origin/main:others.html should be split into Academic Pages pages.

Recommended mapping:

• Teaching list: _pages/teaching.md
• Experience: _pages/cv.md or a new _pages/experience.md
• PhD Supervision: _pages/teaching.md or a new _pages/supervision.md
• Visiting Students / Research Interns / Research Assistants: _pages/teaching.md or _pages/supervision.md
• Awards and Grants: _pages/cv.md

If one page is preferred, create _pages/others.md:

---
layout: single
title: "Others"
permalink: /others/
author_profile: true
---

Then add this to _data/navigation.yml:

  - title: "Others"
    url: /others/

10. Remove Template Sample Content

After real content is migrated, remove or replace template files that should not appear publicly.

Likely removals:

_posts/2012-08-14-blog-post-1.md
_posts/2013-08-14-blog-post-2.md
_posts/2014-08-14-blog-post-3.md
_posts/2015-08-14-blog-post-4.md
_posts/2199-01-01-future-post.md
_portfolio/portfolio-1.md
_portfolio/portfolio-2.html
_talks/2012-03-01-talk-1.md
_talks/2013-03-01-tutorial-1.md
_talks/2014-02-01-talk-2.md
_talks/2014-03-01-talk-3.md
_teaching/2014-spring-teaching-1.md
_teaching/2015-spring-teaching-2.md

Also search for template leftovers:

grep -R "Your Name\\|academicpages\\|Red Brick University\\|john+snow" _config.yml _pages _publications _posts _talks _teaching

11. Build and Verify Locally

If Ruby is available locally, run:

bundle exec jekyll build
bundle exec jekyll serve -l -H localhost

Check these URLs:

http://localhost:4000/
http://localhost:4000/publications/
http://localhost:4000/teaching/
http://localhost:4000/cv/
http://localhost:4000/files/CV_YangZHAO_2021.pdf

Verify:

• Homepage shows Yang Zhao content, not template text.
• Sidebar shows the correct profile image and links.
• Publications show real papers.
• Paper figures load.
• No old static pages are required for navigation.
• No sample posts, talks, portfolio items, or guide pages are visible in navigation.
• The build completes without Liquid or Sass errors.

If Ruby is not available locally, use the GitHub Actions build check from Step 2A instead. The remote build should pass before switching GitHub Pages deployment to academic.

12. Commit the Migration

Commit after local preview is acceptable, or after the remote GitHub Actions build check passes if local preview is not available.

git status
git add _config.yml _data/navigation.yml _pages _publications _posts _talks _teaching images files
git add ACADEMIC_BRANCH_MIGRATION_PLAN.md
git commit -m "Migrate personal site content to Academic Pages"
git push -u origin academic-content-migration

Open a pull request from academic-content-migration into academic, or merge locally:

git checkout academic
git merge --ff-only academic-content-migration
git push origin academic

13. Switch GitHub Pages Deployment

After academic contains the migrated site:

1. Open the GitHub repository.
2. Go to Settings > Pages.
3. Under Build and deployment, choose Deploy from a branch.
4. Select branch academic.
5. Select folder / (root).
6. Save.
7. Wait for the Pages build to finish.
8. Visit https://yangyangkiki.github.io.

If the repository uses a GitHub Actions Pages workflow instead of branch deployment, update the workflow trigger to build from academic.

14. Rollback Plan

Keep main unchanged until the new site is verified in production.

If the new site has a deployment problem:

1. Go to Settings > Pages.
2. Switch the source branch back to main.
3. Save.
4. Confirm https://yangyangkiki.github.io shows the old site again.

Do not delete main until the academic site has been live and checked.

Implementation Order

1. Configure _config.yml.
2. Copy images, icons, CV, and paper figures.
3. Replace homepage content in _pages/about.md.
4. Simplify _data/navigation.yml.
5. Migrate publications.
6. Migrate teaching, supervision, experience, and awards.
7. Remove template sample content.
8. Build and preview locally.
9. Commit and push.
10. Switch GitHub Pages to academic.