This site was developed for the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities under the responsibility of Emmanuela Carbé, using a static, version-controlled workflow. AI coding assistants were used for pair programming, code review and debugging; all programme data, textual content, structural decisions and final implementation were manually reviewed before publication.
The programme itself — its sessions, speakers and scholarly content — is the work of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities and its contributors.
Further details on the AI-assisted development workflow are available in the project README.
Method
One structured data file holds the programme: from it the site generates the schedule, the per-session pages, venue information, calendar files, open data and machine-readable metadata, so they stay consistent with one another. The Journal — short reflections and photographs contributed during the school — is a separate, live feature. The work was carried out iteratively and reviewed at each stage.
Technical structure
The site is a buildless static website: no framework, no build step, only HTML, CSS and vanilla
JavaScript, hosted on GitHub Pages.
The programme — its schedule, the dedicated per-session pages (session.html?s=…), the
teacher listing and the aggregate figures — is rendered client-side from a canonical object in
data/program.js. The Journal is contributory and is served by a small backend
(described below) rather than from a static file.
Typography uses EB Garamond and IBM Plex Mono, self-hosted under the SIL Open Font License. The visual identity follows the Ca’ Foscari institutional palette and logo system.
The venue list is available without external requests. Two interactive maps — the venue map on the
programme page and the Journal map — share the same
self-hosted Leaflet library with
CARTO tiles based on
OpenStreetMap data,
and each one opens automatically when its page loads. Calendar files are generated in iCalendar format,
both for individual sessions and for the full week. The programme is also available as JSON, embedded as
JSON-LD structured data, and published
as an Open
Knowledge Format bundle — a directory of cross-linked markdown concepts, in the repository’s
/okf/ folder.
This bundle is kept up to date automatically: whenever the programme data or session materials change in
the repository, a GitHub
Action rebuilds it and commits the result back, so the JSON, JSON-LD and OKF formats always match the
site with no manual step.
Two contributory features extend the programme, both handled by a single small serverless function — a Cloudflare Worker, the only server-side component. Teachers add or update their own session content — abstract, links and reading — through a personal login: the Worker checks the credentials, validates the input, and commits the materials to the repository through the GitHub REST API, from where they publish like any other change. The Journal & Field Notes page gathers short reflections, field notes and photographs contributed during the school, with optional geolocation on a shared map. Journal entries use the same personal login and are stored in a database (Cloudflare D1), so they appear immediately; a photograph is resized and stripped of its metadata in the browser before upload, with consent confirmed for any recognizable people, and an entry can be removed at any time by its author or an organiser. Everything else on the site remains static.
Accessibility and offline use
The site supports keyboard navigation and reduced-motion preferences, and degrades gracefully: when a map cannot load, the underlying information stays accessible — the venue list and the Journal entries remain readable without it. The site can also be installed as a Progressive Web App and cached for offline reading.
Credits and licences
Fonts are used under the SIL Open Font License. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; tiles © CARTO. Mapping library: Leaflet, BSD-2-Clause. Ca’ Foscari and partner marks are used according to their respective institutional identities. Programme content © the school and its contributors.
Acknowledgements
The VeDPH warmly thanks everyone whose work behind the scenes made the Summer School possible: the administrative office of the Department of Humanities (DSU) — in particular Alessandra Bertazzolo and Alessio Parpagiola; the teaching office — in particular Francesca Cibin and Laura Principi; the Development and Promotion unit, in particular Piera Bordignon; the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies (DSLCC) for its contribution to the School — and in particular Alberto Parolo for the administrative side; and Daniele Baglioni, Director of the Department of Humanities. Thanks also to the EUTOPIA DigIn connected community, and to all the keynote speakers and teachers who generously gave their time to the School. A special thank-you goes to the VeDPH’s technologist and DH facilitator, Elisa Corrò.