Music Education Editors' Circle — Website

A static, multi-page public resource for the Circle. No build step, no dependencies — plain HTML/CSS/JS that runs directly on GitHub Pages.

Target live URL: https://nyumusedlab.github.io/muec/ (repository named muec under the nyumusedlab account).

Architecture & workflow

There is one source of truth: this git repository (NYUMusEdLab/muec). Its history is the archive — every published version is recoverable and diffable by commit; there is no separate site snapshot or gh-pages branch to keep in sync.

Cowork project folder/                  CONTENT & DATA (private, never published)
├─ Editorial Data (PRIVATE…)/           master spreadsheets you edit
├─ *.md planning/source docs
└─ website/   ← THIS REPO               THE SITE (code) — pushes to GitHub
   ├─ *.html, assets/, data/            the public site
   └─ tools/sync_public_data.py         bridges private masters → public data/xlsx/
              │
              └─ git push → GitHub: NYUMusEdLab/muec (main)  ← SOURCE OF TRUTH + ARCHIVE
                                  └─ GitHub Pages serves main/root live

• Edit content/data only in the private masters, then run the sync (see below) — never hand-edit data/xlsx/.
• The site deploys from main/root (not a gh-pages branch). Just commit & push.
• Need a downloadable bundle? git archive -o muec-site.zip HEAD always matches live — don't keep stray *-site-vN.zip exports around; they only drift from the repo.
• Named snapshots are git tags/releases (e.g. v1.0), not zip files.

Pages

• index.html — home (mission, who we are, open-resource overview, join the list)
• about.html — purpose, organizational principles, interim steering group, policies; links to Members
• journals.html — journals directory (Browse tab) + merged indexing matrix incl. CSSCI/北大核心 (Indexing tab)
• resources.html — two tabs: Reading & collections (MayDay/ACT + editorials) and Editorial histories (the full editor dataset)
• integrity.html — collapsible retractions + flagged-venue tables
• members.html — people directory (Current / Past / In memoriam), linked from About; not in the top nav
• editors.html — redirect to resources.html#editorial-histories (the page moved into Resources)

Nav (all pages): Home · About · Journals · Integrity · Resources · Join the list.

Where the content lives (edit these, not the HTML)

All content is in plain-text data files under data/. The pages read them and build themselves, so you never have to touch HTML to update the site — just edit a data file.

• data/journals.js — the journals directory
• data/resources.js — featured collection + editorials
• data/editors.js — the editorial-history records
• assets/style.css — the house style; change the colors in :root to retheme everything

How to add or edit a journal

Open data/journals.js. Each journal is one { ... } block. Copy an existing block, paste it, and edit the values. Keep the field names and the commas. Fields:

title, trans (translation/subtitle), publisher, region, country, lang,
issn, scope, website, submission, ethics, editor, editorConf (high|medium|low), indexing [..]

• region must be one of: International, North America, Europe, Nordic, Latin America, China, Asia, Australasia, Africa (this drives the filter dropdown).
• Use "" for anything unknown. A blank submission or ethics shows a greyed-out link.
• editorConf of medium/low shows the editor name with an "(unverified)" tag.

How to add the editorial-history data

data/editors.js is currently a placeholder. Add rows in this shape:

{ journal:"…", editor:"…", role:"…", term:"…", affiliation:"…", source:"…" }

If you have a spreadsheet (Music_Ed_Journal_Editorial_Histories), export it to CSV and it can be converted into these rows. Keep current editors' private contact details OUT of this file — those belong in the members-only area.

Tip: keep commas and quotes intact. If a page goes blank after an edit, you likely dropped a comma or quote — undo and retry.

Editing on your own computer

Double-click any .html file to preview it in a browser. Because the data is loaded as plain .js files (not fetch), preview works offline with no local server.

Publish / update via GitHub Desktop

1. Point GitHub Desktop at this website folder (Add Local Repository → Create a repository).
2. Commit your changes, then Publish repository as muec under nyumusedlab, public.
3. On github.com: Settings → Pages → Deploy from a branch → main / (root) → Save.
4. Live at https://nyumusedlab.github.io/muec/ (about a minute after each push).

For later edits: change a data/ file → commit in GitHub Desktop → push. The site updates itself.

Live spreadsheet data (continually updatable)

Several pages read Excel files directly in the browser, so you update the spreadsheet and the site refreshes itself — no code changes:

• Editor History ← data/xlsx/editorial_histories.xlsx + data/xlsx/board_archive_pointers.xlsx
• Journals → Indexing matrix ← data/xlsx/journal_indexing.xlsx
• Integrity ← data/xlsx/research_integrity.xlsx

Important: private vs. published spreadsheets

Your master spreadsheets live in Editorial Data (PRIVATE - do not publish)/ at the project root — OUTSIDE the website/ folder, so they are never published. Two of them are private and never go online at all:

• Music_Ed_Journal_Editors_Contacts.xlsx (editor emails)
• ISME_2026_Panel_Responses.xlsx (internal planning)

Two have sensitive columns that must be stripped before publishing:

• Editorial Histories → the Email column
• Journal Profiles & Indexing → the Integrity note column

So after editing any master, run the sync to regenerate the public copies. The sync script lives in this repo at tools/sync_public_data.py; run it from the project root:

python3 website/tools/sync_public_data.py

This writes sanitized copies into website/data/xlsx/ (and normalizes Chinese journal names to English (简体)). Then commit & push website/. (If you only edited research_integrity or board_archive_pointers, those are copied as-is — still run the script so the published copy matches your master.)

If you'd rather not run a script, you can edit the files in website/data/xlsx/ directly — but never put editor emails or the integrity-note column into those published copies.

Notes

• .nojekyll tells GitHub Pages to serve files as-is (no Jekyll processing).
• Editor names across the directory are the least-stable field; several come from secondary sources and are tagged "(unverified)" — confirm against each journal's live board page.