Building a Research Website with Quarto
A step-by-step guide using a real research template
Welcome
Welcome! This tutorial will guide you through building your own personal research website using Quarto — a free, open-source tool that lets you create beautiful websites, documents, and reports directly from code.
Don’t worry if you’ve never built a website before, or if you’ve never used R or RStudio. This tutorial starts from the very beginning and walks you through every step. By the end, you’ll have a fully working, professional-looking research website that you can share with the world.
In this tutorial, you will:
- Install R and RStudio — R is a free programming language widely used in research and data science. RStudio is a beginner-friendly application that makes working with R much easier. We’ll walk you through installing both from scratch.
- Download a working template from GitHub — Instead of building a website from a blank page, you’ll start with a real, pre-built research website template. GitHub is a free platform where people share and store code — think of it like Google Drive, but for projects.
- Run the website on your own computer — Before publishing anything online, you’ll preview your website locally (meaning only you can see it on your computer). This is a safe space to experiment and make mistakes.
- Edit the content and structure — You’ll learn how to change text, add your own information, and reorganize pages to reflect your work and research.
- Customize the styling — You’ll make the website look like yours by adjusting colors, fonts, and layout.
- Publish your site online — Finally, you’ll put your site on the internet so anyone can visit it — for free.
This tutorial is designed for complete beginners, but it uses a real, professional workflow. The skills you learn here are the same ones researchers, scientists, and developers use to build and maintain their own websites.
Start from a Real, Working Website
This is not just a demo. You will be editing an actual working template used for research communication. Every change you make is a real change to a real website, so you’ll leave this tutorial with something you can actually use, build on, and share.
- Template source: GitHub Repository
- Live example: View Live Site
This example shows what your site can look like once it is fully built and published.
What You’ll Build
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a multi-page personal research website. Here’s a preview of what it will include:
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Homepage | An introduction to who you are and what you do |
| Learning Tab | A space to share resources, notes, or educational content |
| Research Overview | A summary of your research interests and focus areas |
| Publications | A list of your papers, reports, or written work |
| Projects / Models | Highlights of specific projects or tools you’ve developed |
| CV Page | A digital version of your curriculum vitae (résumé) |
What You Need Before You Start
You don’t need to install anything right now — the first chapters will walk you through setup step by step. But here’s a quick overview of what you’ll be working with:
- R — A free programming language. Even if you never write a single line of R code yourself, it powers the tools that build your website behind the scenes.
- Quarto — The tool that turns your content into a website. It’s free and works alongside R and RStudio.
- RStudio — A free application that gives you a visual, beginner-friendly environment for working with R and Quarto. Think of it as your “home base” for this whole project.
- A GitHub account — A free account on github.com that you’ll use to store your website files and publish your site online. If you don’t have one yet, we’ll show you how to create one.
Never used any of these tools before? That’s completely okay — and actually expected! Each tool is introduced gradually, with explanations along the way. You do not need any prior coding or web development experience.
How This Tutorial Works
This tutorial is organized into chapters, and each chapter builds on the one before it. It’s important to follow the chapters in order, especially at the beginning, since later steps assume you’ve completed the earlier ones.
As you go, you’ll be making real edits to the template — not just reading about how things work. This hands-on approach is intentional: the best way to learn is by doing.
Go at your own pace. There’s no rush. If something doesn’t work the first time, that’s normal — troubleshooting is a natural part of working with any new tool. Each chapter includes tips to help you if you get stuck.
Ready to get started? Head to Chapter 2 to install R and RStudio.