diff --git a/docs/workshop/serial_executables.conf b/docs/workshop/serial_executables.conf
index b3c410d..70633f2 100644
--- a/docs/workshop/serial_executables.conf
+++ b/docs/workshop/serial_executables.conf
@@ -46,8 +46,6 @@ den2grd
 den2vasp
 den2xplor
 den2xsf
-dispersion.pl
-dos.pl
 easy-install.pth
 elastics.py
 f2py
diff --git a/docs/workshop/vm_aliases.sh b/docs/workshop/vm_aliases.sh
index d379b1a..5263dca 100644
--- a/docs/workshop/vm_aliases.sh
+++ b/docs/workshop/vm_aliases.sh
@@ -24,9 +24,13 @@ for exe in $serial_executables; do
   prepend_command "castep" "$exe"
 done
 
+# alias for dispersion.pl and dos.pl so that they are called outside of the container
+alias "dispersion.pl"="/course_materials/dispersion.pl"
+alias "dos.pl"="/course_materials/dos.pl"
+
 # an extra alias for the serial version of castep
 alias "castep.serial"="castep castep.mpi"
 
-# For the MPI executables, prepend castep-mpi to mpirun 
+# For the MPI executables, prepend castep-mpi to mpirun
 # and that will anyway ensure that the mpi versions of the executables are used
 alias "mpirun"="castep mpirun"