UPDATE: Since this post was written, I have worked daily at GitHub and have a fairly good site set up for a course. You can track results at http://jacklule.github.io
I had used GitHub two years ago when setting up this web site. But I have not used it in a while. I am preparing a seven-week module on Data Visualization and decided that introducing the students to GitHub would be an interesting part of the class. What better way than to put the syllabus on GitHub?
I got reacquainted with GitHub and its lingo and then set about creating the syllabus structure.
Though I had installed GitHub for Mac, I found myself doing all of the work online at the GitHub web interface. I was ready to use the command line but the web interface has progressed and I could get by easily with Markup language. My steps:
1) To set up the Repository for my syllabus, I followed the excellent introductory GitHub guide, Hello World.
https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/#merge
That guide led me step by step through creating a repository, opening an issue, creating a branch, making a commit, creating a pull request, merging a pull request, and creating a README.md file. Some of this was not necessary but it was good to become more experienced with GitHub.
2) I then created a Course Outline page modeled after one on an excellent syllabus on GitHub: https://github.com/jsvine/WRIT1-CE9741
It was easily done by clicking on New File and remembering to put .md in the title so I could style the page.
I did not realize at the time but I needed to replace the “relative links,” which led from the Course Outline to each week’s assignments, with my own full URL assignment links. I will need to figure out relative links for my structure.
UPDATE: I figured out relative links: just add the folder name and file name in parentheses after the link name, such as:
[Week 1, Wednesday, August 31](Weeks/week01-02.md)
https://github.com/blog/1395-relative-links-in-markup-files
3) I then needed to create a folder in my Repository so I could start creating the assignments for each day and week. Not so easy. This link helped:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18773598/creating-folders-inside-github-com-repo-without-using-git
But the trick was: a) first create a file that will eventually be in the folder. For me, it was week01-01.md — Week One, Day One; b) then create a new file but turn it into a folder; do that by typing the folder name after the / in New File then type /, hit return, and then a new box should open; start typing the one existing file week01-01.md. That will create a folder with week01-01.md in it. I then deleted the week01-01.md file that was not in the folder so as to not get confused.
4) To add new files to this folder — Week One, Day Two; Week Two, Day One, etc. — I just need to be inside the Weeks folder and click New File. That part was easy.
I have titled this Day One but it actually spilled over into two days. But I feel I am set up to add to this structure.
Jack Lule 