How to set up a course in “Advanced mode” (using git)

Running a course in Advanced Mode

If course participants need to be able to save their work during the course and they are comfortable using git, you can create a project (or a set of projects) for the course, and ask them to create a branch in the git repository where they can commit their changes.

For creating the project:

1. Follow the steps in Renku for Teaching page to set up the course project.

2. Add the course participants to your Git code repository, so they can create their own branch.

   info

   For example, if the course git repository is on GitHub, add the course participants to the repository on GitHub. When the student links their GitHub account with their Renku account, Renku will automatically reflect their access from GitHub.

3. Instruct course participants to connect their Renku account to their GitHub or GitLab account, as described in How to connect your Renku account to your GitHub or GitLab account

4. Instruct course participants to work on their branch. Once they’ve launched a session, course participants can create a new branch with the following command:

   git checkout -b my-branch-name

   You can read more in the official git documentation.

5. If you have introduce new material in the master branch, ask the course participants to rebase their branch to get those changes:

   git checkout participant-branch
   git rebase master

warning

Be mindful to protect your code repository from undesired changes from participants via protected branches. You can find more information on this topic both for GitHub and GitLab.