Digital Lab GitHub Lessons
A short link to this page is vanderbi.lt/github
About the lessons
GitHub lessons are provided by the Digital Lab) of the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries at Vanderbilt University. The Digital Lab provides regular lessons for GitHub beginners with a variety of followup intermediate lessons. There is no cost associated with the lessons.
The beginners lessons generally cycle once per year, although they may be offered more frequently depending on demand. See the schedule below for session details.
Each beginner lesson includes of a series of videos and homework assignments. The live working sessions provide an opportunity for participants to ask questions about the lesson videos and homework, or to work on the homework with assistance.
The lessons are part of a free, online learning system called CodeGraf. You are welcome to work through these lessons or any of the other lesson modules available in CodeGraf on your own at any time (no registration required). To explore all of the lesson modules that are available, visit the CodeGraf landing page.
The Digital Lab also provides lessons for learning Python and learning R in a similar format.
Beginners Lessons - Spring 2022
Instructor: Steve Baskauf. Email steve.baskauf@vanderbilt.edu to arrange another time to talk.
Prior to the first lesson, you should sign up for a GitHub account if you don’t already have one, and download the GitHub Desktop software for your computer. You also need a text or code editor to use. I recommend Atom because of its Markdown preview, but it’s fine to use a different one if you prefer.
| Working session date | Lesson | Topic | Pre-lesson web pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 20 | 1 | Introduction and installation | background information videos (17 min) / setup (16 min) |
| Jan 27 | 2 | The work cycle | lesson videos (52 min) |
| Feb 3 | 3 | Using GitHub to recover from disasters | lesson videos (17 min) |
| Feb 10 | 4 | Project management I: The issues tracker | lesson videos (25 min) |
| Feb 17 | 5 | Project management II: Colaboration | lesson videos (16 min) |
| Feb 24 | 6 | Building a website with GitHub Pages | lesson videos (46 min) |
GitHub resources
Terms and diagrams presentation (PDF)
The following page provides supplemental information about an advanced topic not covered in the lessons above.
Forking a repo and the Open Source model
Vanderbilt Data Science Institute (DSI) https://www.vanderbilt.edu/datascience/
The DSI offers frequent workshops each semester. Here are a few sessions that might be of interest to Git/GitHub learners in the fall of 2022:
- Sep. 1 Managing Your Research and Lab with GitHub Projects
- Sep. 8 Git Basics
- Sep. 15 Making GitHub Work for Teams
For more information on all DSI events, visit the DSI workshops page. For registration, visit this registration link.
Revised 2023-08-11
Questions? Contact us
License: CC BY 4.0.
Credit: "Vanderbilt Libraries Digital Lab - www.library.vanderbilt.edu"