Rstudio cloud
- Students will need to link their rstudio cloud account to github and enable private repos. RSC is good about prompting for when attempting to create a project from a private repo.
- Less obviously, you will need to enable 3rd-party API access from the GH classroom organization. Note that I don’t entirely understand the security implications, rstudio probably should find a way to invite access via the github API rather than requiring carte blanche access.
- Remind students to use the class workspace on RSC, not their default workspaces (or they’ll run out of compute..)
- It’s amazing how much compute your class will burn. The calculated usage seemed to be about 2x what students self-reported that their homework took. I only had 9 students, and don’t know if it would be tenable to use RSC in a larger classroom.
Github classrooms
Even if you use the github classroom web api, you’ll want to install Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel and colleagues’ excellent ghclass package. I used it to
- Set up team assignments
- Push edits to existing assignments
- Clone all student repos for grading, branching, and other housekeeping
- Unwatch student repos, so you aren’t buried in github spam whenever your students make commits
- Branch against the initial commit (useful for grading via pull requests)
At some point, I will post excerpts from the script I used to manage assignments.
Grading with github classrooms
You can use pull requests, but you’ll need to make sure you have a branch created against the initial commit. (See previous bullet). Although you can do this post-hoc, life will be easier if you do it ahead of time. I could not figure out a good way to collaborate with TAs in the grading without sending the students (pre-mature and possibly incorrect) feedback. Basically, a way to mute a pull request before it’s submitted would be useful.