The end of May marks the beginning of the summer research season. If your research will involve programming, consider using GitHub to help keep your code safe and organized. ITS staff can assist with training and getting your group starting with GitHub.

Benefits of Using GitHub

• Version control: Each change to the code can be saved and it is possible to roll back to a previous version.
• Collaboration: Using GitHub makes it easy to share code with others in the same research group or even make the code public if you choose.
• Backup: keeping a copy of the code on the GitHub server provides additional safety in case there is a problem with your computer.

There are many more useful features, such as the ability to track issues and bugs or review code changes before accepting.

Getting Set Up

Swarthmore has a private GitHub site available at github.swarthmore.edu that is only available to users with a college account. For more information see our help pages on GitHub Enterprise. If you will be collaborating with colleagues outside Swarthmore, using the main Github.com site will likely be easier.

Learning Git and GitHub

Check out the LinkedIn Learning video Learning Git and GitHub for a good intro on getting started. Reach out to ITS if you have questions or would like to learn more.