Create an individual assignment

About individual assignments

An individual assignment is coursework for each student who participates in a course on GitHub Classroom. The student is intended to complete an individual assignment without help from other students.

When a student accepts an assignment, GitHub Classroom automatically creates a new repository for the student. The repositories can be empty, or you can create the repositories from a template repository with starter code, documentation, tests, and other resources. Each assignment repository belongs to your organization account on GitHub.

Each assignment has a title and an optional deadline. You can choose the visibility of repositories that GitHub Classroom creates and choose access permissions. You can also automatically grade assignments and create a dedicated space to discuss the assignment with the student.

For a video demonstration of the creation of an individual assignment, see "Basics of setting up GitHub Classroom."

Prerequisites

You must create a classroom before you can create an assignment. For more information, see "Manage classrooms."

Creating an assignment

To create an assignment, sign into GitHub Classroom and navigate to a classroom. In the Assignments tab, click New assignment.

Setting up the basics for an assignment

Name your assignment, decide whether to assign a deadline, and choose the visibility of assignment repositories.

• Naming an assignment
• Assigning a deadline for an assignment
• Choosing an assignment type
• Choosing a visibility for assignment repositories

Naming an assignment

For an individual assignment, GitHub Classroom names repositories by the repository prefix and the student's GitHub username. By default, the repository prefix is the assignment title. For example, if you name an assignment "assignment-1" and the student's username on GitHub is @octocat, the name of the assignment repository for @octocat will be assignment-1-octocat.

Type a title for the assignment. Optionally, click to edit the prefix.

Assigning a deadline for an assignment

Optionally, you can assign a deadline to the assignment. Under "Deadline (optional)", click in the text field, then use the date picker to assign a deadline.

Choosing an assignment type

Under "Individual or group assignment", select the drop-down menu, and click Individual assignment. You can't change the assignment type after you create the assignment. If you'd rather create a group assignment, see "Create a group assignment."

Choosing a visibility for assignment repositories

The repositories for an assignment can be public or private. If you use private repositories, only the student or team can see the feedback you provide.

You can also decide whether to grant students admin permissions to the repository for an assignment. Grant admin permissions if the student should be able to perform administrative tasks for the assignment repository. For more information, see "About repository visibility" and "Repository permission levels for an organization."

Under "Repository visibility", select a visibility. Optionally, select Grant students admin access to their repository.

When you're done, click Continue to configure starter code and a development environment for the assignment.

Adding starter code and configuring a development environment

Optionally, decide whether to provide empty repositories or starter code, and preconfigure a development environment for your students.

• Choosing a template repository
• Choosing an online integrated development environment (IDE)

Choosing a template repository

By default, a new assignment will create an empty repository for each student on the roster for the classroom. You can optionally choose a template repository as starter code for the assignment. The template repository must belong to your organization or be a public repository on GitHub. For more information about template repositories, see "Creating a template repository."

Under "Add a template repository to give students starter code", select the Select a repository drop-down, then type a search query. In the list of results, click the template repository you'd like to use for starter code.

When you're done, click Continue to configure automatic grading and feedback for the project.

Choosing an online integrated development environment (IDE)

You can optionally configure an assignment to use an online integrated development environment (IDE). Online IDEs allow your students to write code, run programs, and collaborate in a browser, without installing Git and a full development toolchain on the student's computer. If you choose an online IDE for an assignment, students can still check out and run code locally on a computer with the necessary software. For more information, see "Integrate GitHub Classroom with an IDE."

To choose an online IDE for the assignment, select the Select an online IDE drop-down menu, then click the IDE you'd like your students to use.

Providing feedback for an assignment

Optionally, you can automatically grade assignments and create a space for discussing each submission with the student.

• Testing assignments automatically
• Preventing changes to important files
• Creating a pull request for feedback

Testing assignments automatically

You can use autograding to automatically check a student's work for an assignment on GitHub Classroom. You configure tests for an assignment, and the tests run immediately every time a student pushes to an assignment repository on GitHub. The student can view the test results, make changes, and push to see new results. For more information, see "Use autograding."

Under "Add autograding tests", select the Add test drop-down menu, then click the grading method you want to use. For more information, see "Grading methods."

Define the parameters of your test case, like the name, commands, inputs, outputs, timeout, and points. When you're done, click Save test case.

You can add more tests with the Add test drop-down menu, and you can edit or delete existing tests with or .

Preventing changes to important files

You can prevent students from changing files that contain tests for autograding, or other important files in the assignment repository.

Under "Protected file paths", type relative paths within the repository to protect.

Creating a pull request for feedback

You can automatically create a pull request where you can provide feedback and answer a student's questions about an assignment. For more information about the review of changes in a pull request, see "Reviewing changes in pull requests."

To create pull requests for the discussion of feedback, select Enable feedback pull requests.

To create the assignment, click Create assignment.

Inviting students to an assignment

By default, GitHub Classroom enables an invitation URL for each assignment you create. Students can accept and submit the assignment while the invitation URL is enabled. You can share the URL with your students on your LMS, course homepage, or wherever you post assignments. Students can also navigate to the assignment on GitHub Classroom if the student has already accepted an assignment for the classroom.

You can see whether a student has joined the classroom and accepted or submitted an assignment in the All students tab for the assignment. To prevent acceptance or submission of an assignment by students, deselect Enable assignment invitation URL. To edit the assignment, click Edit assignment.

Next steps

• Once you create the assignment, students can start work on the assignment using Git and GitHub's features. Students can clone the repository, push commits, manage branches, create and review pull requests, address merge conflicts, and discuss changes with issues. Both you and student can review the commit history for the repository. For more information, see "Getting started with GitHub," "Creating, cloning, and archiving repositories," "Using Git," and "Collaborating with issues and pull requests."

• When a student finishes an assignment, you can review the files in the repository, or you can review the history and visualizations for the repository to better understand the student's work. For more information, see "Visualizing repository data with graphs."

• You can provide feedback for an assignment by commenting on individual commits or lines in a pull request. For more information, see "Commenting on a pull request" and "Opening an issue from code." For more information about creating saved replies to provide feedback for common errors, see "About saved replies."

Further reading

• "Use GitHub in your classroom and research"
• "Connect a learning management system to GitHub Classroom"