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We understand that navigating tools can come with its challenges, so we’ve compiled the most common questions and answers into one easy-to-access resource. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to deepen your expertise, our Educator & GitHub Classroom FAQ is here to provide quick, clear, and practical solutions to support your teaching journey.
If you don’t see your question, need a little extra guidance, or want to share any feedback please feel free to post it in the community. We'll be keeping this FAQ up-to-date with latest changes or tips to using GitHub Classroom. If you have a great tip to share then post in the comments below 👇
So, be sure to bookmark the FAQ, visit regularly, and stay confident knowing you’ll always have the current information to make the most out of GitHub Classroom for your teaching needs.
Please be aware that, due to the nature of the platform, some of these materials might be outdated. If you wish to help us keep our documentation up to date you can contribute by creating a PR to GitHub Documentation repo or comment below 👇
How do I become a verified GitHub teacher?
If you're a teacher, you can apply to join GitHub Education and receive access to the resources and benefits of GitHub Education.
What happens if I exceed the GitHub Teams’ Actions 3,000 minutes limit?
If you set your spending limit to “unlimited” for GitHub Actions & Packages on your organization account, and you exceed the included Actions minutes there will be no interruptions.
You can learn more about billing for any overages here:
What steps can I take to not exceed my Team Plan’s Action minutes?
To manage usage, it may be helpful to add timeouts to your Classroom autograding actions so that the Actions kill themselves if a deadlock occurs.
Another option would be using GitHub self-hosted Actions runners. More information can be found here.
Can I limit student access to only a selection of repositories on GitHub.com?
GitHub doesn't have an inbuilt way of preventing access to certain content that would help a facilitator or school limit the breadth of access on GitHub.com.
Generally for institution-owned devices, these options are best configured by your IT team, for example to prevent certain code from running, or from loading certain web pages deemed unsuitable. Given that a determined student may be able to access the content elsewhere, or on another device and transfer it - these kinds of restrictions are always at best a guide rather than true protection that can be achieved at the device level.
Approved educational institutions can deploy a locally hosted GitHub Enterprise Server instance for free, see https://github.com/education/schools. A dedicated local instance can be configured in such a way that only repositories on the instance can be accessed, although this instance would not support GitHub Codespaces or Classroom.
Alternatively if you were wanting to create a curated group of repositories that you could share with others, this can be achieved via the GitHub lists feature, for more information, read Creating a list in the GitHub Docs.
I just created an organization for my school, how do I set up access to my faculty members?
An alternative solution would be for your school to apply to become a GitHub Education partner and have a school Admin who manages an Enterprise account. This might be helpful in case you should leave your institution or if you might lapse on renewing your benefits, as such changes to your individual organization would affect all the users.
I can’t add more than 50 Students a day to my Organization, what do I do?
To prevent abuse, you can only create 50 organization invitations within a 24-hour period. If your organization is more than one month old or on a paid plan, the limit is 500 invitations per 24 hour period. As a verified faculty member you can upgrade an organization to a GitHub team which will increase your invitation limit to that of a paid plan. Check out more on how to invite users to your organization in our documentation.
I changed the visibility of the starter code and students’ forked assignment repos have become detached from the Starter Code repo. I want to push changes to the starter code to my students. What do I do?
A solution to resolve this would be for the teacher to clone down each student repository individually, add the template as a git remote with git remote set-url origin --add <remote>, make a new branch with the upstream changes, and push it to the student's repository, then open a pull request.
Similar to section "Unable to sync student repositories / assignments. Please try again or contact support."
“Failed to open X of Y pull requests. This may mean that pull requests to sync your changes have already been successfully opened to your students' repositories.”
As a verified teacher what LFS benefits would I receive?
The academic discount granted to your GitHub organization includes support for GitHub Large File Storage (LFS).
To add LFS data packs you will need to adjust some settings in your organization account by following instructions from this help article (the article mentions billing but as you go through the process there will be no cost):
What does the message "Unable to sync student repositories / assignments. Please try again or contact support.” mean?
This error message appears when a pull request cannot be opened because the student’s assignment repo is already updated, or if a pull request is already opened from the upstream repo to the downstream repo (the student’s assignment repo).
You can resolve your error by trying one of the following solutions:
Teachers have the ability to open pull requests from the starter code to all of their student repositories utilizing the button on the assignment dashboard.
Teachers can create a manual pull request within the affected students’ repositories
Manually commit changes to the affected students’ repositories
My student joined the wrong group, in a group assignment, what can I do?
The teacher can manually change the teams and their members on GitHub.com. If you are a student, request this from your teacher. GitHub Classroom currently does not have the functionality to modify groups directly.
"Run tests" command for GitHub Classroom does not update students’ scores.
Intermittently the “run tests” command on the Classroom dashboard fails to display the students’ scores on the Class’s dashboard but displays accurately within their individual repos. Our internal team is aware of this issue. We currently do not have a timeline for this fix’s release.
You can resolve your error by trying one of the following solutions:
Students to check-in their code again (to re-trigger the autograding)
View students’ score within each student repository
Create a script to perform a commit to all students’ repositories automatically (to re-trigger the autograding)
Is Codespaces free for GitHub Education verified teachers?
Codespaces Education billing is in public beta i.e. Codespaces usage is free during the public preview for verified teachers.
This no-cost plan is enough for a class of 50 students completing five assignments per month on a 2-core machine with one Codespaces instance stored per student - more than enough to get your students coding like pros in an environment that brings out the best in their skills and allows you to teach seamlessly.
When Codespaces is released out of public preview, we will share specifics on the number of Codespace hours available to teachers at no cost.
If a teacher needs more hours, surpassing the free usage, they can pay as they go.
How to enable Codespaces for GitHub Education verified teachers?
For verified teachers interested in taking advantage of the Codespaces Education benefit, you will need to use GitHub Classroom. You can enable Codespaces within your assignments by going to Classroom settings, and choosing Codespaces as the editor for the assignment.
More information can be found here on how to use GitHub Codespaces with GitHub Classroom.
How does Codespaces Education storage consumption work?
Codespaces continue to use storage even when they are not actively in use. To manage storage effectively, we suggest deleting any old Codespaces that are no longer needed. Note that even after deletion, Codespaces will still contribute to your storage usage until the current billing cycle concludes.
Monthly Usage Reset
Usage automatically resets each month on your account’s billing date.
Accessing Detailed Usage Reports
You can download a detailed usage report from the billing page:
Our Students want to increase their Codespaces allowance, is that possible?
Verified students can enjoy free access to GitHub Codespaces, with up to 180 core hours per month for their personal accounts. This monthly allowance of storage and usage is the same as what's included with GitHub Pro accounts. For more details, check out About billing for GitHub Codespaces.
What Learning Management Systems (LMS) does GitHub Classroom support?
We currently offer support for Canvas, Moodle, Sakai and Google Classroom.
Issues with GitHub Classroom due to Username Changes
When a student updates their GitHub username on GitHub.com this can cause inconsistencies on GitHub Classroom. Either the username is out of date on the Classroom UI or they appear as a “Ghost” user.
To resolve this, request that the student reaches out to GitHub Education Support. See section “*What Classroom or teacher issues can GitHub Education support help resolve?” *for more info.
What should I do if my school requires a legal or vendor document to be signed by GitHub Education?
Since GitHub Education offers free products, we don’t have the resources to review external documents. However, if your school is interested in exploring a paid product, we’d be happy to forward your inquiry to our sales team. Our sales team can help explore options that best fit your school’s needs and answer any questions you may have.
How do I upgrade my Organization to a Team Plan?
Verified faculty can upgrade any GitHub organization being used for academic purposes to GitHub Team with a single click.
If you have organizations you can upgrade you can visit GitHub Education dashboard and find "Upgrade your academic organizations" near the top.
Click the Upgrade to GitHub Team button and then click the Upgrade button next to the organization name to upgrade it for free to GitHub Team.
What GitHub Classroom or teacher issues can GitHub Education support help resolve?
If you encounter any of the following issues, we encourage you to contact GitHub Education Support, select Classroom from the options dropdown and provide as much detail as possible, including screenshots, so we can help troubleshoot effectively:
User Name Discrepancy: If your or a student’s displayed user name doesn't match the expected or registered name, or if there are any inconsistencies.
Ghost User: When an unexpected or inactive "ghost" user appears in your classroom or assignment.
Unable to Delete a Classroom: If you are having trouble deleting a classroom, despite following standard procedures.
Unable to Create a Starter Assignment: When attempts to create a starter assignment result in errors or failure.
Unable to Accept an Assignment / Repository Access Issue: If students or users experience problems accepting assignments or accessing the associated repositories.
500 Error: When encountering a server-related error that returns a 500 status code.
404 Error: If you receive a 404 error message indicating that a page or resource is not found, even though it should be accessible.
Error Message Requesting Contact with Support: If any error message specifically instructs you to reach out to Support for further assistance.
For each of these scenarios, providing screenshots and a detailed description of the steps taken before the issue occurred will help the team diagnose and resolve the problem more efficiently. Our goal is to ensure a smooth and seamless experience for educators and students using the platform.
I couldn’t find the answer I was looking for
We continuously update these FAQs but if you are unable to find the answer to your question please raise a discussion on the GitHub Education community and the Community team will be happy to assist 🌟
DocumentationArticles, instructions, or information on docs.github.comClassroomJoin others using GitHub Classroom. Share your experiences, your feedback and learn from others howGitHub EducationAll things GitHub Education including website, documentation and events.Global Campus BenefitsAll things related to Global Campus benefits, including Student Developer Pack, events & partnership
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GitHub Community
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We understand that navigating tools can come with its challenges, so we’ve compiled the most common questions and answers into one easy-to-access resource. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to deepen your expertise, our Educator & GitHub Classroom FAQ is here to provide quick, clear, and practical solutions to support your teaching journey.
If you don’t see your question, need a little extra guidance, or want to share any feedback please feel free to post it in the community. We'll be keeping this FAQ up-to-date with latest changes or tips to using GitHub Classroom. If you have a great tip to share then post in the comments below 👇
So, be sure to bookmark the FAQ, visit regularly, and stay confident knowing you’ll always have the current information to make the most out of GitHub Classroom for your teaching needs.
Click Here for Quick Links 🔗🔗
What resources are available for GitHub Classroom?
Please be aware that, due to the nature of the platform, some of these materials might be outdated. If you wish to help us keep our documentation up to date you can contribute by creating a PR to GitHub Documentation repo or comment below 👇
How do I become a verified GitHub teacher?
If you're a teacher, you can apply to join GitHub Education and receive access to the resources and benefits of GitHub Education.
For detailed instructions, refer to our documentation on applying to GitHub Education as a teacher.
How many free Action minutes would I receive as a verified GitHub teacher?
If you upgrade your Organization to a Team Plan for free by becoming a verified GitHub Education educator, you'll be able to get 3,000 actions minutes instead of 2,000.
Here is another link showing the amount of minutes for the Team plan:
https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/learning-about-github/githubs-products#github-team
What happens if I exceed the GitHub Teams’ Actions 3,000 minutes limit?
If you set your spending limit to “unlimited” for GitHub Actions & Packages on your organization account, and you exceed the included Actions minutes there will be no interruptions.
You can learn more about billing for any overages here:
https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-github-actions/about-billing-for-github-actions#per-minute-rates
What steps can I take to not exceed my Team Plan’s Action minutes?
To manage usage, it may be helpful to add timeouts to your Classroom autograding actions so that the Actions kill themselves if a deadlock occurs.
Another option would be using GitHub self-hosted Actions runners. More information can be found here.
Can I limit student access to only a selection of repositories on GitHub.com?
GitHub doesn't have an inbuilt way of preventing access to certain content that would help a facilitator or school limit the breadth of access on GitHub.com.
Generally for institution-owned devices, these options are best configured by your IT team, for example to prevent certain code from running, or from loading certain web pages deemed unsuitable. Given that a determined student may be able to access the content elsewhere, or on another device and transfer it - these kinds of restrictions are always at best a guide rather than true protection that can be achieved at the device level.
Approved educational institutions can deploy a locally hosted GitHub Enterprise Server instance for free, see https://github.com/education/schools. A dedicated local instance can be configured in such a way that only repositories on the instance can be accessed, although this instance would not support GitHub Codespaces or Classroom.
Alternatively if you were wanting to create a curated group of repositories that you could share with others, this can be achieved via the GitHub lists feature, for more information, read Creating a list in the GitHub Docs.
I just created an organization for my school, how do I set up access to my faculty members?
Check here for information on how to provide access restrictions to an organization. You can also create specific Teams and limit their access.
An alternative solution would be for your school to apply to become a GitHub Education partner and have a school Admin who manages an Enterprise account. This might be helpful in case you should leave your institution or if you might lapse on renewing your benefits, as such changes to your individual organization would affect all the users.
I can’t add more than 50 Students a day to my Organization, what do I do?
To prevent abuse, you can only create 50 organization invitations within a 24-hour period. If your organization is more than one month old or on a paid plan, the limit is 500 invitations per 24 hour period. As a verified faculty member you can upgrade an organization to a GitHub team which will increase your invitation limit to that of a paid plan. Check out more on how to invite users to your organization in our documentation.
I changed the visibility of the starter code and students’ forked assignment repos have become detached from the Starter Code repo. I want to push changes to the starter code to my students. What do I do?
This can happen if the visibility of a repository with forks has changed.
A solution to resolve this would be for the teacher to clone down each student repository individually, add the template as a git remote with
git remote set-url origin --add <remote>, make a new branch with the upstream changes, and push it to the student's repository, then open a pull request.Similar to section "Unable to sync student repositories / assignments. Please try again or contact support."
“Failed to open X of Y pull requests. This may mean that pull requests to sync your changes have already been successfully opened to your students' repositories.”
Please see section What does the message "Unable to sync student repositories / assignments. Please try again or contact support.” mean? for options on how to resolve this error.
As a verified teacher what LFS benefits would I receive?
The academic discount granted to your GitHub organization includes support for GitHub Large File Storage (LFS).
To add LFS data packs you will need to adjust some settings in your organization account by following instructions from this help article (the article mentions billing but as you go through the process there will be no cost):
Upgrading Git Large File Storage
The following guide should help with actual usage of GitHub LFS:
Managing large files
What does the message "Unable to sync student repositories / assignments. Please try again or contact support.” mean?
This error message appears when a pull request cannot be opened because the student’s assignment repo is already updated, or if a pull request is already opened from the upstream repo to the downstream repo (the student’s assignment repo).
You can resolve your error by trying one of the following solutions:
My student joined the wrong group, in a group assignment, what can I do?
The teacher can manually change the teams and their members on GitHub.com. If you are a student, request this from your teacher. GitHub Classroom currently does not have the functionality to modify groups directly.
"Run tests" command for GitHub Classroom does not update students’ scores.
Intermittently the “run tests” command on the Classroom dashboard fails to display the students’ scores on the Class’s dashboard but displays accurately within their individual repos. Our internal team is aware of this issue. We currently do not have a timeline for this fix’s release.
You can resolve your error by trying one of the following solutions:
Is Codespaces free for GitHub Education verified teachers?
Codespaces Education billing is in public beta i.e. Codespaces usage is free during the public preview for verified teachers.
This no-cost plan is enough for a class of 50 students completing five assignments per month on a 2-core machine with one Codespaces instance stored per student - more than enough to get your students coding like pros in an environment that brings out the best in their skills and allows you to teach seamlessly.
When Codespaces is released out of public preview, we will share specifics on the number of Codespace hours available to teachers at no cost.
If a teacher needs more hours, surpassing the free usage, they can pay as they go.
Learn More
Read more about how storage and pricing for Codespaces are calculated:
About Billing for GitHub Codespaces
How to enable Codespaces for GitHub Education verified teachers?
For verified teachers interested in taking advantage of the Codespaces Education benefit, you will need to use GitHub Classroom. You can enable Codespaces within your assignments by going to Classroom settings, and choosing Codespaces as the editor for the assignment.
More information can be found here on how to use GitHub Codespaces with GitHub Classroom.
How does Codespaces Education storage consumption work?
Codespaces continue to use storage even when they are not actively in use. To manage storage effectively, we suggest deleting any old Codespaces that are no longer needed. Note that even after deletion, Codespaces will still contribute to your storage usage until the current billing cycle concludes.
Monthly Usage Reset
Usage automatically resets each month on your account’s billing date.
Accessing Detailed Usage Reports
You can download a detailed usage report from the billing page:
Managing Prebuilds
To avoid additional costs and save space, consider removing Prebuilds as outlined here:
Deleting a Prebuild Configuration
Learn More
Read more about how storage and pricing for Codespaces are calculated:
About Billing for GitHub Codespaces
Our Students want to increase their Codespaces allowance, is that possible?
Verified students can enjoy free access to GitHub Codespaces, with up to 180 core hours per month for their personal accounts. This monthly allowance of storage and usage is the same as what's included with GitHub Pro accounts. For more details, check out About billing for GitHub Codespaces.
What Learning Management Systems (LMS) does GitHub Classroom support?
We currently offer support for Canvas, Moodle, Sakai and Google Classroom.
For information or issues with LMS registration or connecting an LMS course to a GitHub Classroom, please see our documentation.
Issues with GitHub Classroom due to Username Changes
When a student updates their GitHub username on GitHub.com this can cause inconsistencies on GitHub Classroom. Either the username is out of date on the Classroom UI or they appear as a “Ghost” user.
To resolve this, request that the student reaches out to GitHub Education Support. See section “*What Classroom or teacher issues can GitHub Education support help resolve?” *for more info.
What should I do if my school requires a legal or vendor document to be signed by GitHub Education?
Since GitHub Education offers free products, we don’t have the resources to review external documents. However, if your school is interested in exploring a paid product, we’d be happy to forward your inquiry to our sales team. Our sales team can help explore options that best fit your school’s needs and answer any questions you may have.
How do I upgrade my Organization to a Team Plan?
Verified faculty can upgrade any GitHub organization being used for academic purposes to GitHub Team with a single click.
If you have organizations you can upgrade you can visit GitHub Education dashboard and find "Upgrade your academic organizations" near the top.
Click the Upgrade to GitHub Team button and then click the Upgrade button next to the organization name to upgrade it for free to GitHub Team.
What GitHub Classroom or teacher issues can GitHub Education support help resolve?
If you encounter any of the following issues, we encourage you to contact GitHub Education Support, select Classroom from the options dropdown and provide as much detail as possible, including screenshots, so we can help troubleshoot effectively:
For each of these scenarios, providing screenshots and a detailed description of the steps taken before the issue occurred will help the team diagnose and resolve the problem more efficiently. Our goal is to ensure a smooth and seamless experience for educators and students using the platform.
I couldn’t find the answer I was looking for
We continuously update these FAQs but if you are unable to find the answer to your question please raise a discussion on the GitHub Education community and the Community team will be happy to assist 🌟
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