Frequently asked questions

GitHub.com is a cloud-based service that is open to anyone in the world. It is free to use and you can create your own username and password.  You can collaborate freely with external users and there is usually a cost associated with making your repositories private. However, under Imperial College’s licence agreement, users are entitled to unlimited free private repositories.

GitHub Enterprise (GHE) offers similar functionality to GitHub.com and, from an end user perspective, the most discernible difference is that the header bar is a different colour from that in GitHub.com. The key difference is that GitHub Enterprise is not open to the outside world. All data is stored on-premise within College and you will need a College user account to log in and create repositories. It is intended for College members who work with sensitive data or who have a requirement for extra security in the storage of code, over and above that offered by private repositories in GitHub.com (e.g. researchers whose funder has placed stipulations on where the code may be physically located).  External collaborators may be invited to collaborate but they cannot own a repository.

These will remain unaffected by the College’s licence agreement. Only private repositories linked to the Imperial College London GitHub license agreement are free for College members to use.

It is up to the individual to end any existing contracts with GitHub, at which point users are welcome to migrate code into free private repositories under the Imperial College license agreement. The College will not support, nor pay for, any continuing private repositories which do not fall under the College license agreement.

To migrate your existing GitHub.com organizations and repositories to the College account please click on the Move an existing repository into the new Imperial College Organisation tab on the working with at the working with GitHub.com page

Within GitHub.com, the College will automatically revoke membership to the Imperial College license agreement for users who leave the College by the withdrawal of the right to use a College (“@imperial.ac.uk”) email address. Should you wish to continue collaborating on a private repository under the Imperial organisation, you can be invited to re-join as an external collaborator.

Within GitHub Enterprise, your access to the system is linked to your College login and will therefore expire when you leave the College. Should you wish to continue collaborating on an on-premises repository, you may be invited to re-join as an external collaborator. You may also need to transfer ownership of any GitHub Enterprise repositories of which you are the owner to somebody else who is remaining as a College member once you leave.

Online training:

• GitHub has open sourced all its training materials as an Online Training Kit.
• GitHub also offers self-paced and live Online Training Courses on both GitHub and Git for newbies & developers.
• ICT also endorses the online lessons provided by Software Carpentry
• ICT also provides GitHub training via lynda.com

Classroom training:

• Subject to demand, ICT’s High Performance Computing Service is able to offer occasional classroom training courses on GitHub. Register your interest.

GitHub.com is supported by GitHub directly and there is extensive help and support within the website at https://help.GitHub.com/

GitHub Enterprise is also supported by GitHub and there is extensive help and support within the website at https://enterprise.GitHub.com/support.  Users with an Imperial-specific question may also log a service request using Ask ICT

GitHub offers an API for custom integrations, along with a wide range of standard pre-built integrations for Deployment tools, Continuous Integration (CI) tools and Project Management systems.

• A list of products that work with GitHub can be seen at https://GitHub.com/works-with/
• API information can be seen at https://developer.GitHub.com/

 Some notable open source GitHub tools include:

• GitHub classrooms.  A Ruby on Rails application designed to automate repository creation and access control, making it easy for teachers to distribute starter code and collect assignments using GitHub
• Atom. A text editor that's modern, approachable, yet hackable to the core—a tool you can customize to do anything but also use productively without ever touching a config file. 
• Electron.  A framework for creating native applications with web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It takes care of the hard parts so you can focus on the core of your application.
• GitHub Projects.  A native component of GitHub that helps you organize and prioritize work via a board type project management tool, Can be used for specific feature work, comprehensive roadmaps, or even release checklists. You can create customized workflows that suit your needs.
• GitHub Education Community. Further details and resources related to GitHub teaching add-ons can be found here.