GitHub expands features on Global Campus with more teacher focused content

In September 2021, GitHub launched its Global Campus initiative that provides a platform to students to connect, attend events and engage with the student developer community. Now, it is extending this feature to teachers as well.  

The repository will now provide a single dashboard for teachers to connect with one another, create/grade assignments.  

Teachers who join GitHub Global Campus will get free access to Codespaces, a code hosting platform. 

GitHub has already launched its Global Campus initiative in a few universities in India, this includes the likes of University of Mumbai, Shivaji College, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), and Chandigarh University among others.     

Along with helping teachers manage classrooms, GitHub said, it will also provide Codespaces for classrooms, which will act as a virtual classroom, where students can attend and experiment, finish assignments.   

“Access to Codespaces is the first step towards improving early access and ultimately bringing more software developers online. Access to developer tools will open up myriad opportunities for students to solve increasingly complex challenges,” GitHub said in a statement.   

The company said that Codespaces can help teachers by standardising the hardware specifications, settings and runtime requirements of student devices, since they will all be using the Codespace platform simultaneously.   

Additionally, teachers who register on the Global Campus will receive 1,250 hours of Codespaces usage for free. For organisations, they will need to pay $250 per organisation. However, the free plan should help teachers and a class of fifty students complete about five monthly assignments, the company said in a statement.   

Other platforms that are Codespace alternatives include the likes of GitPod, a environment which helps to learn coding online. AWS based Cloud 9, RepLit, Koding, and CodePen are the major competitors to GitHub’s Codespaces.