Use of GitHub in Computer Science Education

Abstract

GitHub is a very popular cloud hosting service based on Git version control system (VCS). GitHub provides additional features to Git VCS like task management and bug tracking. GitHub has gained too much popularity in the IT industry. In recent years, GitHub has gained attention from educators as well. Educators have started using GitHub in programming courses and software engineering (SE) related courses. Knowing how to use GitHub now has become a required skill for upcoming software engineers. Collaboration and teamwork are at the core of modern software development methodologies like agile. In this thesis work, we are focusing on how GitHub has been used in Computer Science (CS) education. We first conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) on ’Use of GitHub in CS Education’ to better understand the available state of art in this field. We found that the use of GitHub in education has been evolved from an open-source repository to a coding and collaboration platform. GitHub is typically being used for two purposes: (1) as a learning platform for the students, and (2) as a framework to develop education tool for course dissemination, assignment submissions, automated code checker and hosting of student projects. Next, we surveyed to find out what students know about GitHub and how they have used GitHub. Finally, we conducted an experimental study with 319 undergraduate students enrolled in a compulsory course on Software Engineering (SE). The students have used GitHub throughout the course duration and we capture their experiences with GitHub by collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. Our results of the studies showed that students have positively adopted the use of GitHub in their course curriculum and they feel benefited by using GitHub for their project work. The students also felt that project management becomes much easier with GitHub and the use of GitHub will help them in future while working in the industry