Create a GitHub account

Your course lives and gets reviewed on GitHub, so you need an account to connect as attribution. If you already have one, skip this page.

Decide the name before signing up

Your GitHub username is public, and it's what will appear as the course author. If you'd rather use a pseudonym, create it now: changing it later breaks the links to your profile and your contributions.

Signing up

1. Open github.com/signup.

2. Enter your email. It can be different from the one you use on the campus.

3. Pick a password. GitHub requires at least 15 characters, or 8 with a number and a lowercase letter. Use a password manager.

4. Pick your username. This is the public part: github.com/your-username.

5. Solve the small anti-robot puzzle.

6. Enter the verification code sent to your email. If it doesn't show up, check spam.

7. GitHub asks some personalisation questions. You can skip all of them.

8. When it asks about a plan, choose Free. You don't need anything paid to publish a course.

Turn on two-factor authentication

GitHub requires it for every account that contributes code, and submitting a course is contributing code. If you don't turn it on yourself, GitHub will eventually demand it and block you halfway through the submission.

Go to Settings → Password and authentication → Two-factor authentication and enable one of:

• Authenticator app (Aegis, Ente Auth, 2FAS, Bitwarden…) — the recommended option.
• Security key or passkey.
• SMS — only if you have no other option; it's the least secure.

Save the recovery codes

GitHub gives you a list of single-use codes when you enable 2FA. Keep them off your phone (printed, or in your password manager). Without them, losing your phone means losing the account — and with it, authorship of your course.

Using a pseudonym? Hide your email

By default, the commits you make can expose your email address. Under Settings → Emails, tick:

• Keep my email addresses private — GitHub gives you a …@users.noreply.github.com address for commits.
• Block command line pushes that expose my email — stops it slipping out by accident from the terminal.

What about signing in to the campus?

This same account works to sign in to the campus with GitHub. One difference to watch: for that, the campus needs a public or verified email on your GitHub profile. If you've enabled email privacy and still want to sign in to the campus with GitHub, use username and password or Google for the campus, and keep GitHub for course authorship.

Once you have it

Go back to your instructor space and connect it in the attribution block.