| No | Date | Title | Contents | Reading | Survey/Quiz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2024-10-18 | Introduction to version control | Organizational matters Overview of seminar sessions Introduction to version control Introduction to Git and its advantages |
Intro to version control | Course introduction Survey |
| 2 | 2024-10-25 | Command line | File Systems Benefits of the Command Line Basic Command Line commands |
Command Line | Command Line Quiz |
| 3 | 2024-11-01 | Setup + Git Fundamentals | Installation and configuration of Git Initializing a Git repository Basic Git commands |
Installation, Setup, First steps with Git | Installation Survey, Git Basics Quiz |
| 4 | 2024-11-08 | Basic Git workflow | Practicing basic Git commands Ignoring files with .gitignore Good commit messages |
First steps with Git | Git Basics Quiz |
| 5 | 2024-11-15 | Git Essentials (Repetition & Practice) | Practicing basic Git commands Ignoring files with .gitignore Good commit messages |
Git Essentials | Git Basics Quiz |
| 6 | 2024-11-22 | Git Branching and Merging | Understanding branches in Git Creating and switching between branches Merging branches Resolving merge conflict |
Branches | Git Branches Quiz |
| 7 | 2024-11-29 | Quarto Workshop | Introduction to Quarto | ||
| 8 | 2024-12-06 | Introduction to GitHub | Introduction to remote repositories Creating a GitHub account Creating and managing repositories on GitHub Pushing and pulling changes |
GitHub Intro | GitHub Quiz |
| 9 | 2024-12-13 | GitHub with collaborators | Cloning a remote repository Branching and merging in a collaborative environment Pull Requests GitHub Issues Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), e.g., GitKraken |
GitHub Intro, GitHub Issues | GitHub Quiz |
| 10 | 2024-12-20 | Repetition and Practice | Repetition and Practice | ||
| 11 | 2025-01-10 | Git(Hub) with the world | Forking a remote repository README files Project Management |
GitHub Advanced, GitHub Issues | GitHub Quiz |
| 12 | 2025-01-17 | Publishing | Creating Tags with Git Creating Releases with GitHub Zenodo for publishing |
Tags and Releases | |
| 13 | 2025-01-24 | Graphical User Interfaces | Course evaluation Repetition and practice Intro to Graphical User Interfaces |
Graphical User Interfaces | |
| 14 | 2025-01-31 | Summary & Outlook | Course evaluation results ✨ Surprise ✨ Summary & Outlook |
Session 14: Summary & Outlook
Track, organize and share your work: An introduction to Git for research
Course at University of Hamburg & Erasmus University Rotterdam
Dr. Ana Martinovici
Reza Hakimazar
January 31 2025 (10:15 am)
1 Logistics & Admin
Schedule
2 Last session: Graphical User Interfaces
Last session: Graphical User Interfaces
Last session: Learning objectives
After the last session, you should now be able to answer the following questions / do the following:
💡 You understand the benefits of Git GUIs compared to the command line
💡 You can name at least two Git operations that can be considered easier in a GUI compared to the command line
💡 You try out different GUIs and become familiar with their features
💡 You know how to manage branches in a GUI
Your questions about the last session?
3 Summary
Learning Objectives (Preparation)
Introduction to Version Control
💡 You know what version control is.
💡 You can argue why version control is useful (for research).
💡 You can name benefits of Git compared to other approaches to version control.
💡 You can explain the difference between Git and GitHub.
Basics of the Command Line
💡 You can navigate directories using the command line.
💡 You can use shortcuts like the tilde or dots to navigate your file system.
💡 You can explain the difference between absolute and relative paths.
💡 You can use arguments and flags to modify command-line commands.
💡 You understand the concept of wild cards (*) and can use it for system navigation.
Setup & Configuration
💡 You know how to set up Git for the first time
💡 You have set up Git on your computer
💡 You understand the difference between the three Git configuration levels
💡 You know how to configure your username and email address in Git
💡 You have set up your preferred text editor when working with Git
💡 You can escape the command-line text editor Vim
Learning Objectives (Local Version Control)
First steps with Git
💡 You can initialize a Git repository.
💡 You can check the status of a Git repository.
💡 You understand the difference between the staging area and a commit.
💡 You can stage and commit changes.
💡 You understand the difference between a commit message and a description.
Git Essentials
💡 You know how to explore the commit history.
💡 You can compare different commits.
💡 You know how to use and create a .gitignore file.
💡 You can discuss which files can (not) be tracked well with Git and why.
💡 You know how to track empty folders in Git repositories.
Branches
💡 You understand the purpose and benefits of using branches in Git.
💡 You can create and switch between branches.
💡 You can merge branches and resolve merge conflicts.
💡 You can name at least three best practices when working with branches.
Learning Objectives (Collaboration)
Integration with GitHub / GitLab
💡 You can create a remote repository.
💡 You can connect your local Git repository to a remote repository service like GitHub or GitLab.
💡 You can pull and push changes to and from a remote repository.
💡 You can clone a repository from a remote repository.
Collaboration on GitHub / GitLab
💡 You know the purpose and components of a Pull Request.
💡 You know how to collaborate using the popular workflow strategy GitHub flow.
💡 You know the purpose and components of a README file.
💡 You can fork a repository.
💡 You can create a Pull Request from a forked repository.
💡 You can protect your main branch.
Tags, Releases & Publication
💡 You understand why Git Tags matter in version control and project management.
💡 You know the difference between lightweight and annotated tags and how to apply them.
💡 You can push and pull tags to a remote repository (e.g., GitHub).
💡 You understand how GitHub releases complement Git Tags.
💡 You can use Zenodo to archive your repository and make your work citable.
Goal
From this …
To this …
Open Questions about Git or GitHub?
4 Course evaluation
Thank you for your participation!
What did you like best about the course?
- Hands-on format
- Collaboration with Rotterdam
- Organization and structure of the course
- Mix of reading, exercises and discussion
- Working together with many different people
- The lecturer and teaching assistant and their dedication
- The learning materials (book, website, etc.)
- Individual support in breakout rooms and outside of class
- The quizzes
- That I am learning something that I can implement in my work
Improve: Collaboration between students
- Hard to collaborate when people didn’t finish previous exercises.
- Hard to collaborate when people had very different levels of experience and skills.
- Would’ve been better to work consistently in the same group.
Suggestions
- Set deadlines for mandatory tasks before the next session.
- Have more participants in each breakout room for better support from advanced students.
- Offer two types of assignments: a basic one for everyone and an optional advanced one.
Improve: Course structure & setting
- The online format was problematic; the course would be more engaging in person.
- Reading chapters on Zoom while others interacted was distracting.
- Some sessions were mostly just reading, with students working on tasks alone with minimal input.
Suggestions
- Assign these chapters as homework to complete outside of class.
- Split tasks into smaller parts, like 20 minutes, with discussions in between.
Improve: Clarity of instructions
- For some session, instructions were confusing and spread out in different places
- Example: Forking exercise, with slides, book and contributing guidelines to consider
Suggestions
- Give clearer guidelines and instructions for each session
- Help students track their progress and requirements from the start
Improve: Misc
- The course was a bit too fast.
- Provide more foundational (background) knowledge on the topic.
- Provide more time for questions at the end of each session (> 5 minutes).
5 Course requirements
From session 1: Your role
Active participation
- This is a pass / fail course. You pass if you fulfill all course requirements:
- Requirement 1: Come to at least 12 out of 14 sessions (85%)
- Requirement 2: Complete all surveys/quizzes
- Requirement 3: Complete all mandatory exercises (implemented in Git)
How do we verify the course requirements?
- Requirement 1: Sign the attendance list
- Requirement 2: Provide a personal codeword. At the end of the semester, send an email with your personal codeword to sekretariat-luv.psych@uni-hamburg.de (Christine Manor). We will send our secretary a list of personal codewords and she will return a list of names.
- Requirement 3: We check your GitHub repositories.
Your tasks
In order to pass this course, you should have accomplished the following tasks:
- You have a public
city-guiderepository on GitHub (Sessions 03, 08, 12). - You added a text file (e.g.,
.qmdor.txt) with at least one city recommendation to the repository (Session 03). - You added a
.gitignorefile (ignoring a random file like an image) to the repository (Sessions 04, 05). - You created and merged a branch in your repository (Session 06).
- You created a pull request in a partner’s repository, e.g., by adding a new recommendation (Sessions 09, 10).
- You reviewed and merged the pull request of a partner in your
city-guiderepository (Sessions 09, 10). - You created an issue in Lennart’s
city-guiderepository, a pull request from a fork fixing the issue, you implemented all additional requests and your pull request was approved and merged by Lennart (Session 11). - You created a release of your
city-guiderepository on GitHub (Session 12). - You completed all quizzes (see next slide).
- You completed the extra assignment (if necessary, see next slide).
Quiz participation
In order to pass this course, you should have completed all quizzes:
How to verify participation
- At the end of the semester, send an email with your personal codeword to sekretariat-luv.psych@uni-hamburg.de (Christine Manor), not to us!
- Our secretary sends us an unsorted list with codewords.
- We verify the quiz participation for each codeword and send Christine a list with codewords that completed all quizzes.
- Christine compares the codewords with your names and send us an unsorted list with names.
Missed more than two sessions?
We will send you an email with an extra assignment.
6 Outlook: There’s more …
Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for Git
Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)
RStudio
MATLAB
Git Clients
GitKraken
GitHub Desktop
Mobile
Working Copy (iOS)
Rewriting history
See chapter “Rewriting History”
Credit: tech_kody via TikTok
Continuous Integration & Deployment (CI/CD)
Example: Lennart’s recipes repo
- Automated spell check
- Rebuilding of project website
Version Control for data: DataLad
… for data (binary files) 
Sadly, Git does not handle large files well. 
7 ✨ Surprise ✨
Kahoot
https://create.kahoot.it/share/git-kahoot/e7b7edf3-df7b-49be-9cd3-708f9f6a0e2e
Thank you!
Version Control Course