Introducing Classroom 50

[brianyu28]

Today, we're releasing the first version of Classroom 50, a free and open-source tool for managing and grading programming assignments via GitHub. Supported by the Fifty Foundation as an open-source alternative to GitHub Classroom, Classroom 50 supports creating assignments, defining auto-graded correctness tests, and managing submissions.

Classroom 50 exists both as a web application (available at https://classroom50.org) and as a command-line tool. For information about getting started with Classroom 50, visit our Wiki, where you'll find guides to both the web interface and the CLI.

The Fifty Foundation will host two online training sessions to teach you how to use Classroom 50 and to answer your questions live. The sessions will take place at the following times:

• Friday, July 24, 1pm-2pm EDT
• Friday, August 14, 1pm-2pm EDT

To sign up to attend one of the training sessions, complete the registration form here.

If you have feature requests or bug reports, you can create an issue or contribute code of your own. And if you have questions about Classroom 50, visit our discussion forum where you can join or start a discussion to talk with the Fifty Foundation's team and with other teachers!

[tomastrivino]

Thank you! Are there any plans to support other languages (i.e. spanish?)

[LuisMUtec]

Same question here. I'd also be interested in helping bring Spanish support to Classroom 50

[rongxin-liu]

@tomastrivino @LuisMUtec We recently added localization support, so the Spanish version is available at: https://classroom50.org/?lang=es

[tomastrivino]

Thanks, appreciate it!

[Snehashri52]

This is a great initiative for educators and students. Open-source tools like Classroom 50 can make programming education more accessible by simplifying assignment management, automated grading, and Git-based workflows. Having both a web interface and CLI option is especially useful for different teaching environments. Looking forward to seeing how the community contributes new features and improvements to make coding education more efficient and collaborative.

[fperez-ml]

I can't agree more @Snehashri52

Thanks @rongxin-liu for sharing a url in Spanish, and thank @LuisMUtec @tomastrivino for pointing out. I feel we are in the same boat.

Thank you
🙏

[mjmay-kinneret]

Looking forward to trying Classroom 50. I've been using GitHub Classroom for years to manage and autograde assignments. Will there be any training sessions that are not on a Friday afternoon?

[dmalan]

Just the Friday live sessions, but we'll post a recording of at least one!

https://github.com/foundation50/classroom50/wiki#training-sessions

[pas-mllr]

Looks good! But is it really necessary for the tool to have full read and write access to all users' private and public repo's?

[rongxin-liu]

Yes, it is. Please see: #34

[jmaxwell1957]

Can not link to GitHub organization either via web or cli interfaces. Options are greyed in web and flags are unknown with cli. Frustrating.

[rongxin-liu]

Minding sending screenshots and file a bug report at https://github.com/foundation50/classroom50/issues?

[ProfSamScott]

I have registered for a training session but I can't find any information on how to access the session. How do I participate? Thanks!

[brianyu28]

If you've registered for this week's session, you'll receive an email early this week with details on how to access the session!

[bmahalakshmi2612]

This account is my private account, i already created github account under my organisation but I lost my recovery codes that's why I can't open that git hub account which comes under the organisation. what can we do? did we get new recovery code

[dmalan]

Afraid that sounds like a question for https://support.github.com/!

[jaguardado123]

It seems the website has been down since this morning. Is there any update on when it may be back up?

[jaguardado123]

I believe they are attempting to access from home as well. I have not attempted to access from campus yet.

[rongxin-liu]

We just checked, and it looks like your ISP, Spectrum, is indeed blocking our website classroom50.org.

Please try submitting a request to unblock the website: https://www.spectrum.net/support/forms/verify_url_security

[jaguardado123]

The website is still available on-campus so I will notify students to accept assignments while on campus for the time being.
I will submit a request to Spectrum then.
Thank you!!

[rongxin-liu]

We also submitted the request, so hopefully Spectrum can unblock us soon.

[jaguardado123]

Spectrum unblocked your website a few hours ago.
Thank you so much for your help!!

[lingdoc]

I am just testing this out again. I've created a new repo and synced it with Classroom 50. all permissions are set to "no permission" for new members, which I thought would make all organization repos invisible. However, when I add a new user to the classroom, all repos (including private templates) are visible. Do you know why this is happening?

[rongxin-liu]

It is possible to do it this way, but it requires the teacher to know all students' GitHub usernames beforehand. If new students join the class later, the teacher would need to create the missing assignment repositories for them, which places an additional burden on the teacher.

Since Classroom 50 does not have a server running, we grant the student team read access to the private template repository in advance so that students can create their assignment repositories. Without that access, students would not be able to create an assignment repository from the private template because they would not have permission to view its contents.

Are you suggesting that, instead of allowing students to see all assignments (created through Classroom 50) immediately, you would prefer an option to release assignments individually so that students can see them only after they are released? In other words, you would still like to create assignments in advance using private template repositories, but the student team would not be granted access until each assignment is released.

[lingdoc]

Are you suggesting that, instead of allowing students to see all assignments (created through Classroom 50) immediately, you would prefer an option to release assignments individually so that students can see them only after they are released? In other words, you would still like to create assignments in advance using private template repositories, but the student team would not be granted access until each assignment is released.

Yes, sort of. I basically don't want them to see the template repo, so they don't get confused (this is an introductory programming course). I'm wondering if there's a way to give them access to create their own repo, but once it's created have a hook that revokes access to the template repo while preserving their access to the individual repo.

[rongxin-liu]

I see. I would say this is more of a limitation of Classroom 50. Since it does not have a server, a webhook-based approach would not work. For example, we cannot trigger server-side logic to revoke a student's access to the template immediately after they create the assignment repository.

[lingdoc]

is there an action I could set up on Github that would do something similar?

[catherine-leung]

@lingdoc ability to not see other repos is to set the base permissions on the org to None. Any student who is just a normal member cannot see any repo if that permission is set. Not sure if this affects classroom 50 exactly but that is the setting the classroom use to flip as soon you added the org to classroom.

[dfkotz]

I missed both training sessions. Where can I find a recording?

[rongxin-liu]

Recordings are available here: https://github.com/foundation50/classroom50/wiki#classroom-50

[duneau]

First of all, a huge thank you for putting classroom50 together!!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

I teach at the university of applied sciences in Zurich, Switzerland. 

I have been using github classroom for a couple of years and you really saved me by offering a solution after the decommission of github classroom.

I will start next week my first classroom50 class and so far the testing has been very smooth and the interface is really well thought out. the integration with github with token is also excellent. 

Assignment repo creation -> cloning in VS Code

One area that I miss is the seamless integration there was from the assignment invitation to then open the repo directly in VS Code. 

My course participants are often first time users of github and VS Code and it would be nice to make it easier for them to automate the cloning steps of the assignment repo in VS Code. 

---

Mass updating assignment repos

Another thing I've always wanted to have with classroom was the ability, once an assignment is already live and all the student repos have been created, to then add new files to the assignment repos. Typically, I want to push 2 new files to each repo each week. I know I could create new assignments every week but I would rather keep the 1-assignment model for my 5-week course.

thanks,
Nic