Github Discussions for Classrooms?

sjengle · December 10, 2020, 6:21pm

I am excited about the new Github Discussions feature (especially now that Piazza is moving to a paid model).

I checked the roadmap and the documentation but couldn’t figure out these answers:

Will these be enabled for repositories created via Github Classroom?
When will discussions be supported for private repositories?
Will there be an option for anonymous discussions amongst those with access to a repository? (I have found this important in classroom settings to encourage students to post questions.)

ohitsmekatie · December 11, 2020, 5:44pm

If your Classroom organization is public you can start using Discussions today! Here’s some more information from the Universe blog post.
There is not an ETA for this being available for private repositories, but as soon as the team has information about this they will be posting it to the public roadmap so keep an eye out there.
There are conversations around making a specific discussion private here, but I do not think those are officially on the roadmap today and the anonymous use case hasn’t been surfaced. I would suggest chiming in with your use case on that discussion or opening up a new one so the Product Manager, Becca, can talk to you directly about the need! I’ll also pass this feedback on internally as well.

Hopefully that helps. If you do end up utilizing Discussions in your class now while it’s public I would love to hear about how you are using it!

ohitsmekatie · December 11, 2020, 5:17pm

Oh! Here is a discussion for global private discussions in case you want to upvote or subscribe to notifications as well.

cooperrc · December 16, 2020, 4:24pm

Another follow-up for GitHub discussions:

Any chance we can activate LaTeX equations in markdown?

That was one of the main benefits of Piazza. Equations look so nice $$E = mc^2$$

ohitsmekatie · January 25, 2021, 10:22pm

Hello all!

The Product Manager for Discussions reached out to me today asking if I could connect them with anyone who would like beta access to Discussions for private repositories to try out in your classes or just on your own!

If that sounds interesting to anyone on this thread please feel free to send me an email with your contact and “Private Discussions access” as the subject and I will connect you to them so you can learn more.

My email is ohitsmekatie@github.com.