How long does it take for an independent course to get listed on the main page?

Education GitHub Learning Lab
#1

I authored Common Continuous Integration Team Scenarios a while ago. This is one of the bigger courses on the platform. After some period of time, I was surprised to find out that the course registrations are only driven by direct traffic from the links I sent to my friends and published here and there. It turned out that the course wasn’t listed among the others on the main page. Of course, after, I contacted other course authors and figured out the reason. I suggested to list my course too and received the confirmation, and the acknowledgment that the course needs to be tested. The timeline currently is:

  • Jul, 28: my initial request
  • Aug, 20: “we will first need to go through the course to confirm that it works as expected, does not contain inappropriate content, and adds value for learners”, link to the course provided by me
  • Aug, 31: “an unexpected error has occurred”, platform-specific error, collaborated, could not reproduce
  • Sep, 9: “we are still working through this issue”
  • Sep, 18: “Install the pre-commit hook executing install_hook.sh.”, I run install_hook.sh in the terminal, but see “-bash: install_hook.sh: command not found”, I agreed to add extra clear instructions on how to run bash scripts
  • Sep 28: “I continued the course today, and have just opened the “Steps review” pull request. The comment leads me to believe that there should be tests running, but even after waiting a few minutes and refreshing, there are no tests running in the pull request.”, was caused by actions not activated as explicitly required in the course. I agreed to investigate what I can do to make students less likely to hit this.
  • Oct 9: “I’m going through the course again, and getting stuck on the same things. Could you please update the course to:
    Include the syntax . install_hook.sh as an instruction for how to run that script?
    Move the instruction about enabling Actions to an “Activity” block, so that it is harder to miss?
    Once you have made these updates, please let me know, and I’ll give it another shot.”

So, it took 2.5 months already, and the process of going through 40 minutes course is suspended for reasons not making testing impossible. Of course, I will try to do my best about the two non-essential and non-blocking issues, but because of the nature of the platform, when I publish any version of the course, I need to test it completely, because of this, I would prefer to do it once in the end if nothing is outright broken.

The question is: when I can expect the first testing pass to be completed from the beginning to the end?

#2
  • Oct, 23. No communication whatsoever after the testing was suspended without any blocking issues after the poorest excuse in the universe (CI course not having instructions on how to run bash scripts).
#3

@crichid, @hectorsector, what is your take on this? I and other authors and potential authors need to know if it’s worth investing in the platform.

#4

Even though I didn’t see any signs of active testing for two weeks, I’m still actively trying to do whatever I can to facilitate the process. Reviewed the course trying to figure out what I can improve in given circumstances.

Waiting for an answer to this.
"I reviewed the course as promised.

  1. About explaining how to execute bash scripts. This is an advanced continuous integration course involving using bash commands. Firstly, the audience is expected to be familiar with basics like this, secondly, this is a platform-specific thing, and we cannot suggest one-size-fits-all solutions here. It’s about the user knowing how to use his/her computer. Anyway, If you have real working suggestions on how to improve the course, I’ll be happy to use them.

  2. About you forgetting to enable GitHub Actions. The only possible way to forget to enable them is to miss “Before you begin” page-long section entirely. We cannot expect user missing things like this to complete this or any other course anyway.

Please, provide feedback on my analysis, and do let me know when I can expect the first testing pass to finish."

#5
  • Oct 28. Received an elaborate letter with an actual bug and some troubleshooting info.
  • Nov 1: I fixed the bug and responded.
#6

Hey there, @ntaranov. It sounds like you’re already going through the review process through another means (email, perhaps?). Thanks for the feedback, I’ll share it with the team. To answer your immediate questions, for courses to appear on the featured page, courses should be tested by as many learners as possible and then you need to contact our team.

#7

Hi @hectorsector. Thanks for answering.

It seems that the course was approved by another learning lab member. At least, I received an email with “I will also ask Learning Lab to add your course to the home page. Congratulations!” on Nov, 2.

But I can’t find the course on the “featured” page. Speaking about other means, I prefer using open communication as much as possible for transparency and to help accumulate knowledge accessible to others.

#8

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The course seems to be listed on the main page. Thank you for collaborating! I didn’t check it for a while, so, I supposed, this is the case for a long time.