In working with instructors on integrating a class project website into their courses, we have developed a set of recommendations and best practices. The first time you work with a Xanthan template, we will guide you through all of the following guidelines and steps.
Instructors create a website using a Xanthan template. They then have their students fork that site, meaning that the students each have a full copy of the entire website that they edit individually. After the students finish editing, GitHub manages the merging of all the students changes back into the instructor’s original site.
The Amaranth staff will set up a website for your course using the Xanthan getting started guide. You will then have an original site that the students will fork. On that site, you can make some initial edits:
The Amaranth staff will help you to format the sample student essay. When the students have their GitHub accounts set up, an Amaranth staff member will guide them through the process of making their fork and the first edits to their own essay.
We recommend a four week timeline from when the students first fork the site to the final due date of the project. If they have only a couple weeks, the students won’t have enough time to get well-practiced enough with editing in Xanthan and GitHub Pages. However, if these processes are introduced too early, the students might put the project on the back burner and will need a full re-teaching. Class collaborative websites work best in the middle of the semester.
The integration of a Xanthan class website into your course will proceed more smoothly if you keep the following pitfalls and pressure points in mind.