GitHub.com Organization
NC State University has a public organization on github.com located at https://github.com/ncstate-university where open source projects created by the university can be hosted. Only officially approved open source projects owned by the university are eligible to be publicly hosted here, but all qualifying projects can make use of the organization. Private hosting is available for projects which are not public but need to collaborate with entities outside the university on an on-going basis.
Public Hosting
The first step in hosting a project on the public organization is to get approval from the Office of Research Commercialization (ORC) to publish the project as an open source project. Their contact information can be found on their website. Generally projects should be licensed under the GPLv2 license, but the folks at ORC may have other suggestions depending on your specific project. Once approved, you should be given a Distribution Authorization and a license to use for your project.
Once you have obtained approval from ORC for your project, send an email to github@help.ncsu.edu requesting a repository on the github.com organization. Please include the following information in your request:
- The name of the repository you would like created
- A copy of Distribution Authorization granted by the Office of Research Commercialization
- The name of your unit or team that should have access to the repository
Your repository will be created, along with a corresponding GitHub team if it doesn’t already exist.
Note that GitHub Actions are not available for repositories hosted on the github.com organization at this time.
Be mindful that content hosted in the github.com organization publicly represents the university, and as such, professionalism is expected in all forms of content hosted there. Content which reflects negatively on the university will be removed.
Private Hosting
Private hosting is also available for projects which have an on-going need to collaborate with entities outside the university. These projects do not need approval from the the Office of Research Commercialization. Send an email to github@help.ncsu.edu requesting a repository on the github.com organization. Please include the following information in your request:
- The name of the repository you would like created
- Which external entities will be collaborating on the project, and why their collaboration is required
- The name of your unit or team that should have access to the repository
After your repository is created, you may add external collaborators to the repository with whatever permissions you deem acceptable. External collaborators will not be able to be added as members of a team and will be unable to utilize the team discussion boards, but should be able to utilize all other features enabled for the repository.
Note that GitHub Actions are not available for repositories hosted on the github.com organization at this time.
Be mindful that content hosted in the github.com organization represents the university, even when hosted in a private repository, and as such, professionalism is expected in all forms of content hosted there. Content which reflects negatively on the university will be removed.