Contributing to course material

Extra credit will be given to students who make contributions to the course material. Participating in expanding and improving the course material is a great way to practice the skills you have learned. Because this is done through GitHub pull requests (see below), it is also a way to practice (in a low-stakes setting) contributing to a public code repository. This is a very desirable skill in the job market. Employers often ask to see your Github account, even for non-engineering jobs.

Here is the link to the github repository for this site.

You can find more detailed information about pull requests on GitHub. Here is a quick guide.

How to Make a Pull Request on GitHub (without creating a local fork)

1. Go to https://github.com. Click Sign up in the top-right corner and create an account.
2. Once logged in, go to the course repository.
3. At the top of the repository page, click the branch dropdown (it usually says main or master). Type in a new branch name that describes your change (e.g., fix-typo, add-example). Press Enter to create the new branch.
4. Edit files directly on GitHub:
   1. Navigate to the file you want to change.
   2. Click the pencil icon (Edit this file).
   3. Make your changes in the browser.
   4. Scroll down, write a clear commit message, and choose Commit directly to the new branch.
5. After committing your changes, GitHub will prompt you to create a pull request.
   • If you don’t see the prompt, click the Pull requests tab and then New pull request.
6. Ensure that:
   • The base branch is main (or the default branch of the repo).
   • The compare branch is your new branch.
7. Add a descriptive title and a detailed description of your changes (e.g., “fixed typo in Unit 3 Exercise 4” or “added example to Unit 8”).
8. Click Create pull request.
9. Wait for my review. I may not end up merging your changes for various reasons. For example, you might come up with a good problem, but it is too difficult or not aligned with the flow of the course. I will still give you credit if there is meaningful effort.

Organization of this repository

This repository is organized to make it easy to find and contribute to course materials:

• unitX.md: Main markdown files for each unit, containing lecture notes and exercises.
• _posts/: Contains blog-style posts and unit folders for additional materials.
• public/latex_notes/: Contains LaTeX source files and compiled PDFs for lecture notes and slides. This is the most important folder for contributing.
• public/: Contains static assets (images, CSS, JavaScript) and generated site files.
• _includes/ and _layouts/: Jekyll template files for site structure and navigation. This you most likely will not be editing.
• schedule.md, exams.md, project.md: Pages for the course schedule, exam info, and project instructions.