Github Enterprise Early Access Program

In collaboration with IT Services, the RSE team is providing limited early access to the University’s Github Enterprise. This is to allow researchers and academics to get the full benefits of Github Enterprise now while allowing us to obtain feedback which will be used to refine the service offering in the eventual university-wide rollout.

If you would like to be a part of this program, please read through the access policy below and apply using the button at the bottom of the page.

1. UoS Github Enterprise Early Access policy

1.1 Eligibility

1.1.1 General Access

To encourage sharing and collaboration, with permission of the Github Organisation owner, there are no restrictions on who can be allowed access to repositories (have read and write permission) under UoS Github Enterprise. Anyone that is not a member of UoS should be marked as an external collaborator.

1.1.2 Ownership of Repositories

All repositories under UoS Github Enterprise must be owned by a member of UoS, with the permission of the owner (or their delegates) of the Github Organisation in which it belongs to. Additional owners of the repository can be external collaborators to UoS.

1.1.3 Ownership of Github Organisations

All Github Organisations under UoS Github Enterprise must be owned by a staff or academic within the UoS. The owner of the Github Organisation may delegate their administrative responsibilities to other members of the Github Organisation who is also a member of UoS.

Github Organisations are co-owned by the UoS Enterprise Administration team for the purposes of support, administration and auditing only; the UoS Enterprise Administration team are exempt from the responsibilities stated in the “Responsibilities of Github Organisation Owners” section.

1.2 UoS Enterprise Github Organisations

There are no restrictions on the purpose of Github Organisations under UoS Enterprise; they can be created to represent various organisational levels within the University such as a specific course, project, research group, departmental/school, faculty or university wide.

1.3 Responsibility of Github Organisation Owners

It is the responsibility of the Github Organisation owners to manage their own members and repositories, and act in compliance with the following Github and the University’s Terms of Service and Code of conduct:

They are also responsible for the following:

1.3.1 Management of Github Organisation Access

The owner of a Github Organisation must ensure that all members and collaborators meet the criteria under the “Eligibility” section.

1.3.2 Management of Repositories

The owner of the Github Organisation must ensure that all repositories under their Github Organisation meet the criteria under the “Eligibility” section.

1.3.3 Access and Ownership Review for Leavers

Should a member of a Github Organisation leave the research group or the University, their access permissions must be reviewed accordingly. Access to Github Organisation should be removed if the member no longer has need to access the contents of repositories within the organisation. The leaver’s private repositories within a Github Organisation should either be deleted, transferred to the owner or another eligible member of the organisation, or transferred to the UoS Github Enterprise Administration team for archival purposes.

Should the owner of a Github Organisation leave the University, the ownership of the organisation must be transferred to an eligible member of UoS or transferred under management of the UoS Enterprise Administration team if there are no eligible members and it is in the interests of the University to retain the organisation. Otherwise the organisation should be deleted along with its contents.

1.3.4 Yearly Github Organisation Audit

A yearly audit is performed by the UoS Enterprise Administration team to ensure access and ownership is in compliance with the Eligibility criteria. Organisations which are no longer in use and do not contain repositories kept for archival purposes should be removed. The owner of the Github Organisation will work with the UoS Enterprise Administration to facilitate the process.

1.3.5 Fair Use

Due to limitations in availability of number of seats and github runner time, the owner of a Github Organisation must comply with access and usage warnings given by the UoS Enterprise Administration team. The UoS Enterprise Administration team reserves the right to restrict access and usage of GH Organisations in case of non-compliance.

1.4 Changes to the Service and Access Policy

Users should expect changes to the policy and service delivery during the early access program. The UoS Enterprise Administration team will ensure that organisation owners are contacted at least two weeks ahead of upcoming changes.

1.5 Feedback

UoS Github Enterprise Administration team will be using various means to collect feedback including feedback forms and directly contacting organisation owners. It is also possible provide feedback directly to github-enterpise-admin-group@sheffield.ac.uk.

2. Communications

Various channels of communication are available:

3. What Happens Once Your Access Request is Approved

A new Github Organisation will be created on UoS Github enterprise with you as its owner. It is then the responsibility of the organisation’s owner and its administrators to manage their own teams and repositories within the organisation in compliance with the access policy above.

4. Migrating an Existing Organisation

Instead of creating a new organisation, existing organisations can be migrated into UoS Github Enterprise when applying using the request form link below. The migrated organisation should be made compliant to the access policy by the first audit that will happen roughly a year after the migration.

5. Requesting access

Request the creation or migration of a Github organisation

6. Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to remove the organisation from UoS Enterprise after joining

Yes, the process is fully reversible and you can request to leave UoS Enterprise any time.

Can I transfer my repositories outside of the Enterprise?

Yes, repositories can be transferred as normal.

Will my organisation’s private repositories remain private after transfer to UoS Github Enterprise?

Yes, private repositories will remain private.

Are you planning to store/archive repositories of organisations within UoS Github Enterprise?

We don’t have any plans to take archives or off-platform backups of GitHub repositories. If we ever do, they will respect the privacy setting of the repo.

Contact Us

For queries relating to collaborating with the RSE team on projects: rse@sheffield.ac.uk

Information and access to JADE II and Bede.

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Queries regarding free research computing support/guidance should be raised via our Code clinic or directed to the University IT helpdesk.