Organizations and Teams

Texas A&M University Enterprise GitHub has two organizations: one for faculty, staff, and research projects{target=_blank}, and one for instruction and students{target=_blank}. We have limited organizations to two for various technical and administrative reasons. Using two large organizations allows for easier collaboration and simpler administration; however, it also introduces technical challenges sharing with many members. Our goal is to make as many GitHub Organization features as possible available to members.

Institutional Org

tamu-edu{target=_blank} is the organization for faculty and staff. Use this organization for things like business applications, websites, research, and other projects that do not involve academic or instructional activities.

Student Org

tamu-edu-students{target=_blank} is the organization for instructional, academic, and student use. Use this organization for things like course material, class projects, assignments, and other academic or instructional projects.

Features Overview

Our goal is to make as many GitHub Organization features as possible available to members. Some features have limitations.

Single Sign-on

Texas A&M University Enterprise GitHub is connected to the Texas A&M University directory via Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for single-sign-on to enforce the use of NetID credentials and two-factor authentication to access resources in the organizations.

Membership

Membership in an organization is managed by Azure AD using automated provisioning and de-provisioning (SCIM). Organization administrators should only modify membership in Azure AD. Users entitled to self-join can use the Texas A&M GitHub website.

Team membership is also managed and synchronized from the Texas A&M University directory. Please see the Teams page for more details.

Outside Collaborators

Outside collaborators are allowed in both organizations. You can invite outside collaborators to join the organization by email or GitHub username. Outside collaborators must have two-factor authentication{target=_blank} enabled in their personal GitHub account to access a Texas A&M University Enterprise GitHub organization.

Projects

Any organization member can create an organization-wide project or project board and invite other organization members or teams to collaborate on it. By default, organization-wide projects are private and only visible to people with read, write, or admin permissions to the project. Only create an organization-wide project for projects that span multiple repositories; a repository owner should create a project or project board in a repository for all others.

Limitations

Student Access to the Institutional Org

Students are not allowed to self-join the Institutional organization tamu-edu{target=_blank}. However, students with an employee affiliation to the University, such as a student worker or research assistant, will be able to self-join the Institutional organization. Other students need to be invited and added to a Team by an existing faculty or staff member.

Teams

Teams can be created in either organization using a web form. Nesting a team is not yet supported but is planned to be in the future.

See the main page on Teams for more information.

Secrets

Organization secrets are not enabled. Set secrets that a must be shared between multiple repositories on each repository individually. It is best practice to use a unique secret for each repository.

Github is exploring Team-level secrets, but the feature has not made it onto their public road map.

Clouds and Platforms