Skip to main content

​
Welcome to Pawtograder - Student Guide

This page covers the one-time setup you do when you first join a Pawtograder course: logging in, connecting GitHub, and joining the course organization. Need help? See Getting Help.

​
Accessing your course

If you are enrolled in a course, you will be able to access it by logging in with your university credentials. Click your institution’s single sign-on button — labelled Continue with Microsoft (Northeastern Login) on Northeastern’s instance — to continue.
Microsoft login button for Northeastern authentication
If your course does not show up after logging in, you may need to contact your instructor to ensure that you are enrolled in the course. For courses linked to a registration system, enrollments synchronize automatically once an hour; otherwise your instructor adds you by hand.

​
Connecting to GitHub

The very first step is to connect your GitHub account to Pawtograder. Pawtograder will automatically create repositories for your assignments, inside the GitHub organization your course uses. Each course has its own organization, so the name you are invited to depends on the course — your instructor can tell you which one to expect. You can connect any GitHub.com account to Pawtograder, and we do not suggest that you make a new one just for this purpose. When you first login to Pawtograder, you will be prompted to connect your GitHub account. Click Sign in with GitHub to continue, or More info for answers to the questions below.
Connect to GitHub banner with More info and Sign in with GitHub buttons
After you connect your GitHub account, you will be redirected to the Pawtograder dashboard, where you will have one last step: to agree to join the course organization on GitHub.com. Click Open GitHub Organization Invitation and accept the invitation using your GitHub account. After accepting the invitation, you can refresh Pawtograder and should no longer see the message - you are ready to work on an assignment! From then on, your assignment repositories appear automatically as your instructor releases assignments: you clone one, do the work, and push to main, and that push is your submission. See Submitting Your Work.
Join course GitHub organization banner with the Open GitHub Organization Invitation button
The same banner also appears on your assignments list and on each assignment page, so you can act on it from wherever you notice it. Alongside the invitation button it offers:
  • Help: a dialog explaining what the invitation is and where it was sent
  • Resend invitation: available only once the last invitation is more than five days old. If you declined the invitation sooner than that, ask your instructor to resend it.
More info popover titled FAQs about GitHub and Pawtograder, answering what to do without a GitHub.com account, whether to use a personal account, what happens if that account uses a different email address, and whether the linked account can be changed

​
What if I don’t have a GitHub account?

If you don’t have a GitHub account, you can create one for free at github.com. Pawtograder does not care what email address you use to create your GitHub account, and you can use the same account for other purposes.

​
What if I already have a GitHub account?

If you already have a GitHub.com account we suggest that you use that, so that: 1) you do not need to remember a new username and password and manage multiple accounts, and 2) if your class permits making your project repository “public” at the end of the semester, you can do so and have it show up on your existing profile.

​
Can I change which GitHub.com account I use with Pawtograder?

Linking a different GitHub account is not currently supported. If you renamed the account you already linked, use Sync GitHub Account on the GitHub Help page to pick up the new username.

​
If you can’t access your repositories

Open the Support & Documentation menu in the top-right corner and choose GitHub Help to reach the GitHub Access Troubleshooting page. It shows which GitHub account your Pawtograder account is linked to, lists every repository that account should be able to open on GitHub.com, and offers Sync GitHub Account to re-sync.
Support and Documentation menu open in the top-right corner, listing Keyboard shortcuts, GitHub Help, View documentation, Request a feature, Report a bug, View open issues, and a build identifier
See GitHub Help for the full walkthrough: repositories that never appeared, an organization invitation that never arrived, a renamed GitHub account, and the wrong account linked.

​
Next steps

Once you’re logged in and connected to GitHub: