You can check out our Intro to Github tutorial if you want to get a bit more practice with Github, but you don’t need to have completed the first tutorial to tackle this one. You can use git through the command line, or through RStudio and/or GitHub desktop. Using an online platform like Github to store your files also means that you have an online back up of your work, so you won’t need to panic when your laptop dies or your files mysteriously disappear. What if by the time your supervisor/co-author has finished commenting on Dissertation_script_26thFeb.R, you are already on Dissertation_script_27thFeb.R? With version control software such as Git, version control is much smoother and easier to implement. This approach will leave you with tens, if not hundreds, of similar files, it makes it rather cumbersome to directly compare different versions, and is not easy to share among collaborators. You are probably already doing some type of version control, if you save multiple files, such as Dissertation_script_25thFeb.R, Dissertation_script_26thFeb.R, etc.

Version control allows you to keep track of your work and helps you to easily explore what changes you have made, be it data, coding scripts, or manuscripts. Learn to use RStudio and Github together.Set up a lab GitHub organisational account.

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