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Introduction to DataCamp Course Maintenance
Introduction to DataCamp Course Maintenance

An overview of DataCamp Course Maintenance

Amy Peterson avatar
Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over 2 years ago

Congratulations! Your DataCamp Course is complete and ready to be sent out into the world for millions of users across the globe. Now what? 

As the Instructor of your course, it is YOUR responsibility to perform ongoing maintenance to make sure that any issues are addressed. This article will serve as your introduction to everything you need to know about course maintenance and content quality. 

Who:

Although it is the Instructor’s responsibility to maintain their course, the DataCamp Content Team is here to help! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Responsible For Fixing: 

Instructor

  • Redoing exercise questions, including: rewording questions, changing question types, redoing code scaffolding

  • Updating packages 

  • Redoing Slide designs

  • Rewriting hints 

Content Team

  • Video related issues

  • SCTs (Submission Correctness Tests)

  • Offer advice on how to best rewrite hints and exercises

What:

Actively reviewing the feedback and course metrics through the Course Dashboard and Diff Viewer for any issues to be addressed or corrected. These issues can range from simple typos to rewriting course exercises and instructions. 

When:

Instructors should aim to check up on their course once a month, or at least once a quarter. Think of maintenance like house cleaning - it’s a lot easier to do a little bit every so often than a lot every once in a while! 

Where:

Use the Course Dashboard metrics provided for you by DataCamp, including average rating, chapter ratings, feedback, and the differences between learner submissions and the correct answer to determine which exercises require updating or correcting. Then use Teach to open a new branch, create your edits, open a PR in Github, and tag @datacamp-contentquality to review the branch. 

Why: 

Well-maintained courses receive not only higher ratings, but also more course completions, which means more revshare for you! A constantly updated and maintained course can also mean staying up to date on relevant software packages and features which may change over time - this means that your course will stay live on the DataCamp site instead of being archived or remade. 

How:

See our section on “Interpreting the Course Dashboard” for more in-depth information. 

Getting Started:

Steps to Follow:

  1. Log in to the Content Dashboard to view your course. Your credentials to log in are the same as the ones used to log into your main DataCamp account.

  2. Review the article here on interpreting the Content Dashboard. Begin by reviewing the chapter metrics, then move to exercise ‘ % Asked Hint’ rates, and sort by highest to lowest. You should begin by examining the exercises highlighted in red as needing the most urgent attention. See here for more information on expected course metrics.

  3. Use the CHECK method to investigate the exercise feedback.

  4. Reference these helpful articles on how to approach common maintenance issues.

  5. Log into Teach and make your edits. If you have any questions, or would like advice on how to proceed, please create an issue on your course’s Github and tag @datacamp-contentquality*.

  6. Once your edits are complete please create a pull request on Github outlining the changes made, tag @datacamp-contentquality, and the DataCamp staff will review and implement the edits.

*You can also consult with other DataCamp instructors, brainstorm possible solutions, and trade peer reviews on our new Instructor slack channel #Maintenance-Forum. Join here!

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