Git Takes Two: Split-View Awareness for Collaborative Learning of Distributed Workflows in Git

TL;DR

This paper introduces GitAcademy, a browser-based platform with split-view collaborative mode for teaching Git, enhancing social presence and peer teaching, serving as a training scaffold for distributed workflows.

Contribution

It presents a novel split-view interface for collaborative Git learning, emphasizing awareness and training rather than everyday development.

Findings

Split-view interface increased social presence and peer teaching.

Learners preferred split-view over single-view.

Performance improvements were mixed.

Abstract

Git is widely used for collaborative software development, but it can be challenging for newcomers. While most learning tools focus on individual workflows, Git is inherently collaborative. We present GitAcademy, a browser-based learning platform that embeds a full Git environment with a split-view collaborative mode: learners work on their own local repositories connected to a shared remote repository, while simultaneously seeing their partner's actions mirrored in real time. This design is not intended for everyday software development, but rather as a training simulator to build awareness of distributed states, coordination, and collaborative troubleshooting. In a within-subjects study with 13 pairs of learners, we found that the split-view interface enhanced social presence, supported peer teaching, and was consistently preferred over a single-view baseline, even though performance gains were mixed. We further discuss how split-view awareness can serve as a training-only scaffold for collaborative learning of Git and other distributed technical systems.