Frequently Asked Questions¶

General Questions¶

What is GitPulse?¶

GitPulse is a tool for automatic analysis of student activity on GitLab projects. It provides objective metrics for evaluating team collaboration and DevOps practices.

Who can use GitPulse?¶

GitPulse is intended primarily for teachers and teachers. Log in via GitLab OAuth or contact the administrator for access.

What data does GitPulse collect?¶

GitPulse collects publicly available data from GitLab projects:

• Commit history
• Merge requests and code review comments
• Pipeline results and test coverage
• Issues
• Project/group members

Import and Synchronization¶

How to import a course from GitLab?¶

1. On the dashboard, click "Import from GitLab"
2. Paste a URL:
   • Group URL - imports all subgroups (teams) and projects
   • Project URL - imports only a single project
3. Fill in the course name and semester
4. Click "Import"

Why was the entire parent group imported?¶

If you paste a group URL, GitPulse imports all subgroups as teams. If you want to import only one project, make sure you paste the URL of a specific project, not a group.

Why can't I see team activity?¶

Possible causes:

1. Synchronization hasn't run yet
2. Check the global status bar - sync may still be in progress

3. Click "Sync" on the course page

4. Project is not in the course

5. Check if the project is added in GitPulse

6. Processing delay

7. There may be a delay of a few minutes under high load

What does synchronization download?¶

• Commits, Merge Requests, Issues, Pipeline results
• Project members (automatic student detection)
• Code review comments
• Test coverage data

Why does the status bar show incorrect numbers?¶

The status bar updates every 2 seconds. Stale jobs (older than 3 minutes) are automatically cleaned up. If you see incorrect counts, refresh the page.

Metrics and Evaluation¶

What does the compliance score mean?¶

The compliance score (0-100%) expresses how well the team adheres to defined DevOps practices. It consists of 13 Built-in Controls (R01-R13) plus optional custom controls.

Are thresholds configurable?¶

Yes. In course settings you can change:

• Green threshold (default 80%) - team meets requirements
• Yellow threshold (default 50%) - needs attention
• Changes are reflected immediately on the dashboard

Is the compliance score an absolute grade?¶

No. Compliance score is only one indicator. You should combine it with:

• Quality of outputs (demo, code)
• Project presentation
• Individual interviews
• Peer evaluation

How to interpret a low score in one category?¶

A low score in a category can mean:

1. Real problem - the team ignores the given practice
2. Different workflow - legitimate reason (e.g. pair programming)
3. Technical problem - data is not collected correctly
4. Missing configuration - e.g. missing CI/CD in the project

Roles and Scoring¶

What do the colored badges next to member names mean?¶

Badges display the GitLab role of the team member. Colors correspond to access levels:

• Owner (yellow) - highest level (50)
• Maintainer (blue) - level 40
• Developer (grey) - level 30
• Reporter/Guest (light grey) - level 20/10

What does "(not in team score)" mean?¶

This label means the member is excluded from the team compliance score. Reasons:

1. Low role with no activity - Guest or Reporter who created no commits, MRs, issues, or reviews
2. Inherited access with no activity - member inherited access via a parent group but has no project activity
3. Teacher - teacher/TA added as is_teacher

What is "inherited" membership?¶

A member with the "inherited" badge gained project/group access not directly, but through inheritance from a parent GitLab group. If they have no activity, they are automatically excluded from the team score.

Why is my team score lower than expected?¶

Check for inactive members dragging down the average. GitPulse now automatically excludes Guest/Reporter with no activity and inherited members with no activity, but Developer+ with zero activity still counts toward the score.

What does the "Re-check" button do?¶

The button triggers an immediate recomputation of team compliance metrics. Unlike regular recomputation, it runs all checks (R01-R13 + custom), even if some are filtered for the current curriculum week.

Gaming and Fraud¶

What is gaming?¶

Gaming is an effort to "cheat" metrics without real work. Examples:

• Commit spam - lots of empty/insignificant commits
• LGTM reviews - fake code review without comments
• Review rings - mutual review without diversity (Alice <-> Bob)

How does GitPulse detect gaming?¶

GitPulse uses heuristics to detect suspicious patterns:

• High frequency of commits in a short time
• Empty or generic review comments
• Uneven distribution of review pairs (Gini > 0.8)

What to do when gaming is detected?¶

1. Verify false positive - check details on the team page
2. Talk to the student - they may have an explanation
3. Document - in case of repetition
4. Take action - according to severity

Configuration and Export¶

How to share settings between courses?¶

Use JSON export/import:

1. On the source course, click "Export JSON"
2. On the target course, click "Import JSON" and upload the file
3. JSON includes compliance controls, rubric, and thresholds

Can I add custom controls?¶

Yes. GitPulse supports custom controls (C01+) with configurable rules and weights.

Privacy and GDPR¶

What are the rights of students?¶

According to GDPR, students have the right to:

• Access - they can request their data
• Correction - if the data is incorrect
• Deletion - in justified cases
• Portability - data export in standard format

How long is data stored?¶

Data is kept until the end of the semester plus 1 academic year in case of appeals. It is then automatically deleted.

What about AI enrichment and privacy?¶

AI enrichment processes only aggregated metrics (commit counts, MRs, etc.), not code content. Student personal data (names, emails) is automatically redacted before sending to the AI model.

Problems and Support¶

Dashboard is slow¶

Solutions:

1. Refresh the page (F5)
2. Clear your browser cache
3. Try a different browser
4. Report the problem to an administrator

How to report a bug?¶

1. Open GitLab Issues
2. Attach a screenshot and steps to reproduce
3. Specify the browser and operating system

Contacts¶