For SPIS, you’ll need an account at github.com.

To create your account, visit http://github.com and sign up.

We encourage you to use your @ucsd.edu email address (or if you already have a github.com account, to add your @ucsd.edu address.)

Github now provides free access to unlimited public repos to everyone.

With an educational discount, you may be able to have access to create unlimited number of private repos. Apply for that at http://education.github.com

You can also create private repos under the ucsd-cse-spis-2016 organization at no charge. You should never need to add a credit card to your github account for any SPIS related activity. If you get asked for one, there is either a mistake in the instructions, or you may have missed something :-)