Uploading new files to a Git repository directly through the GitHub web application

Question

It is possible to directly edit files in a repository stored on GitHub through the web interface. Most of us would never do this but it has its uses.

I teach an introductory level course. I'd like to use Git and GitHub for homework distribution and collection (GitHub offers free private accounts for education). However, I can't ask completely fresh students to learn Git, at least not in the first few weeks. For the first few weeks I would like to say

"You can upload your homework by clicking on this sequence of buttons on github.com"

and then eventually teach them how to use the command line.

Ideally I'd like for them to be able to upload new files, not just edit existing ones. I can't find a way to do this though. How can I use the GitHub web interface for a similar purpose?

Answer 1

Since February 2016, you can add/create/upload new files from the GitHub web interface.

See "Upload files to your repositories ":

You can click the “Upload files” button in the toolbar at the top of the file tree.

Or, you can drag and drop files from your desktop onto the file tree.

This replaces the file creation described in the 2012 answer, and add the upload capability (for one or several files).