New Lesson Maintenance Policy

New Lesson Maintenance Policy

Our responsibility

We coordinate the maintenance of our lesson collection, working with authors, contributors and technical specialists where appropriate. Maintenance means ensuring lessons remain understandable, discoverable and pedagogically useful. It does not imply continually updating lessons to align with every new software release or operating system.

What do we maintain?

We aim to maintain lessons that continue to provide clear pedagogical value and that can reasonably be sustained within available resources.

What are we responsible for?

We are responsible for coordinating maintenance of lessons, not for acting as the technical maintainers of every lesson.

How do we decide whether to maintain something?

When a maintenance issue is reported we consider:

• Does the lesson continue to have educational value?
• Can the issue be resolved proportionately?
• Would fixing it substantially change the lesson?

What outcomes are possible?

Outcome	When appropriate	Action
Minor correction	A straightforward fix can be made without substantially changing the lesson.	Apply the correction. No new DOI is required.
Guidance	The lesson remains pedagogically useful but requires clarification because users may encounter issues.	Add a warning, updated guidance, or links to workarounds. No new DOI is required.
New version	The lesson requires substantial revision to remain current or useful.	Publish a new version with a new DOI and retire the previous version in accordance with the DOI policy.
Retirement	The lesson is no longer practical or worthwhile to maintain, or a revised version is not justified.	Retire the lesson in accordance with the Retirement Policy.

Who decides?

The Managing Editor determines whether a reported issue results in a minor correction, additional guidance, publication of a new version, or retirement.

Workflow

Step	Responsibility	Task
1	Publishing staff	Receive report and open a GitHub Issue.
2	Publishing staff	Triage the issue and seek input from authors, contributors, or technical specialists as appropriate.
3	Managing Editor	Decide whether the outcome is a Minor correction, Guidance, New version, or Retirement.
4	Publishing staff	Implement the decision and close the Issue.

Writing for sustainability.

We encourage lessons that emphasise concepts, methodological reasoning and transferable skills. Lessons should document the computational environment in which they were developed and tested, including software, packages and versions. Writing lessons in this way increases their longevity and reduces the need for ongoing maintenance.