What is “In-context discussions” (v1.7)?

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Course teams will have the option to skip discussion topics for graded units.

Rollout decisions

What will the rollout look like?

We only plan to rollout in-context discussions for new courses and re-runs.

New courses:

1. All new courses will use the new discussion provider by default.

2. Once the course or a unit is published, “the script” will run and create discussion topics.

Course re-runs:

1. Re-run of a course will use the new discussion provider by default.

2. Once re-run has been created, “the script” will run and create discussion topics, with following rules:

   1. For unit without a an existing discussion xblock, a new topic will NOT be created and linked with the course unitduring migration.

   2. For a unit having EXACTLY ONE at least 1 discussion xblock, topic for that a new topic will be created. Topic of existing discussion xblock will not be linked with the course unitused.For unit having multiple discussion xblocks, topic for the top most xblock when viewed in studio, will be linked with the course unit. Rest of the xblocks in this unit will be ignored

   3. If a unit lies within a graded subsection, and contains at least 1 discussion xblock, a new topic will be created and “Graded” toggle will be automatically turned on for the course.

   4. For a unit within an Exam subsection, new topic will not be created even if the unit already has a discussion xblock.

3. Should the banner be time bound or should it disappear upon

   A banner will show up in studio saying something like “Hey we’ve migrated discussions over to the new topic structure. Learn more about it here. ” For course re-runs having ignored xblocks, the banner will additionally say: “Here’s a list of discussions xblocks in the course that did not make it to the new discussions hierarchy. Learn more here.”

4. How do we show the list on banner? It could be a long list?

Topics in discussion xblocks are not accommodated in the new topic structure.”

5. For units that were not assigned new topics, there is an option in studio to create topics for a unit, as seen below.

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Running courses:

We do not plan to migrate running courses to avoid complexities associated with existing discussions threads in xblocks.

Once a course using new provider has been started:

1. If a new unit is published, a new topic will be created be automatically created and linked to that unit.

2. If the newly published unit contains an xblock, that xblock will be ignored.

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xblocks in courses using new provider

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1. All xblocks will appear in collapsed state, as seen below.
   

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2. For xblocks whose topic ID has been linked to course unit, “Show Discussion” button will open the topic in discussions sidebar,

3. For xblocks whose topic ID has NOT been linked to course unit, “Show Discussion” button will be inactive (greyed-out). There will be no way to access that discussion xblock.

4. What happens when an xblock is deleted, whose topic id has been linked to course unit?, with inactive “Show Discussion” button.
   

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5. Can we stop showing option to add xblocks in courses using the new provider?

Graded Units?

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Rolling back new provider for a course

We want the migration to be non-reversible. Therefore, we wont provide a rollback option on the frontend. However, if a course team really wants to use the legacy provider for a new course or re-run, we want to be able to migrate that particular course manually.

Once Infinity team gets a request from PS or PC team to switch a course to legacy discussion provider, they will change the discussion provider for that course to legacy.

During this rollback, the discussion topics created during migration and settings for the new provider will remain untouched. Once the rollback is complete, course team will only see the legacy topic structure (categories and subcategories of xblocks). Course teams will not be able to see or access the topics created during migration, nor the threads in those topics.