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What is discussions sidebar
and new topic hierarchy?
A new discussion provider, which This is an improved upgraded version of the current edX discussion provider , where users can participate in discussion forum alongside course content through a collapsable sidebar, as seen in the screenshots below.
A discussion sidebar alongside each unit which allows users to interact with forums using a collapsable discussion sidebar (instead of discussion xblocks).
This sidebar will help learners view, participate in, respond to and initiate discussion threads for that particular relevant to the course unit . To they are viewing.
In order to support this, a new discussion topic hierarchy is introduced for content-specific discussion topics, which mirrors follows the hierarchy of the course. In contrast to discussion xblocks, this hierarchy , enforces that each course unit can only at most have one discussion topic.Course teams can choose to enable or disable discussions for each course unit as well as entire graded subsections.in Studio.
How
todo I enable discussions sidebar?
This upgrade is available built as a new discussion provider named “edX edX (new)”, as seen in the screenshot below. All new courses and new runs of existing courses will use this discussion provider by default.
Once the new discussion provider is selected, there will be no option to switch back to the legacy “edX” provider.
We do not plan to apply this upgrade to existing course runs, because it is not possible to migrate existing threads in existing course runs to new discussion topics.
. It can NOT be enabled on exisiting course runs. Only the newly created courses runs will have this discussion provider configured by default.
Can I switch back to the old provider after the upgrade?
No. This is a one-way upgrade. Part of the reason we don’t support rollback is because the discussion topics are different for old and the new provider. Therefore, discussion threads created using one provider may will not be visible when using the other one.
What features are not available when using
providerthe upgrade?
Existing discussion xblocks and their associated discussion topics will not be visible.
Course authors will not see the option to add discussion xblocks to courses in edX Studio.
Adding more than one discussion topic to a course unit will no longer be possible.
How to enable/disable discussion on course units
in Studio?
Course authors can enable or disable discussions for a course unit by checking or un-checking the Enable discussions checkbox in settings of that unit (see screenshot below).
If discussions is enabled on a unit, a Discussions enabled label will appear alongside the unit name in Studio (see screenshot below).
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It will take up to a minute for the discussion topic to appear [disappear] after discussion is enabled [disabled] on a unit. However, the “Discussions enabled” label will appear [disappear] instantly in Studio. |
What about units in graded subsections?
By default, discussions are disabled on units in graded subsections. This can be changed by toggling on the setting named Enable discussions on units in graded subsections on the discussion configuration page.
If the toggle is turned on, discussions will be enabled on ALL units that previously had discussions enabled and are part of graded subsections that are subsections marked as graded but not timed exams.
If the toggle is turned off, discussions will be disabled on ALL all units that are part of graded subsections. Topics associated with these units that contain at least one thread, will appear under “Archived” in topics hierarchy in Topics tab on the Discussions page. All empty topics will be deleted.
If the toggle is turned on again, archived topics will be restored to their respective units and new topics will be created for the remaining units.
If the toggle is disabled, checking/unchecking the “Enable discussions” the “Enabled discussion” checkbox in unit settings of a unit will have no effectwill be disabled for units belonging to subsections marked as graded.
When a re-run of an existing course is created:
The re-run will be using the new discussion provider by default.
Discussion xblocks from the previous parent run will be carried over but will not be rendered anywhere in the live course run.
If a unit in the previous parent run contains one or more discussion xblocks, discussions will be automatically enabled on this unit in the re-run. This is also true for units belonging to graded subsections that are subsections marked as graded but not timed exams.
If at least one unit in the previous run contains one or more discussion xblocks, and that unit belongs to a graded subsection that is not a timed examsubsection marked as graded, then
Enable discussions on units in graded subsectionstoggle will be enabled automatically for the re-run.
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Discussion topic creation and cleanup (of extra topics) may take up to an hour, after creation of the re-run. |
When a course unit is deleted, renamed, moved or hidden
If a course unit that has discussions enabled is:
Deleted: The associated discussion topic is archived if that topic contains at least one thread.
Renamed: The associated discussion topic is renamed automatically.
Moved within the course hierarchy: The associated discussion topic location will also be updated according to the new course content hierarchy.
Hidden: The associate discussion topic is hidden but the threads are not.
What are Archived topics?
Discussion topics that contain at least one thread are not deleted automatically. If due to some reason (discussed below), the association between a course unit and its discussion topic is broken AND that topic contains at least one thread, it will appear under “Archived” section in the topic hierarchy (see screenshot below).
Name of the archived discussion topic will be updated to include the hierarchy where it previously belonged.
Archived topics will only be visible to users having discussion moderator role (Discussion Admin, Discussion moderator, Community TA, Group community TA). However, threads in the archived topics will remain visible to everyone.
To delete If all threads in an archived topic , change the topic of all the threads in that topic.
are moved to other discussion topics, then archived topic will be automatically deleted.
When is a topic archived?
A discussion topic will be moved to archived section only if it contains at least one thread, otherwise it will be deleted. Here are the scenarios when a discussion topic (if it exists) associated with a unit will be archived:
The unit is deleted.The “Enable discussions”
is unchecked for Course team disables discussion on the unit.
The parent subsection is marked as graded, and the
Enable discussions on units in graded subsectionstoggle is in OFF state.The parent subsection is marked as “timed exam”.
When is an archived topic restored?
The “Enable discussions” is checked for a Course team enables discussion on the unit.
The parent subsection is un-marked as graded.
The parent subsection is un-marked as “timed exam”.
The parent subsection is already marked as graded, and the
Enable discussions on units in graded subsectionstoggle is turned ON.
Showing threads at Subsection level instead of Unit level
For courses that have low enrollment or low forum activity, discussion threads for each unit in the discussion sidebar may appear to be sparse. To overcome this, course teams can turn on the toggle named Group in-context discussion at the subsection level to show all threads in the subsection, that the unit belongs to, in the sidebar for any unit of that subsection.
Known issues and pending improvements
Issue: In some cases,
Discussion enabledlabel in Studio may not correspond with the existence of topics in a live course for new courses runs. For now, the best way to verify whether or not discussion is enabled on a course unit is to look for the name of that course unit under Topics tab on Discussion page.Nuisance: As mentioned above, upon creation of a new run of an existing course, discussions will be enabled for course units that contained at least 1 discussion xblock in the previous course run. These course units will have a
Discussions enabledlabel visible in Studio. However, as of now, discussion topics will be created for all course units. But no need to worry, these “extra” topics will be deleted or archived (if they have at least 1 thread) when the course unit, subsection or section is publishedwithin 1 hour of creation of the course run.Nuisance: The behaviour of
Enable discussions on units in graded subsectionsis somewhat complicated. This will be simplified in the future.