v1.0: Previewing Basic Support for Discussion Integrations

Goal: Manually convert X new course runs to new framework

Runbook: details on what that manual configuration/rollback looks like - Steven or David

Questions:

1. What is the UX of a course team selecting a discussion app configuration? Do they first select the type (Piazza) and then a specific integration?

   1. Partial Conclusion: We don’t expect to have a dropdown for picking a particular Piazza integration.

2. Is it a requirement that administrators be able to set up an integration once and then it can be re-used across courses?

   1. It’s not a requirement to be able to share secrets/basic LTI config across a site or org

   2. We do not need to have customizable defaults for config at the site or org level.

   3. Conclusion: We don’t need to have config_overrides - there’s nothing we care about overriding.

3. What is the right data model for discussion configuration?

   1. Is configuration composable, and if so, who are the composers? (user roles, personas, instructor vs. admin, etc.)

   2. Educators can configure a specific learning context’s LTI details per program / per course run along with settings for that course run ( ex: in-context is off)

   3. Administrators (edx internal for now) can decide which providers to show / limit for a given organization, but all options are visible unless otherwise specified.

4. What is the right level of configuration reuse, from a security point of view?

   1. It matters what kind of configuration it is, and who can see it.

   2. There’s configuration at the course team and user level as well.

5. Technical discovery on providers:

   1. For Piazza, Yellowdig, etc., should we see what their actual configuration looks like, so we understand what level of composability makes sense?

      1. Piazza, same URL regardless of which LMS/course you use, the other credentials depend on which class you want to integrate with. If you want the same forums across two courses, you need to use the same credentials.

   2. One set of credentials used across multiple courses, but with different “class” (Piazza’s term for a course) IDs per course. We expect we’ll use course IDs to differentiate between them. Today you have to send them an email to set up a new class ID and associate it with your credentials.

6. Concern from Kshitij - sprint ending on 16th, so to reach any sort of milestone, need clarity ASAP.

7. Easier to move from split to combine, moving in reverse is a lot harder.

TNL Release Details, Blended Release Details

~Late Nov

(aim for no later than Thanksgiving week)

v 1.1 Discussions Provider Selection UI within Studio (edx-admin)

Goal: Shift away from Django Admin configuration for third party forums, the initial implementation of Support level and feature matrix

Questions:

• • A: Has feature table needed for educator rollout.

v1.2: Yellowdig Discussions Plugin and Conversion

Goal: Enable Yellowdig Plugin to switch more courses over to new model

v1.3: New Pages & Resources View

Goal: New Pages & Resources View Live on Production, enabling easier configuration of course tools (Discussions only to start, to establish a pattern)

Questions: What tiles will we include in this milestone? A: for this milestone, just focus on Discussions. We don’t need this view to be available for course teams, so it doesn’t have to fully make sense.

• Q: Existing API PRs?

Use Cases: edX admins can use this new page to configure discussions, rather than using django admin.

Runbook:

v1.4: Full Rollout of Pages & Resources View

Goal: Shift educators from old Pages view to new Page & Resources view in production

Use Cases: whatever isn’t in v1.2 that would let us deprecate the existing Pages view

v1.5+: Educator Preview of New edX Discussion Experience

Goal: Pilot Educators enrolled in course with new discussions experience for ongoing feedback + comments

Next Step: How feasible to land / test / break up into more milestones?

Runbook:

TNL Release Details, Blended Release Details

~Late Nov

v1.6+: Educator Preview of New In-Context edX Discussion Experience

Goal:

Runbook:

TNL Release Details, Blended Release Details

~

v1.7+: Educator Configuration of Basic Support Discussion Integrations (Yellowdig, Piazza)

Goal: Moving forward, defaulting to new config model & educators can do them themselves

Runbook:

TNL Release Details, Blended Release Details

~Early Dec

v1.8+: Pilot Migration to New edX Discussions Experience in Select Courses

v1.9 Enable Catalog Option to use New edX Discussions Experience

v1.10: Discussions Social Presence: Profile Pictures

v1.11: Learner / Moderation Notifications

v1.0

• Selecting Piazza as a forums tool via the admin

  • WIP: Piazza plugin

• Operating: Course-wide LTI integration

  • https://github.com/edx/xblock-lti-consumer/pull/77

• 🚧 Course-wide Navigation tab

  • https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/pull/24584 - most significant

• 🚧 Course Apps as Backend Plugin or Hard-coded

  • https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/pull/24190

v1.1

• Discussion App selection page in Studio - page and resources view

  • To discuss: UX/UI requirements (discuss 11 Nov)

• Selecting Yellow Dig as a forums tool

• UI to select discussions plugin in course authoring

• Display Support Levels of Discussion Tools in tool selection

v1.2

• Selecting edX Forums as a forums tool

• Configuring forums - General Topics

• Wayfinding

  • My active posts listed first

  • Browse topics

  • Help

• Augment

  • Style updates to clarify hierarchy of posts

  • Visibility of actions (follow, vote, etc.)

  • Differentiate staff and TAs

• edX Discussions MFE + Rest API

  • https://github.com/edx/frontend-app-discussions/pull/1

  • https://github.com/edx/frontend-app-discussions/pull/3

v1.3

• Configuring in-context discussions

• Build in-context sidebar

• Sidebar Component for course MFE

• Course apps as frontend plugins

v1.4

v1.5   

• Configuring Cohorts

• Configuring Anonymous Post Behavior

• Configuring Blackout Dates

• Feature parity with edX today

v1.6

• Profile images displayed

v1.7

• Digest Notifications

• Notify learners of post responses

• Notify moderators of actions required (flagged posts, etc.)