March 18, 2021: What is Open edX?
Date, time, and location
WHEN: Thursday, March 18, 1pm EDT US / 17:00 UTC. (time converter)
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/vWr6k6_4xWg
Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nM5DKtxK51VJFXhKo-bb2mbeGdeEebN0P1-BIIHJ254/edit?usp=sharing
Would you like to present something? Let us know!
Agenda
Ned Batchelder (edX) and Fox Piacenti (OpenCraft): What is Open edX?
The Open edX platform is large and powerful, but that can bring confusion. What are the major components of the software, and what do they do? The software is used by edx.org, but edX is different than Open edX, another point of confusion. Ned and Fox will tag-team to explain it all, with plenty of time for questions and answers.
Useful from the chat:
13:26:04 Jay Stockslader UB-CAS: What's the best way to find out what all the XBlocks do?
13:26:48 Marco Morales: This isn’t a complete picture @Jay, but one place to start might be here: XBlocks Directory
13:27:27 Marco Morales: Many blocks, though not all! are also in our authoring documentation here: https://edx.readthedocs.io/projects/open-edx-building-and-running-a-course/en/latest/exercises_tools/create_exercises_and_tools.html
13:29:30 Yusuf Yilmaz: Do you consider Xblocks as next version of SCORM?
13:31:33 Marco Morales: Scorm XBlock link -
13:32:21 Esteban Etcheverry: Is there an estimate of when the Blockstore component will be available natively in a future Open edX release?
13:35:48 Marco Morales: If you are interested, at the intersection of MFEs and Blockstore is a new platform area still in development that won’t be ready for Lilac but hopefully in Maple ( This MFE for Library Content Authoring is supporting blockstore powered content libraries. This in progress project. Is also summarized here:
13:39:08 Fox Piacenti: I had the opportunity to contribute a great deal of code to the Library Authoring MFE, and can say it's a really cool project and it was a lot of fun to work on. :)
13:40:45 Krisztina André German Citizen Energy Alliance BBEn: Thank you! https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4
13:42:16 Marco Morales: List of features: Nudges / Motivational messages
13:42:22 Jay Stockslader UB-CAS: How will this recording be shared? I know others would be interested in the overview Ned gave at the beginning
13:42:43 Yusuf Yilmaz: I am wondering if you have any usability or UX research. How intuitive and easy to use the Edx (OpenEdx) for the teacher/faculty level?
13:42:52 Ned Batchelder: We’ll be posting this on YouTube
13:43:01 Pierre Mailhot: Any replacement planned for notifier?
13:43:41 Marco Morales: Feature list updated: Nudges, Motivational messages, Notifier.
13:44:03 Pierre Mailhot: That’s because nudges and reminders were used through notifier in the past.
13:44:10 Vladas Tamošaitis: Is there a plan to have something like learning path feature? Or maybe some kind of thing already exists?
13:44:41 Marco Morales: Topic: Multi-Lingual Course Support
13:44:49 Marco Morales: Topic: Usability Research and Platform Learning
13:44:56 tau: I would like to ask, what is the process to get into a one of working groups?
13:46:30 Sergiy Movchan: I am wondering if you have any usability or UX research. How intuitive and easy to use the Edx (OpenEdx) for the teacher/faculty level?https://assets.uits.iu.edu/pdf/Comparative Functional Review - Executive Summary.pdf
13:46:34 Edward Zarecor: https://edx.readthedocs.io/projects/open-edx-building-and-running-a-course/en/latest/video/additional_transcript_options.html#id3
13:46:51 Edward Zarecor: Multi-lingual transcript configuration.
13:49:12 Gonzalo Romero: Are you planning or already use Machine Learning or Deep Learning tools for the platform,? which could be the future for openedX and these technologies?
13:51:45 nikolayborovenskiy: Are you going to develop some kind of user recommendation system so that you can recommend courses to users based on their interests and the courses they have completed? Perhaps there is something about this that I'm not sure.