[BD-14] Content Libraries and Editing Project Overview

Initiative Summary

Content libraries have the potential to offer course teams the ability to create course content in an instructed manner within the CMS. Today, educators reference content from libraries using the randomized content block. This component randomly displays content from a library in the course. At this time, educators cannot reference specific content from a library in a lesson or chapter. As a result, the most common use of content libraries are in assessments. Educators use libraries as a problem bank – they author collections of problems outside of the course authoring process to be used in their course.

The aim of the Content libraries and Editing initiative is to expand upon this existing functionality and allow course teams the ability to select content from an unstructured content library and embed that content into a course. Thus bring a flexible new way to author content without committing to course structure in Studio. Additionally,  this ability to reference specific library content in courses enables new sub-team authoring workflows, unlocks content reuse for course variants, etc.

With the updates to Content Libraries, Course teams will now interact with a new problem and video editor. The UI updated to the problem and video editor will not only facilitate a better authoring experience for Course teams but will also elevate technical limitations associated with the new unstructured content authoring experience. 

https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/1545011241

Customer Impact(edX Partners/ Course Authors) 

Initiative Objectives   

• Rewrite the video and problem components to use a new UI framework that makes it easier for partners to author these elements.

• An updated Library Authoring experience, with improved tools for both Randomized Content Blocks and the ability to directly reference library content blocks in courses specifically.  

Phase 3 - Problem and Video Component Rewrite in the Course Authoring Experience

Phase 4 - Content Libraries v2 Implementation and Problem and Video Component UI updates in the Library Authoring Experience

Milestone 4.0a - Library Reference Content Block (IN PROGRESS)

Objective - Allows educators to specifically reference library v2 content blocks within their course, including similar version upgrade and override capabilities currently in the randomized content block and v1 content libraries. Through this, educators may begin to use content libraries to author content in advance of specific plans or a known location within a course. Additionally, problem or video libraries can be authored by other teams for future use in one or several courses.

	Issue Label	User Story	Status	Detail & Notes	Image

	Issue Label	User Story	Status	Detail & Notes	Image
1	Improve "Source from Library" Workflow	(Styling / Other Improvements to M2) Educators can source specific components from libraries into their unit pages using a new Source Content Library block. (v1.1)	To DO	Add a UI to allow browsing, searching, and filtering library content to choose what components will be included as children (instead of the MVP version which required entering library block IDs ). This would be a great place to prototype a React-based XBlock editing experience! PR Details	Open Open Open Open Figma Link - Step 1 in Course Unit Page, Steps 2,3,4 Library Reference Block Modal Step, Step 5 Render Library Reference Block in Unit Page
2	[Documentation] Review Content Libraries best practice documentation drafted by suppport	As a member of the Partner support team, I want to ensure that the guidance and support documentation for Libraries is accurate so that Partners will continue to use this feature successfully.		AC:  Review Libraries support documentation authored by Partner SUpport.  Ensure that the guidance in the document is accurate based on the current behavior/offering of content libraries v2 Provide feedback or revisions in the document.
3	[Documentation] Draft Partner facing documentation regarding the updates to Content Libraries, Problem, and Video authoring	As an edX Partner, I want to learn about the improvements to Content Libraries, Problems, and Video editing so that I can take advantage of these changes.		AC: Document the updates to the Content Libraries, Problem, and Video authoring experience.

Milestone 4.0b - Content Libraries and Course Authoring Headers (REMOVED FROM SCOPE)

This milestone has been removed from the scope of the BD-14 project. This is due to parallel work being scoped by the UX team related to Studio and Publisher Header improvements/consolidation. Any requests here will be incorporated into the delivery of that effort.

This milestone has been removed from the scope of the BD-14 project.

Objective - The objective of this milestone is to implement the new custom content library header. In doing so, we aim to introduce parity between the upper navigation that partners experience in the course authoring workflow in content libraries. This added continuity for partners will streamline the library authoring experience.

	Issue Label	User Story	Status	Details & Notes	Image

	Issue Label	User Story	Status	Details & Notes	Image
1	Replace studio header with custom header implementation	This PR replaces the custom header implementation with the common `@edx/frontend-component-header-edx` one.	To DO	Also, the PR contains lot of "unrelated changes", which are not really unrelated. The base font-size of the frontend-app is wrong, hence the common header would have smaller fonts, incorrect header height, etc. Because of the fix of the font baseline, I had to change *all* the related scss styles where the unit was not in `px` but `rem`. Furthermore, I had to adjust padding, margin and similar classes to adapt to the baseline changes. This means that *all open PR will contain oversized newly added components after merging this PR*. In case other PRs are merged before this PR get merged, this PR *must be updated* *JIRA tickets*: https://openedx.atlassian.net/browse/TNL-7403
2	Add StudioHeader header variant	This PR adds a new shared header component, which is based on the already existing `Header` and can be used across Studio related pages and frontend apps like the library authoring app.	To DO
3	Implement New Studio Homepage Header	Educator navigation for top level Studio objects is in the header (mostly a UX shift, though it allows library authoring home page to not have to emulate Studio home page with course / other tabs) This would also move "Studio Home" from the Library MFE account dropdown, and force the Library Authoring MFE to also configure a header similar to studio with links back to Courses / Studio Home.	To DO	Create a new header for the Studio home page that puts the "Courses | Archived Courses | Libraries [ | Taxonomies]" navigation in the global header, rather than just being tabs on the homepage. This is not critical path. This change only affects the home page; after you click "Libraries", the Libraries MFE renders its own library-specific Studio header. Likewise, the header seen when you click "Courses" should be unchanged from how it is today. https://github.com/edx/frontend-component-header-edx/pull/102 https://github.com/edx/frontend-app-library-authoring/pull/18 https://github.com/edx/frontend-platform/pull/116 https://openedx.atlassian.net/browse/TNL-7403	Open Figma Link - Libraries Listing Home

Milestone 4.0c - Library Listing and Authoring Search Experiences

Objective - Support search and filtering options for the library listing page and within the library content authoring experience; by doing so, we plan to facilitate partners' use of larger and more complex libraries.

	Issue Label	User Story	Status	Detail & Notes

	Issue Label	User Story	Status	Detail & Notes
1	Add pagination	This adds pagination to the library list page and the library detail page, making it possible to work with the MFE where there are a large number of libraries and/or libraries with a large number of blocks.	To DO	This PR is open currently in the “Waiting FOr Author Status”. Pretty much still a WIP, as it's still missing tests.
2	Add pagination to library list page and implement course import	This Pull Request adds pagination to the library list page and the library detail page, making it possible to work with the MFE where there are a large number of libraries and/or libraries with a large number of blocks. Also, besides the pagination, a new page is created to be able to import all possible blocks from a course.	To DO
3	Add pagination for legacy libraries API	Add pagination support to legacy library API to fulfill requirements of https://github.com/edx/frontend-app-library-authoring/pull/14	To DO
4	New Authoring Page: Searching: Polish & bug fixes	Educators can search within a content library to filter their view and see specific blocks.	To DO	This is about polishing the already implemented experience, including fixing any bugs and a redesign so that the search box to the right can be opened and closed with the corresponding search button on the top right. Figma Link - Library Listing (Search Enabled),	Open Figma Link - Library Listing (Search Enabled),
5	New Authoring Page: Help box	Educators can access help content when clicking on the help button.	To DO		Open Figma Link - (Help and Documentation Enabled)
6	Specific Library Types: Clean-up	(Styling / Other Improvements to L3 and L4) Educators can find a specific library, or view / filter down to specific library types, from the Library Listing page.	To DO	This is about styling updates, including the ability to open and close the search box.	Open Figma Link - https://www.figma.com/file/cS42BX4OUsR8lOw6ppZHoz/Q4-Content-Library-Editing-Low-Fi-Partner-Prototype?node-id=153%3A0 (styling cleanup to search Sidebar)
7	New Authoring Page: Search XBlock Content?	(Improvement to A4) Educator block search is improved using metadata from library content blocks	To DO	Support full text search of blocks by leveraging the index_dictionary XBlock API (like LabXchange does). Indexing will be a heavy operation, but the source data is there and a mechanism for retrieving it exists.

Milestone 4.1a - Content Library Creation & Authoring Basics (IN PROGRESS)

Objective - In milestone 3.6, we aim to introduce basic library creation and authoring functionality so that partners have a more robust content authoring experience within the content libraries' workflow. Upon completing this milestone, partners will have the ability to create specific types of libraries such as--video, problem, and complex. Doing so will add to future authoring experience improvements for each Library type.