2022-07-19 Focus Group Meeting Notes

Owned by Jenna Makowski
Last updated: Dec 15, 2023 by Edward Zarecor
2 min read

Next Steps

  1. Product Concept Documentation: Jenna will draft a strategic document that outlines the Open edX strategy for meeting the LMS use case need and offers a first pass at prioritizing work.

  2. Feature List: The Group will continue to add features and scope notes to the feature list. We will aim to have this list solidified by early September, including all details about connecting work already underway.

Meeting Notes:

Topic: What’s missing from seamless integration/LTI?

  • We have some basic config settings but what users need are easy point and click interface.

  • Content: There’s a potential need for LTI provider functionality - for example, to use Open edX as a central content repository and syndication services.

  • LXP

Topic: Definitions of what “integration” means:

  • We converged on two clear use cases and two clear, different strategies to articulate and scope

    • Use Case 1: Universities that are using Open edX as their sole LMS solution. Here we need a parity strategy, meaning the LMS experience is similar/viable compared to what other LMS vendors offer, especially from a faculty perspective.

      • Phase 1: Parity, Phase 2: Leapfrog - And the two will often overlap, and should

    • Use Case 2: Universities using Open edX as an LMS for one function and simultanously using other LMS vendors for other functions. For example, Canvas for matriculated, Open edX for continuing adult education. Here we need an “integration” strategy, but integration is defined as Open edX needs to integrate with other academic systems - with layers to send and accept grades, send and accept data, possibly send and accept content

      • Examples of these universities - SUNY, MIT, Spanish consortium

      • Idea to incrementally implement - create a network of Open edX to Open edX content sharing, reuse, etc

      • Clear need to define where in the lifecycle we integrate - at the catalog level? The Content level? The data level?

    • Use Case 3: Blended Learning, though this bleeds very closely into Use Case 1, with a subset of specific needs

Visual of the above use cases mapped to strategies - and the foundation of the concept documentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PpL0rcGBn6b6jMZJXJtXfNUvATRiGRLAuGTRfY62VCk/edit#slide=id.p