[Proposal] Learner Activity Feed
View the Github ticket for proposal status update
Overview
We propose the creation of a learner-facing Activity Feed within Open edX that provides real-time visibility into a student’s engagement, progress, and ongoing effort across courses. Inspired by motivational tools in modern learning apps, this feature will help learners track their activity, celebrate milestones, and stay engaged throughout their learning journey.
Problem
Current learner dashboards in Open edX are static and limited to traditional indicators like grades and completion status. These do not reflect ongoing effort, engagement patterns, or partial progress. As a result, learners lack continuous motivation and actionable feedback to guide their learning process. Additionally, current views and tools are not designed for external celebration, limiting opportunities for learners to showcase their progress or connect with others—both powerful drivers of motivation.
Unlike Open edX, many modern learning and consumer apps have implemented lightweight motivational tools that track streaks, micro achievements, participation milestones, and effort over time. They present these moments in a feed style interface that not only helps learners visualize their ongoing commitment but also provides low-effort opportunities to celebrate and (optionally) share progress.
Use cases
As a learner, I want to see a feed of my recent learning activities so I can track my momentum and stay motivated.
As a learner, I want to control which activities appear in my feed or are included in my public learner profile, so I can choose what to share and keep private.
As a learner, I want to celebrate milestones and achievements (e.g., "Watched 50% of course videos") to feel recognized for my progress.
As a learner, I want to be encouraged by visible streaks or participation thresholds to maintain consistent effort.
As an instructor, I want learners to receive dynamic, personalized progress messages to increase their engagement and support retention.
Supporting market data
Motivational features such as streaks, badges, XP points, progress bars, and interactive feedback have proven to significantly boost engagement, retention, and course completion in digital learning platforms.
Streaks can increase daily engagement by up to 60%, as seen in platforms that prominently display streak counters and allow users to recover missed days with tools like “Streak Freeze.” This success is driven by psychological loss aversion—the desire to avoid breaking a visible streak. [1]
Leaderboards and XP-based leveling systems have shown to increase lesson completion by 25–40%, by creating a social and competitive environment that motivates users to return and improve their standing. [1]
Progress-based rewards, such as badges and daily quests, increase user motivation and consistency, with data showing that users who receive badges are 30% more likely to complete a course. [1]
Animated feedback and visually rich progress indicators strengthen the emotional connection between the learner and the learning process. Platforms that incorporated lightweight animations to celebrate milestones and reinforce streaks reported improvements in user satisfaction, attention retention, and perceived enjoyment of learning tasks. [2]
Immediate feedback and a clear sense of progression (e.g., progress bars and level advancement) help maintain momentum, especially in challenging or self-paced environments. [3]
Additionally, variable and surprise rewards (like treasure chests or bonus points) add elements of unpredictability that reinforce positive learning habits through dopamine-driven feedback loops. [3]
These findings highlight that relatively simple features, when grounded in behavioral psychology and UX best practices, can have a significant impact on learning outcomes, making them a high-value investment for any learning platform seeking to improve engagement and learner persistence.
References:
Duolingo’s Gamification Secrets: How Streaks & XP Boost Engagement by 60%
How Brilliant Uses Gamification to Improve Engagement and Retention
Proposed solution
Design and implement a learner Activity Feed integrated into the learner’s profile or course dashboard. This feed will show motivational and progress-related events such as:
Streaks
Daily active: "You were active today!"
Weekly/Monthly streaks: "You studied 5 days this week!"
Milestones
Video progress: "You watched 50% of the course videos."
Assignment progress: "You’ve completed 75% of the course assignments."
Thresholds
Discussion participation: "You’ve posted 10 times in forums."
Designations
Role/status: "You are now a Community TA."
Engagement: "You completed all course videos."
The feed would support:
Celebratory and motivational messages
Progress reminders when returning to a course
Mobile and web integration
Optional social kudos
While the initial focus is on motivation, engagement, and progress, this system could later support Competency-Based Education (CBE) features such as:
Tracking competency mastery levels
Issuing credentials or badges for specific skill achievements
Note: This initial activity service is not expected to cover full competency or skill mapping. It lays the groundwork for learner engagement and motivational features, which in the future could be expanded to include structured competency tracking and personalized messaging once the platform supports it.
Other approaches considered
A more technically focused alternative was considered, detailed in the Proposal: Learner Activity Service APIs. That approach emphasized designing APIs and backend services to aggregate learner data centrally.
However, we chose not to pursue that path initially, as it centers heavily on data pipelines and system architecture. Our current proposal prioritizes learner-facing features that directly support motivation, engagement, and visible progress. The technical mechanisms for gathering and storing data will be discussed later, during the implementation of each individual feature.
Competitive research
To inspire and guide feature design, here’s a clear comparison of motivational functionalities used by leading learning platforms:
Duolingo
Streaks: Daily streaks are prominently displayed with a flame icon. Breaking the streak is prevented with "Streak Freeze." A streak of 7+ days increases long-term retention.
| 
| 
| 
|
XP and Goals: Users set daily XP targets (e.g., 30 XP/day), and earn points for each completed lesson.
| 
| 
|
Badges & Achievements: Visual badges for milestones like "10-day streak" or "100 lessons" boost completion by 30%.
| 
|
Leaderboards: Weekly competitions rank users by XP. Top 3 earn medals.
| 
| 
|
Daily Quests & Events: E.g., "Do 3 lessons today". Completion increased by 25%.
| 
| 
|
Celebratory Animations: Confetti, treasure chests, and animated characters reinforce progress.
Brilliant
Streaks: Animated celebration when you maintain daily activity; includes a feature to save streaks.
| 
| 
|
XP and Levels: Completing lessons gives XP that unlock new content.
| 
| 
|
Visual Progress: Each course shows percentage completion with clear UI.
Moodle
Badges & Certificates: Native and Open Badges for milestones (e.g., “HTML Expert”).
Progress Bars: Visual course completion bars (e.g., “8/10 modules completed”).
Unlockable Content: Conditional release of modules or activities reinforces goal progression.
Canvas
Badges (Canvas Badges): Issued for learning achievements; visible progress tracker.
Leaderboard: Optional and tied to badge points.
Confetti for On-Time Submission: Reinforces punctuality with celebration.
Learning Mastery Gradebook: Shows progress in learning outcomes, not just grades.
These platforms demonstrate that a mix of streaks, badges, progress indicators, celebratory feedback, and light competition are effective for increasing engagement. Open edX can adopt and adapt these mechanisms to motivate learners, focusing initially on simple, visual, and incremental progress feedback mechanisms.
Implementation Plan
This initiative will follow a phased rollout that builds progressively from core functionality to broader learner engagement and social visibility.
Stage 1 – Daily Streak Tracking
Introduce basic streak tracking functionality that records daily learner activity. Display streaks prominently on the learner profile, dashboard, or other key surfaces, determined through early prototyping and usability testing.
Goal: Establish an initial, habit-forming feature before launching the full Activity Feed.
Stage 2 – Basic Activity Feed
Build a first version of the learner-facing Activity Feed by combining streak data with key milestone events such as course enrollments and completions. This feed will serve as a central space for learners to reflect on their ongoing effort and achievements.
Goal: Deliver a lightweight but meaningful feed that reinforces learner motivation through visible progress.
Stage 3 – Public and Shareable Activity Feed
Enable learners to optionally make parts of their feed visible in their learner profile. Support features such as feed sharing, following other learners, or surfacing “people like you” to foster community and inspiration.
Goal: Encourage motivation through social recognition and peer-based comparison, while maintaining learner control over visibility.
Stage 4 – Platform Configuration and Admin Controls
Extend the Activity Feed with robust platform-level controls so that site administrators can determine how the feature appears and behaves across the learning environment. This includes:
Site-wide feature toggles to enable or disable the Activity Feed globally or per site.
Granular visibility settings to define which types of activity (e.g., streaks, completions, XP) are shown by default in the learner feed.
Configuration of default widget placement in learner dashboards or profiles, including whether widgets like “Streak Tracker” or “Milestone Highlights” are shown automatically or require learner opt-in.
Integration with the Learner Profile MFE, allowing administrators to customize which feed items are eligible for public display (e.g., allowing course completions but not forum participation).
Support for future extension via Django Admin or Site Configuration, enabling advanced use cases like institution-specific branding, localized messaging, or privacy-preserving defaults.
Goal: Empower administrators with the tools needed to tailor the learner motivation experience to their organizational context, instructional goals, and privacy policies.
Stage 5 – Feature Expansion Based on Engagement Signals
Explore the addition of new motivational features or complementary tools that build upon initial engagement. This could include:
Daily Quests & Events: Short-term challenges that appear in the feed to drive specific actions.
Leaderboards: Rankings based on XP, badges, or streak length.
Notifications: Timely nudges to protect streaks or celebrate new milestones.
Goal: Evolve the feature set based on learner behavior, platform capabilities, and emerging motivational patterns.
Each stage lays the foundation for the next, allowing the platform to evolve incrementally while measuring impact, ensuring extensibility, and incorporating feedback from learners and instructors throughout.
Plan for long-term ownership/maintainership
The feed should rely on existing event tracking and integrate cleanly with future improvements to data pipelines (e.g., Aspects). It should be modular, customizable, and extensible by course authors and platform maintainers.
Open questions for rollout/releases
What features are most meaningful to learners?
What data sources should be prioritized to ensure reliable tracking?
How can learners or instructors configure which items appear in the feed?
How can the feed support personalized learning in the future, including possible CBE features?