Attendees

The Technical Oversight Committee met on May 14, 2025 with the following members in attendance:

• Anant Agarwal (2U)

• Aref Matin (2U)

• Dustin Tingley (Harvard)

• Edward Zarecor (Axim) 

• Jeremy Ristau (2U)

• Nacho Despujol (Instructor Representative, UPV)

• Régis Behmo (Operator & Core Contributor Representative, Edly)

• Shreshtha Gupta (National Skills Development Corporation NSDC)

• Xavier Antoviaque (User/Learner representative, OpenCraft)

Guest presenters:

• Dave Ormsbee (Principal Architect, Axim)

• Jenna Makowski (Senior Product Manager, Axim)

Introduction and Participant Introductions

Members introduced themselves, with special focus on the new members joining the committee:

• Shreshtha Gupta, CTO of NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation) India, introduced herself as a technology leader with experience in various domains including healthcare, retail, and supply chain before joining the skilling sector. She has been associated with skilling for nearly seven years and leads technology initiatives at NSDC, where Open edX serves as their learning management system platform.

• Aref Matin, recently joined CTO at 2U, shared his 15-year experience in the education space, having worked previously at Pearson, Ascent Learning, and other education-focused organizations. He brings expertise in content management, cloud infrastructure, and security.

Announcements

Product Proposal from Pearson - Course Content Translation

A product proposal from Pearson regarding support for translations of course content was shared. This led to significant discussion about approaches to content translation:

2U's current approach to translations focuses on translating text components and video transcripts through a custom XBlock plugin that makes API calls to retrieve translated versions. Users can select languages on the fly, with video transcripts being translated through asynchronous batch jobs.

It was noted that current translation approaches in platforms like edX and Coursera don't fully translate courses but rather focus on text and subtitles, noting that truly multilingual courses would require video translations as well.

Some suggested learning from Coursera's experiences, noting they may have over-engineered their solution compared to actual market needs.

Other Announcements

The committee was informed about:

• The upcoming Open edX Conference in the first week of July near Paris, with a request for members to help promote it

• A grant opportunity with the Digital Credentials Consortium and Walmart Foundation to build AI assistance features into Studio

• The latest Open edX release (Teak) with new features related to content libraries

NSDC Presentation - Digital Skilling Initiatives in India

Shreshtha Gupta presented NSDC's work in India, focusing on their mission to make India the "skill capital of the world."

NSDC Overview and Evolution

Shreshtha explained that NSDC serves as the central architect of the skilling ecosystem in India, working closely with education systems, industry, and government. The organization has evolved through three eras since its formation in 2008, moving from being under the Ministry of Labor to becoming part of a dedicated Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

She detailed how NSDC created 36 sector skill councils representing various industries and established national qualification standards through the National Skills Qualification Framework.

Scale and Impact

NSDC has trained 42 million candidates to date, with 9.4 million placed in jobs. Their ecosystem includes 40,000 physical training centers, 46,000 skill assessors, and 74,000 skilled teachers across 750 districts in India. They work with 22 different countries, 23 government ministries, and 15,000 higher education institutions.

Digital Platform: Skill India Digital Hub

Shreshtha described the challenges that led to creating their digital platform:

• Industry-training mismatch

• Trust and verification issues

• Affordability concerns

• Quality assurance challenges

• Discoverability of training programs

• Inclusion and accessibility hurdles

She explained that NSDC launched the Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH) in September 2023, incorporating Open edX as their LMS platform. This digital public infrastructure was designed to be user-friendly and familiar to those accustomed to e-commerce or social media platforms.

Key features include:

• Job discovery and aggregation from domestic and global sources

• Digital verifiable credentials to solve trust issues

• Convergence of stakeholders (government, corporates, educators)

• Portable blockchain-based certifications

• Anytime, anywhere learning with immersive experiences

The platform has registered 15 million candidates since launch, with 10 million completing e-KYC verification. It offers 7,000 skill courses in 23 Indian languages and has facilitated 11 billion direct benefit transfers to citizens.

Rule-Based Access Control System Revamp

Jenna Makowski (Senior Product Manager) and Dave Ormsbee (Principal Architect) presented plans to revamp the role-based access control system for Open edX.

Current Pain Points

Jenna shared insights from user research involving 30 survey respondents and 8 follow-up interviews, revealing five key issues:

1. Current roles don't map well to actual persona needs, leading to over-permissioning

2. Lack of granular and nuanced roles

3. Difficulty changing role scope or adding new roles

4. Security risks due to over-permissioning

5. No central place to manage roles

Proposed Solution

The team outlined a permissions-based approach where:

• Granular permissions would be defined (e.g., create a course, reset grades)

• Permissions would be grouped into permission sets

• Permission sets would map to roles

• Default roles would cover 80% of needs

• Custom roles could be created by combining different permission sets

• Roles would be stackable and centrally managed

Technical Approach

Dave Ormsbee discussed technical considerations, including:

• Building on the Web66 user authorization document authored by team members at 2U

• Exploring options within the Django ecosystem

• Implementing as a standalone repository for easier plugin integration

• Starting with libraries as an MVP before migrating course-related permissions

In response to a question about using commercial off-the-shelf solutions, Dave emphasized the need for an open-source solution that could integrate with Django's pluggable permission system. It was suggested to consider KeyCloak, which NSDC uses successfully for their Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) needs.

Agreed Next Steps

1. The NSDC presentation slides will be shared with the committee for further review

2. Details about 2U's translation implementation will be added to the GitHub issue for Pearson's proposal

3. Community members will provide feedback on Pearson's translation proposal directly in the GitHub issue

4. Links to wiki pages where Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) design discussions are happening will be shared

5. Information about KeyCloak integration with Open edX will be shared for evaluation

6. Discussion topics for future meetings were identified:

   • Admin dashboard centralization strategy

   • The OEP (Open edX Proposal) process and potential improvements