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2026-02-23 Educators WG: Ulmo Educator Demos

2026-02-23 Educators WG: Ulmo Educator Demos

Educators WG: Ulmo Educator Demos

Attachments Educators WG: Ulmo Educator Demos Notes - Educators WG: Ulmo Educator Demos 

Meeting records Transcript Recording 

 

Summary

John Swope convened the educator working group, which focused on the practical implementation of Ulmo features:

1. John demoed reusable LTI capabilities

  1. Ildi presented learner notifications and managing preferences

  2. John demonstrated content reuse with the new Libraries.

 

Details

  • Ulmo Adoption and Sandbox Use: The team checked on Ulmo adoption, noting that few attendees had upgraded or started using it, apart from John Swope's personal sandbox and Stefania’s work on the public sandbox (00:05:59). Stefania confirmed that the sandbox setup includes scripts for integration, course deletion after 24 hours, and automated course resets, but they were unsure if the demo course was the latest version. Stefania committed to checking if the demo course was the latest one and sharing that information (00:07:19).

  • Reusable LTI Demonstrations: John Swope demonstrated the reusable LTI feature, addressing the historical challenge of needing a separate LTI block and configuration for every connection (00:09:36). The new system allows educators to set up a "trusted handshake" with an LTI provider once via a back-end configuration, and then reuse those credentials across multiple LTI blocks in a course. John Swope noted that while the authentication is reused, each LTI block still requires configuration to specify the particular exercise or tool to be used, potentially via deep linking or extra parameters (00:10:48) (00:14:39).

  • LTI Implementation Notes: John Swope shared technical notes from their LTI setup experience, observing that although the documentation stated the redirect URI was optional, they could not successfully configure the connection without including it. They also highlighted that the tool provider must have a way to be told which specific exercise Open edX intends to use, separate from the initial handshake (00:14:39). The reusable LTI capability simplifies configuration, replacing the need to individually configure numerous fields in every LTI block instance (00:12:09).

  • Learner Notification Settings: Ildi Morris provided an overview of the notification feature, which is enabled starting with the Ulmo release (00:15:37). Learners manage their notification preferences globally via their account settings, where they can choose to receive updates via the web notification tray, email, or both (00:17:13). Learners can also set the cadence for notifications to be daily, weekly (default is Sunday at 22 UTC), or right away, and these updates cover discussion forum posts, course updates, and grading (00:18:19).

  • Notification Display and Context: Ildi Morris showcased the notification tray, noting that the icon's placement may be lower down on the main course screen in Ulmo. The notifications are categorized into discussion, updates, and grading, providing a preview of the content (00:19:33). Jenna Makowski confirmed that the notification feature must be explicitly enabled, and later clarified that "course updates" refer to instructor updates posted in the course update section (00:17:13) (00:29:14).

  • Notification Channel Feedback: Kimberly Welch inquired about the possibility of receiving notifications via text message instead of just email, specifically mentioning that learners in Ethiopia frequently use WhatsApp and have limited bandwidth for institutional email (00:31:05). Jenna Makowski noted that only web and email notifications are currently supported and that text/SMS is not on the immediate roadmap, though feedback on interest in this feature is welcomed. The next focus for notifications will be on enabling them by default and then integrating notifications for Open Response Assessment (ORA) assignments (00:30:06).

  • Studio Notification Behavior: Stefania raised questions about the intended behavior and documentation for the notification bell within the Studio environment, noting initial confusion during testing regarding when notifications were visible (00:31:56). Stefania explained that a script was required to make the Studio notifications work correctly, which was not intuitive or documented (00:31:56). Jenna Makowski acknowledged that the Studio notifications should link automatically to the LMS notifications and committed to following up with the development team for better documentation, suggesting that library updates were an initial key use case for Studio notifications (00:35:01).

  • Libraries and Content Reuse: John Swope demonstrated the use of libraries for easily reusing and updating specific content across multiple courses, focusing on the use case of onboarding content (00:20:50). Content is organized into collections, which contain units, sections, or subsections that can be used from the library into any course (00:21:51). They emphasized that the content can be reused at the component, unit, section, or subsection level and is identifiable in the course outline by a special icon (00:24:15).

  • Content Update Workflow: John Swope detailed the process for updating shared library content, explaining that they can edit a unit (e.g., a Zoom video link) in the library, publish the library changes, and then sync those changes across all linked courses (00:25:20). When a course is refreshed, a notification appears indicating the component is out of sync, requiring the user to review and accept the changes, and then publish the course to make the new content visible to students (00:26:09). This new workflow streamlines updates across many courses, replacing the need to manually change links in each course individually (00:27:04).

  • Upcoming Working Group: John Swope announced that the next working group meeting, scheduled for March 16th, will focus on the AI Extensions Group and their work on making the Open edX architecture more extensible for integrating AI tools (00:37:36). Attendees were thanked for their participation, and the meeting concluded .

 

Suggested next steps

  • Jenna Makowski will connect with [??] to get better documentation of the studio side of the notifications feature.

  • Jenna Makowski will focus on getting notifications enabled by default as a key goal for Verwood.

  • Jenna Makowski will focus on Aura notifications as the next kind of feature to focus on.

 

Notes created by Gemini and reviewed by John.