Discussions: Configuration & Setting Centralization
TL;DR: The initial Discussions initiative milestones have been completed, enabling edx configuration for Yellowdig + Piazza discussion integrations, as well as the initial edx internal preview of the new Page & Resources view in Studio. This new Studio view will roll out to educators (in ~July / August) as a way to centrally configure discussions and other course applications after additional testing and iteration. This work is also the first end user-visible result of many months of investment in LTI infrastructure and the second page to use our new course authoring MFE.
TL;UseEmoji:
Product Lead: @Marco Morales (Deactivated)
Engineering Lead: @Awais Jibran (Deactivated) + @Sarina Canelake (Do Not Use) (Deactivated)
What is it?
The ability for edX admin to configure on a course team’s behalf Yellowdig and Piazza course discussion integrations (with more options to come in the future).
An edx internal preview of the new Studio app configuration area aka (Pages & Resources) that will roll out incrementally to educators in ~July/August.
Our first end-user visible expression of LTI infrastructure investments and the expanded use of our course authoring MFE.
Additional detail for each “what is it?” item
#1 - In March we let partners know that we now support LTI based integrations for course discussions. Piazza and Yellowdig can be configured by edX so that the Discussions tab in courses embeds a full view of their integration. In the near future, educators will be able to configure these integrations themselves in Studio. Previously, course teams had to rely on workarounds for discussion integrations – asking learners not to use the Discussions tab, providing links to their external discussions within the content experience, or other adjustments to hide the edX Discussion area entirely.
#2 - Additionally, we have enabled an edX internal preview of the new Studio Page & Resources area. In this area, educators will be able to enable and configure all course applications eventually. Currently, only discussions can be configured in this preview, but in the coming weeks, other tools will be added ( Teams, Wiki, Progress, Textbooks, Custom Pages, and Notes). After an internal testing phase, we will roll this out to educators broadly.
#3 - Investments in our LTI infrastructure make possible our ability to configure these course discussion integrations. A great deal of behind-the-scenes work was completed to extend our existing course content LTI tools to support the general configuration of LTI integrations in other platform areas. Relatedly, the new Page & Resources view is powered by the new course authoring MFE, created to help us migrate course authoring experiences over time to the latest front-end technologies.
Key talking points for customers:
Why work on this area of the platform?
Course app configuration and discussions configuration are both rated as top 25 teaching and learning platform gaps according to our latest partner platform expert ratings and interviews. The discussion experience is also broadly speaking one of the top themes and trends across several other partner feedback channels.
By simplifying how educators configure discussions and other course applications we hope to simplify course authoring and management friction that results in higher costs to run courses.
Who will notice the change, and where?
This initial release is intentionally visible only to edX internal team members, with plans to expand visibly as we complete additional testing. Once fully rolled out this app configuration experience will be visible in Studio in the “Content” dropdown of any course’s authoring experience.
Will other integrations be supported?
Beyond Piazza and Yellowdig we are also working on support for Discourse, Inscribe, and Ed Discuss but we are still testing these additional configurations in collaboration with these providers.
My partners are interested in discussions and providing additional feedback, how can they do that?
We have shared previews of this upcoming experience with UQ, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, UT, and Berkeley, but for now please reach out to @Marco Morales (Deactivated) or @Jon F with additional partner feedback. In July / August we plan to introduce in-platform ways for educators to share feedback about this experience as shown below.
Results
Despite a partner portal broadcast in March letting teams know that they have the ability to use discussion integrations, along with specific course team follow-ups for edX + Yellowdig / Piazza customers, we have seen limited interest so far in configuring these tools in May / June. Some of this is to be expected since less than 1% of the catalog relies on third-party discussions and many of these courses are archived or Master’s courses already comfortable having tools live outside the edX experience. Some upcoming course runs in the summer have expressed interest in this option but we may have the Studio authoring experience ready for them to configure directly by then.
Our primary goal for this project as described in our Consumer Review spec memo is “to transition over 90% of courses using third-party discussion integrations to use the new configuration model three months after general availability.” We plan to review this goal three months after the ability for educators to directly configure these discussions is available.
Credits / A Group Effort!
Thanks to the Infinity squad (formerly known as T&L Pakistan)- @Awais Jibran (Deactivated) , @Asad Azam , @Ahtisham Shahid , @Saad Yousaf , @Mehak Nasir (Deactivated) , @Awais Ansari for driving recent efforts on this project. Thanks also to @Jon F and @Gabriel Weinberg on the UX team for their efforts in bringing to life this experience in our new design system world.
Additionally, a big thanks to former T&L team members @Sarina Canelake (Do Not Use) (Deactivated) , @David Joy (Deactivated) , @sburch (Deactivated) , as they drove much of the behind-the-scenes work since July 2020 that mas made this initial set of milestones possible.
This project is a multi-part blended development project that is also enabled by the development team at OpenCraft. Thanks to @JP Beaudry (Deactivated) , @Edward Zarecor (Do Not Use) (Deactivated) , @Michelle Philbrick (Do Not Use) (Deactivated), and the Open edX team whose continued support of the blended development model has helped us push forward these investments in collaboration with OpenCraft while also in parallel driving other internal development projects forward.