TL;DR: 

Programs and Masters’s degree teams will now be able to integrate third-party discussion tools into their edX program pages / degree portals. The edX team can configure Yellowdig, Inscribe, EdDiscuss, or Piazza to be used in these new platform areas as a way to embed in-platform discussion communities, especially in situations where partners are already relying on a third-party integration.

Release date: Feb 17th, 2022

Product owner: @Aamir Ayub

What is it? 

Third-party discussion tools integration at the program level and visual updates to the program progress page have been delivered as part of this work. edX administrators can configure these for program + Master’s teams. Below you can see a visual example of the new Community tab which appears if a discussion integration is configured. Integration options include Inscribe, Piazza, YellowDig, and Ed Discuss.

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For program progress pages, we have also made adjustments to page styling to move configured pathways to their own area instead of being forced into a sidebar on the page. This is particularly helpful for programs with many pathways configured as the new Pathways page helps improve readability.

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Key talking points for customers:

Is there anything a user needs to do to enable the feature? 

Program teams will need to contact edx staff in order to configure their discussion integrations at the program level. Depending on the provider partners may need to provide specific LTI details, but once the configuration request exists this can be enabled on program or degree portal areas.

Who will notice the change, and where (LMS/Studio)?

Program learners will see the new program progress page “Community” area once it has been enabled by edx staff.

How does it connect to existing or future features?

We are planning to have Zoom integration at the program and degree level in the near future. Once configured and enabled, Zoom would appear in a “Live” tab on these pages similar to the “Community” tab experience. More details to be shared on this effort soon!

Results: 

We hope to enable this functionality for any Master’s using edX’s portal pages and existing off-platform discussion providers. Further adoption of this tool across programs will be explored with the help of our learning + partner success teams.

Link(s) to additional details: https://2u-internal.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PROD/pages/8914914 (Spec Memo)

Credits: Thanks to Infinity team (@Mehak Nasir (Deactivated) , @Ahtisham Shahid , @Asad Azam , @Awais Ansari , @Awais Jibran (Deactivated) , @Saad Yousaf (Deactivated) ) for discovery, development and testing features in this milestone. Also, thanks for @Jon F for providing the UX design.