[Proposal] Graded Discussions (v1)

View the Github ticket for proposal status updates.

View the Github ticket for proposal status updates.

Overview

It should be possible to grade participation in discussions and factor this grading into a learner’s score for a course.

Problem

Currently, course teams and students use the Open edX Discussion Micro Frontend (MFE) to share ideas, views, and ask questions. However, there is no process for course admins to assign grades to student discussion responses.

The specific pain points include:

Course Admins cannot assign points to learner discussion responses. Enforcing a grade will encourage students to participate in discussions, swap ideas, and interact with their peers.
Course Admins cannot define the criteria of the discussion grade in the discussion settings. Defining the criteria of a discussion grade will encourage how often students participate, as well as the content of their participation.

Note: Course team members in Studio are not automatically granted discussion administration roles. Course Admins need to explicitly grant a team member a role in order to moderate or administer course discussions.

Note: Course team members in Studio are not automatically granted discussion administration roles. Course Admins need to explicitly grant a team member a role in order to moderate or administer course discussions.

Use Cases

As a course administrator, I want to be able to grant permissions to course staff in order for them to better manage graded discussions.
As an instructor, I want to make discussions gradable so that I can verify engagement.
As an instructor, I want to encourage students to participate regularly in thoughtful discussions.
As an instructor, I want to constrain graded discussions between date windows so that I can ensure learners are participating at the same time.
As a course staff member, I want a grading utility for discussions so that I can evaluate learners' contributions expeditiously.
As a learner, I want a rubric for graded discussions so that I know on which dimensions my contributions will be judged.

Proposed Solution

This document outlines a minimal but viable solution for graded discussions. Options for streamlining and automation are minimized, but can be added in subsequent updates.

Technical Approach

Currently, it is only possible to attach grades to XBlocks. We propose to extend grading to other features. This will require a significant reworking of the grading code. However, once completed, not only will graded discussions be possible, but other plugins will be able to leverage this capability to grade things outside of the normal course content paradigm.

Roles

The table below only takes graded discussion functionality in account. See the following links for a more extensive list of the team member discussion roles and permissions:

Administrators can:

Function	Admin	Discussion Admin*	Discussion Moderator*	TA

Function	Admin	Discussion Admin*	Discussion Moderator*	TA
Manage graded discussion posts as per the existing discussion roles	✔	✔	✔	✔
Create and manage graded discussion rubrics	✔	✔	✘	✘
Add / edit grades	✔	✔	✔	✘
Grant graded discussion permissions to existing team members	✔ Can grant permissions to: Staff, Discussion Admins, Discussion Moderators, Group Community TAs & Community TAs	✔ Can grant permissions to: Discussion Moderators, Group Community TAs & Community TAs	✘	✘

Note: Staff must be assigned a Discussion Admin, or Moderator role before being able to manage Discussions or Graded Discussions The Group Community TA has the same permissions as a Community TA, except the Group Community TA can only manage specific discussion groups assigned to them.

Note: Staff must be assigned a Discussion Admin, or Moderator role before being able to manage Discussions or Graded Discussions The Group Community TA has the same permissions as a Community TA, except the Group Community TA can only manage specific discussion groups assigned to them.

Students can:

✔ View the discussion’s possible points
✔ View the grading rubric (how will points be awarded)
✔ View discussion description (how many posts, responses, word count etc)
✔ View the due date
✔ Add a post to a graded discussion

With the above in mind, we need to design and build a feature that will allow non-technical users to manage graded discussions. Graded discussions can be added to:

Units
Course Wide Discussions

Graded Discussions in Studio

Once the Admin has installed the Discussions MFE and configured the “Discussion settings”, we suggest the following process in Studio:

Automatically assign Grading to Graded discussions according to the Subsection Grading Settings: