Libraries Support Unit, Subsections and Sections

Owned by Jenna Makowski
Last updated: Sept 02, 2024 by Peter Pinch
3 min read

The MVP for the Content Libraries Overhaul enables course authors to create and manage course components (text, video and problems) independently of the course outline, and to reuse components in as many courses as they wish, with the ability to sync updates centrally.

The next phase expands Library support to units, subsections and sections.

This expansion will enable Libraries to support the full range of use cases identified in initial product discovery phases. Most importantly, it will enable course authors to create units, subsections and sections - in other words, full learning sequences - independently of the course outline, and reuse these learning sequences freely.

Functional Requirements

Similar to the Libraries MVP, this phase of work includes user stories that bridge workflows in both Libraries and in courses, more specifically the Course Outline page.

Functional requirements: Library Side

  • Users can create new units, subsections and sections in a Library

  • Users can add and remove units, subsections and sections from Collections

  • User can add and remove tags to units, subsections and sections

  • Search, filter and sort applies to units, subsections and sections

  • Users can publish units, subsections and sections

Functional requirements: Course Side

  • Users can search Libraries for units, subsections and sections from within the course outline

  • Users can select units, subsections and sections from Libraries to use from within a course outline

  • Users receive notifications about content updates made in a library

  • Users can review and accept/deny content updates

  • Users can edit/modify re-used units, subsections and sections with options to keep or break the library sync [This requirement needs to be fleshed out in more detail based on user needs and what’s feasible]

  • Users can track key metadata on Library content, including which courses it’s used in

 

UX/UI Needs

Library-side

  • Libraries must support a creation workflow for creating new units, subsections and sections

  • Libraries must support an editing workflow/editor environment for units, subsections and sections

  • In-context sidebars must be expanded such that each unit, subsection and section has a sidebar.

    • Needs discovery: Are previews necessary? Even possible?

  • Library Home must contain one tab each for units, subsections and sections, where users see a filtered view by content type

  • All of the searching, sorts and filters that apply to components must be extended to units, subsections and sections.

Course-side

  • Course outline page must be redesigned to include the ability for authors to access a library from within a course, search for content, choose a unit, subsection or section, and pull it into a course

    • Needs discovery: How will authors choose where in the course outline to place the library content? What would it take to make the “reuse content” workflow a persistent option from the course outline page?

  • Library sync page must be updated to include any content syncs from re-used units, subsections and sections

  • Content blocks from Libraries must contain fine-grained editing/modification capabilities, so that authors can add content to a re-used section while retaining the sync on the original content

Out of scope

  • Unit page additions. For now, authors will not be able to add library content to the horizontal course nav bar from the Unit page. Instead, all library content at the unit level and above will be added from the Course Outline page.

 

Implementation Contingencies

Open Questions

I’m not too familiar with the plans of this feature. If my questions are off-topic or already answered, feel free to remove them.

  • When the course author is editing a section or a subsection, how/can the UI display the context of the unit being edited? Current implementations replace the entire browser window with the editor, obscuring information about the section and subsection. See this comment for more details.

  • A common workflow for larger courses is for multiple authors and editors to collaborate in another tool (e.g. Google docs) and then copy and paste the content into the editor. Can this be supported, and streamlined?

  • Can we establish minimum performance expectations for opening content for editing? These should be based on real-world legacy content.