Overview

Abstract

We should find the lowest effort path to migrate away from XBlock configuration in the Advanced Settings page in Studio. Initial thinking here is pointing toward adding configuration of XBlocks available in your course to being accessed from the Pages & Resources view in Studio. This lets us move to listing patterns for Core Blocks, Advanced Blocks, and potentially also LTI Blocks.

Context & Background

• It has been too many years that we have asked course educators to use JSON to enable advanced content blocks, and we can do better using newer platform tools. (MFEs + Paragon)

• We would like to surface existing platform flexibility and configuration power even as we look toward larger directory efforts to further enrich these capabilities.

• From initial conversations, this seemed like an opportunity to explore surfacing configuration defaults for common content blocks (ex: Video settings, Capa problem defaults to unlimited attempts), advanced blocks (goodbye Advanced Settings config), as well as LTI blocks.

Scope & Approach

• The team at Schema has only just started scope and approach discovery review based on discussion from the Open edX 2024 Conference regarding Xblocks + Flexibility / Configuration themes in State of Open edX keynote.

• We are interested in collaborating with the community on next steps for this project, including product and design definition, as well as eventually potential sequencing & funding options.

• A new Content Blocks card within the Pages & Resources area in Studio could be the right place to show all content block details and configuration options.

  • Common - Basic course content blocks: Video, Problems, Drag Drop, ORA, Text / HTML, (others?)

  • Advanced - This would take all site level xblocks and make them all visible by default within the “Advanced” card on Unit pages. They could be disabled at the site / org level in the future. This intersects with a future XBlock directory for the community, but can be delivered incrementally with a focus on improved educator configuration and visibility to start.

  • LTI - We could also move to having course levle configuration for LTI blocks, with course level configuration workflows similar to Canvas and other tools. This would make that block more easily selected from the Unit page. This work may need several increments as it intersects with both configuration needs and a future LTI directory.

• As a result of this work we would ideally be able to remove the Advanced Module List area in Advanced settings and mark that setting field deprecated.

Value & Impact

• We should be able to remove the painful experience of configuring xblocks through a JSON block in advanced settings, and recognize that course educators deserve to spent time in an easy to use authoring environment not an administrator like tool experience.

• We hope this encourages broader review and use of existing XBlocks and encourages educators to explore other blocks already enabled at the instance level that they may not know exist because of the advanced settings configuration pre-requisite to seeing these blocks on Unit pages.

• This would make incremental progress toward course level common xblock default settings, and also provide a home for LTI configuration and visibility at the course level.

Concept Sketches

These are v1.1 updates to the original visuals for this effort. What is included in the next design is still TBD, but this shows some of the patterns being echoed from the content libraries work in development currently around content block cards.

Figma collateral for input and feedback as well: Visually Configure Content Blocks

Open

Shows new Content Blocks area on Pages & Resources view with nested page shown next.

Open

Milestones and / or Epics

Initiative 1: Default On Advanced Components in Studio Unit Pages

Goal: Default all advanced components (after review) to be visible within the Advanced card on Studio Unit pages from the list of xblocks enabled automatically in the open edx platform.

• We would like to review the list of xblocks enabled by default in the Open edX platform, and mark which ones should be visible by default as “Advanced” components, and which should be “Common” blocks shown as a dedicated card on Unit pages within Studio.

• In configuration for XBlocks, we would be adding a way to denote which ones are default enabled in courses, and possibly other fields to be considered at this time (Support Level, Documentation URL, etc). This could be a way also for sites that enable custom xblocks to mark them as “default enabled” within their instances.

• In this small initial scope we are hoping to deliver visibility of components even if improved configuration isn’t yet possible.

Screens:

Initiative 2: Course Components Page in Studio (+ Add Advanced workflow)

Goal: Introduce new central location to review course level components, to eventually contain Common, Advanced, and LTI blocks. As a starting point this version would show Common + Advanced blocks, as well as the ability to “Add Advanced Component” which would let you more easily configure non-default advanced blocks.

• This initiative would introduce a basic “Course Components” card in Studio within the Pages & Resources area that shows a list of all common and advanced blocks in the course.

• The ability to “Add Advanced Component” from this view would let you specify the name of a block, allowing a course to enable advanced xblocks that are installed but not shown by default.

  • By adding this we can fully deprecate the Advanced Settings “Advanced Modules” list since we will have a mechanism for enabling non-default blocks at the course level.

Screens:

Initiative 3: Documentation Review - Course Components

Goal: Identify plan to update documentation to match reduced configuration requirements and new way to enable non-default xblocks for a future named release.

• We should determine the path forward for updating documentation to match the changes in Initiative 1 and 2. Both these first initiatives lay the foundation for future updates, but enough will have changed that we should do a full documentation revamp for components at this point.

Note: Documentation draft updates have been started and are visible here: Documentation Review

Initiative 4: Revisit Unit Page Add Components UI

Goal: Review the UI for adding components to a unit page, and take the findings of recent efforts around LTI Redesign Project , the Brief: A Vision for Content Libraries work, and more to account for secondary selection lists for LTI + Advanced Blocks.

Initiative 5: Common Block Configuration at Course Level

Goal: Augment listing of common blocks in “Course Components” area to support block level defaults at the course level.

• There are a number of advanced settings that set course level defaults for blocks like the Text, Video, and Problem blocks. By putting configuration for thse into the new course components area we can ALSO mark these settings deprecated.

• List of Advanced Settings that would move into Common Components - configuration views

  • Maximum attempts - Problem configuration

  • Randomization - Problem configuration

  • Show Answer - Problem configuration

  • Video sharing options - Video configuration

  • Force flexible grading for peer oras - ORA configuration

  • Enable latex compiler - text / html blocks (is this still alive and usable?)

Initiative 6: LTI Block Configuration at Course Level

Goal: Connect LTI configuration and review to be possible at the course level in the same place as other course components.

Initiative 7: Layout and Data Improvements to Component Configuration

Goal: Update the Course Components page to include both a table listing and card view, with the incorporation of course usage data to help visualize to educators which blocks are being used in their course.

This is an opportunity to help order blocks based on active course usage, and potentially find a way to designate which blocks are mobile friendly as well. The grid and card layouts would echo patterns we are exploring in the Content Library project.

Initiative 8 + Other topics include:

• Full XBlock Directory / Publishing Workflow

• Open edX LTI Directory / Publishing Workflow

• Org / Site Level LTI Configuration → This is being covered by LTI Redesign Project , should review pattern similarity.

• LTI Block Add on Unit Page → This is being covered by LTI Redesign Project , should review pattern similarity.

• Instance / Site / Org Level Controls for Components (echoing the work done for LTI in LTI Redesign Project with this being available at the site level.) This would let there be site / platform / org level ways to confgiure block dfautls or allow / disallow certain blocks further down at the course level, giving for example and Org the ability to default enable a tool that we would otherwise not want enabled for other orgs by default.

Named Release

This is TBD based on community interest and funding.

Timeline

TBD

Proposed By

@Marco Morales , and team @ Schema Education

Discovery: XBlocks installed into Open edX by default

We are in the process of migrating this original table to a Confluence Database to support multiple views, filtering, sorting, etc. You can view this here: Content Blocks

Archived Concept Sketches

Included below are visually originally generated for the proposal, but pushed down into this area in favor of current visuals highlighted above.