It’s that time again. Our quarterly catch up is here, and I’m about to dish out the hottest goss on all things OpenCraft and Open edX 😉. So, drumroll please…
"Tagging" has been a long-requested feature for managing content in Studio, and now OpenCraft is finally designing and building it for Axim Collaborative! While there are big plans, the first release will be a user-friendly, minimal viable product. Here are some of the things everyone can look forward to:
So, get ready for more organized learning content. Tagging will make it easier for you to find, curate, and build relationships between course content. Your learners will thank you too! Think of courses that are effortlessly searchable and primed for personalization.
Contact us if you’d like to know more about the project.
A feature that will be released soon is copying and pasting course content. Talk about saving content authors more time! OpenCraft is very excited to be involved in the UX and development of this project. Ultimately, the feature will allow authors to copy sections, subsections, units and components, and then paste them into different locations within the same course or into a different course. No more duplicate work - whoop!
Keep your eye on the Open edX forum for the official public release of this feature.
We’re proud to announce that during the first six months of this year, three more OpenCrafters were bestowed the Core Contributor title. We now have 13 Core Contributors!
The Open edX Core Contributor program allows members to participate in defining and deciding the direction of the platform through design, coding, marketing, and more. To become a member you need to embody commitment to the project, exemplary conduct, and high caliber contributions. Well done to the following three team members:
Code Contributors:
UX and UI Contributor
Meet our amazing Chief Technology Officer! Braden hails from Vancouver, Canada. When he’s not doing awesome things with code, you’ll catch him hiking the glorious mountains right on his doorstep.
Braden started his journey at OpenCraft in 2014. But his journey in open source started with his first contribution at age 14! He loves being a part of the Open edX community, and the community loves him! He was made a Core Contributor in 2020. Projects that have received a lot of his attention are things related to XBlocks and how they're stored, including Modular Learning and Content Libraries. In fact, he’s super happy about being involved with the Modular Learning efforts where he’s building functionality that he and the community have wanted for a long time. Braden particularly loves being involved in architecture discussions. You’ll often catch him being extremely helpful on the Open edX forum.
Outside of OpenCraft and the Open edX community, Braden likes to work on open source JavaScript/TypeScript projects. He’s a big fan of Deno, TypeScript, and Next.js. He’s also the co-founder of Neolace and TechNotes, and owner of MacDonald Thoughtstuff Inc.
As I mentioned, Braden is really active on the Open edX forum, so reach out to him there!
We’re an elite team of designers and developers, who love creating quality learning management solutions. Let’s chat about your latest project.
This year, the Open edX Conference will be held from March 28 – 31 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The conference schedule is jam-packed with awesome tutorials, talks, and workshops.
You will hear from three of our coding wizards. Check out their talks below:
by Xavier Antoviaque
Would you like to involve your learners in contributing, building, and improving your courses?
Xavier is presenting recognized best-practices that have made open source communities successful. With decades of field-tested approaches in building collaborative online projects, open-source communities can provide a useful perspective to educators looking to develop a different kind of engagement with their students.
Xavier will be speaking on March 29, 2023.
Xavier is an Open edX Technical Oversight Committee member and contributor. He’s also active in several community working groups. And he was one the very first outside contributors to the Open edX codebase!
Xavier founded OpenCraft when he noticed there was a huge demand for instance customization and feature development on edX. To take on this challenge, he rounded up some of the best developers in the world!
OpenCraft is now one of the largest contributors to the Open edX code base (outside of edX, of course). We provide design, development, and hosting services for clients like Harvard, MIT, edX/2U, and Esme.
Xavier loves all things open source and has been a tenured contributor of free software communities; he co-created the free software game Card Stories, initiated the Ryzom.org campaign, and is a former board member of April, the primary free software advocacy organization in France.
Xavier is really active on the Open edX discussion forum. So reach out to him there!
by Braden MacDonald, and tCRIL’s Jenna Makowski and Dave Ormsbee
tCRIL and OpenCraft led Product Discovery work on the Modular Learning Initiative. This initiative makes authoring more flexible by ensuring all parts of the course are independent, composable, and reusable. The teams adopted an “open first” philosophy, making product development a transparent process. Braden, Jenna, and Dave will discuss how community input shaped the project’s direction. They’ll also discuss what they learned, how they can improve community input channels, and ways for those that are interested to stay in the loop.
Braden will be speaking on March 29, 2023.
Braden MacDonald is the CTO of OpenCraft, a Core Contributor to the Open edX project, and an active full stack developer. Braden has led the development of several major features of the Open edX platform, as well as many projects in the broader community ecosystem. He is the official maintainer of projects like Blockstore and Tutor’s ARM64 plugin, as well as several open-source projects outside of Open edX. When he’s not coding, Braden enjoys answering questions on the community forums.
by Jillian Vogel, and tCRIL’s Brian Mesick
What are your wildest dreams for data analytics on the Open edX platform? Jill and Brian want to make those dreams come true.
In this talk, find out how far the Open Analytics Reference System (OARS) for the Open edX platform has come, and help guide where it's going. Jill and Brian want to hear from educators, administrators, operators, developers, and anyone else who wants to know more about how people are interacting with educational content.
Jill will be speaking on March 30, 2023.
Jillian Vogel is a senior open-source developer and DevOps at OpenCraft. She’s an Open edX core contributor, and started contributing to the platform and analytics system in 2016. Jill loves working at OpenCraft because of our values, openness, quality, commitment, and empathy. She’s a firm believer in learning to code. She finds that even if someone doesn’t stay in tech, code is a tool that can be applied to any field, be it science, engineering, arts, or politics.
Catch Jill’s recent interview with LabXchange here.
The Open edX Conference is an annual 4-day event where the Open edX community and experts in ed-tech meet to discuss the latest industry research, technologies to enhance teaching and learning, and any technical advances in the Open edX platform.
We’re an elite team of designers and developers, who love creating quality learning management solutions. Let’s chat about your latest project.
[Conference Preview] Get a sneak peek of the 2023 Open edX Conference with tCRIL's series of "Conference Preview" blog posts. The articles focus on the less-publicized but equally exciting Tuesday and Friday schedules, in addition to the two main days of the conference. Mark your calendars for March 28-31, and stay tuned, as session proposals are currently under evaluation. We know that this year's program promises to be amazing!
-> Tuesday preview blog post
-> Wednesday-Thursday preview blog post
-> Friday preview blog post
[Olive Feature Updates] Sarina Canelake and Jenna Makowski of tCRIL present three captivating blog posts showcasing the latest enhancements and additions in Olive, the newest release of Open edX. The first blog post provides a comprehensive look into the improved authoring experience of the Text Component (previously known as the HTML component), which now supports emoticons, visual tables, and more. The remaining two posts showcase significant and highly-anticipated improvements to the discussion forums, including a refined search function, ability to mark posts as answers, and neat new tools for forum moderators.
-> Improved Studio Editing in Olive
-> New and Improved Discussion Forums
-> Moderation & Authoring Tools for the New Discussions Features
[Olive Release Notes] Looking for what has changed in the Olive release? Find the release notes here.
[Core Contributor Retros] Did you know that Core Contributors work in bi-weekly sprints and share their progress at the end of each sprint using Listaflow, an open-source checklist tool developed by OpenCraft? Their reports, accessible on Discuss, provide insights into what tasks require assistance, in case you're interested in lending a hand. Keep up-to-date on the latest sprint reports!
[Meetup Recording] The recording of the January online Community meetup can be watched here. This meetup featured the following presentations:
___
Open source and free, a gift from above,
The Open edX platform brings knowledge, so that we can grow.
An endless stream of learning, for one and all,
Its power immense, shall answer our call.
With endless possibility, for young and old,
To explore and grow, with stories untold.
So gather ye students, from near and far,
And let the Open edX platform, be thy guiding star.
- Courtesy of ChatGPT
[Olive Released 🫒] The fifteenth Open edX community release, called Olive, is now out! The release was coordinated by the Open edX community via the Build / Test / Release working group, and brings improvements to the Discussions Micro-frontend (MFE) and HTML component editors, but also novelties like the brand-new Authentication MFE.
You can also learn more about Olive at the upcoming Open edX Community Meetup, scheduled for 1/26/2023 at 10 AM (EDT). A registration link to this free virtual event will soon be posted on the Open edX blog.
[Listaflow — Remote Collaboration] In addition to Open edX development, OpenCraft has been working on the development of Listaflow, an open source workflow tool for remote team collaboration and reporting. In the blog post highlight below, our UX designer Ali Hugo presents the product, and explains how the early release is already being put to good use by the Open edX community. Scroll down to learn more!
[2023 Conference CFP] The Call For Proposals for the 2023 Open edX Conference is open until January 23rd, 2023. All community members are welcome to participate and submit their ideas! To learn about the types of presentations the Community is seeking, and how you can submit a presentation proposal, please visit Sessionize. Early bird rates for conference tickets are up until early January, so be quick and buy your tickets!
[December Meetup Recap] The recording of the December Open edX Community Meetup can be watched online. Here's a recap of the program:
[Easy Tomato Sauce] I love cooking, and I love sharing recipes. Here’s one for a simple, yet very tasty marinara sauce. It's great on everything. It's one of my secret weapons. All you need is 3-4 ingredients and a few hours' time. Share this red deliciousness with friends and family, and appreciate the small, great things in life.
[2023 Conference Keynotes] The team at tCRIL announced the first two keynote speakers for the 2023 Open edX Conference, taking place March 28-31 at MIT:
Early Bird rates are available for only a few more weeks – so go ahead and book your conference ticket!
-> Register now for the 2023 Open edX Conference
[December Meetup] The next online Community Meetup will be held on December 8th, 2022 at 10 AM (EDT). Here's the session lineup:
-> Book your free Meetup seat!
[TOC Elections] Following the first-ever election for Open edX's Technical Oversight Committee (TOC), 3 elected members will represent the community at the project’s governing body:
They will join the TOC on January 1st 2023, and serve until the end of the year.
We'd like to thank all the participants in the election, especially the candidates, voters, and community members who have relayed the calls to register to vote!
[Product Survey] tCRIL has issued a short survey to learn about how people use the Open edX Platform. The survey will help them figure out:
• What features to build next
• How they can make the platform better for institutions, course authors, and their users
• How they can support users better
If your organization uses or has used the Open edX platform in the past to deliver online learning or training, please take two minutes to answer the survey.
Here's a recap of our October 2022 newsletter:
[Open edX Conference 2023] The 2023 Open edX conference has just been announced! The event will take place between Tuesday, March 28 and Friday, March 31 2023 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The annual conference is a great opportunity to meet members of the community from around the world, attend captivating talks, and learn about innovative uses of the Open edX Platform. Registration is now open on Eventbrite, with Early Bird rates valid until January 6th. The Call For Proposal is now also open. You can read the official announcement for more detailed info. We'll be sharing more news about the conference in subsequent newsletters. Stay tuned, and see you there!
-> Register now for the 2023 Open edX Conference
[October Meetup Recap] The October Open edX Community meetup featured three presentations:
[OEP Review] OEP 57 is currently open for community reviews. OEPs (Open edX Proposals) specify a best practice, architectural decision, or process that the Open edX community has agreed should be adopted by the project. In the case of OEP57, it is intended to serve as a glossary to the key terms and concepts that will guide and frame the Open edX product management organization and product practice. Your comments and questions can be posted directly on the Confluence page!
[Join a Working Group!] Working Groups are community-led teams dedicated to a project or projects that fit under an easily definable business process. They are designed to create and/or facilitate a particular feature set within the Open edX platform. They are also an authoritative body giving the community structure and a process for decision-making. For example, see this recent Open edX blog post presenting the Translation Working Group. Join the Open edX community and take part in our collaboration efforts!
Here's a recap of our September newsletter:
[TOC Election - Sep 30 deadline] In October, the Open edX Community will be called to elect 3 members of the new core decision-making body of the Open edX project — the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) — and we need your help! The 3 elected community representatives will join the TOC, along with the 3 members from tCRIL and the 3 members from 2U.
The 3 elected community representatives have the mission to represent the community as a whole, but with each a specific focus:
If you are running an active course on Open edX, please register to vote! This includes any form of contribution to the authoring of a course, and particularly Teaching Assistants (TAs).
Voter registration is open until September 30th, and the election will be held in October. For more details about the election, see the TOC Community Election Charter.
[Join a Working Group] Working Groups are community-led teams dedicated to an Open edX-related project that fit under an easily definable business process. They are designed to create and/or facilitate a particular feature set within the Open edX platform. They are also an authoritative body giving the community structure and a process for decision-making. For example, see this recent Open edX blog post presenting the Translation Working Group. Join the Open edX community and take part in our collaboration efforts!
[Open edX Overview] Here's a frequently asked question: What's the distinction between edX, Open edX, and now tCRIL (The Center For Reimagining Learning)?
Ed Zarecor, Open edX's VP of Engineering, just helped solve the riddle by presenting an overview of the Open edX ecosystem at the September Community meetup. His presentation helps differentiate edX (the company, and learning destination), Open edX (the open source learning platform), and tCRIL (the non-profit entity that manages the Open edX platform along with the community). Ed also touches on the acquisition of edX by 2U in November 2021, tCRIL's mission, project governance, and a few more frequently asked questions.
-> Watch presentation recording
[Advanced Assessments] At the last Community meetup, Curricu.me founder John Swope presented a talk titled "Advanced Assessment in Open edX and how Anyone Can Use It", which offered insights into how non-technical or semi-technical course authors can leverage the platform's advanced components (JavaScript, Python, SCORM, etc.) to enhance their courses.
-> Watch presentation recording
[September Community Meetup] The September Open edX Meetup will happen on Thursday September 22 at 10am EST. It will feature two speakers: John Swope, from Curricu.me, and Ed Zarecor, VP of Engineering at tCRIL. John will demonstrate how to use Advanced Assessment and Javascript within the Open edX platform with fun and flexible exercises. Ed will share updates regarding the Open edX ecosystem. Registration is free, so save the date and join us!
-> Register for the event on Eventbrite
[August Meetup Recording] The recording of the August Open edX Community Meetup is now available. In the event, Hen Eytan from Annoto discussed how to use interactive video tools within e-learning modules to optimize learning, and how to leverage their analytics tool to monitor learner engagement. Elizabeth Madariaga, from Edios Media, discussed the topic of localizing courses and connecting with learners in their native languages. She presented a case study on a recent course translation project, including the issuing of certificates in the students’ native languages.
[H5P XBlock] Community members Edly have just announced the release of the H5P XBlock, giving learners the ability to easily self-host and play H5P content in Open edX. H5P is an open source tool used to create rich and easily embeddable course content such as interactive videos, quizzes, and presentations. Previously, H5P content could be integrated via the LTI XBlock with some tinkering, but the new H5P XBlock makes things much easier!
-> See XBlock Github repo for details
[Documentation Call For Help] tCRIL are requesting contributions from Open edX Community members to help consolidate the platform's comprehensive documentation. The updated documentation will be organized around different personas and document types for an improved discovery experience. tCRIL are currently looking to crowdsource high-level tables of content for each persona. Click the link below to learn more and help!
-> Forum post for details and volunteering
[BTR Group Volunteers] The Build-Test-Release group is looking for volunteers to take on roles and support the delivery of the upcoming Open edX Olive release. Note that not all the roles require technical knowledge – for example, the group is also looking for people with project management or QA/testing experience. Get involved!
-> Read the forum post for the list of open roles
[Nutmeg Features] Nutmeg is the latest Open edX named release. Our friend Sarina Canelake, Engineering Manager at the Center For Reimagining Learning (tCRIL), published a short series of blog posts that look at some of the newest additions to the Open edX software.
The Nutmeg Feature Round-up offers a tour of several new learner and instructor-facing features, such as:
The Product Tours blog introduces an amazing new feature focused on learner engagement – the Product Tour. This optional tool takes new learners for a comprehensive, in-context guided tour of the course layout that ends at the Course Goal Setting tool. edX®, who have implemented product tours earlier this year, have already noticed increased engagement and completion in learners who use the goals feature!
The Nutmeg: Operator & Developer Enhancements blog is a technical piece that summarizes the changes (additions and deprecations) that impact the people who write code for Open edX or deploy Open edX instances.
[Meetup Recording] The recording of the latest (July) Open edX Community Meetup is now available. During this event, edtech company Readspeaker discussed how course authors can leverage text-to-speech solutions for a more inclusive learning environment. They demonstrated how their tools worked with the example of one of Esme Learning's Open edX sites (which are hosted and developed by OpenCraft 😉 ), and discussed various topics around the theme of accessible and universal design in education.
-> Watch the recording
-> Learn more about universal design
Here's a recap of our June 2022 newsletter:
[Nutmeg Release] Nutmeg, the latest stable version of the Open edX platform, is now released! Nutmeg brings exciting new features such as the user tour (taking new learners through a quick tour of the course), new weekly course goals with reminder emails, and improvements to various micro front-ends (MFEs) and the mobile experience. As always, be sure to upgrade your Open edX instance(s) as soon as possible! Kudos to folks from the Build-Test-Release Working Group who worked hard to make the testing and release processes as smooth as possible! Also, please let the group know if you spot any bugs or issues.
-> Read the Nutmeg release notes
[July Meetup - Text To Speech] On Thursday, July 21, the Open edX Community will gather for an online meetup to discuss how course authors can leverage text-to-speech solutions for a more inclusive learning environment. Registration is free, so save the date and join for a captivating meetup!
-> Register for the event on Eventbrite
[June Meetup Recording] Earlier this month, the Open edX Community gathered to discuss a great education project led by our friends at RacoonGang – a project in which the Open edX platform is leveraged to provide students with digital education in the difficult context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The recording of the meetup is now available to watch on Open edX's YouTube channel.
-> Watch the June 9th 2022 Meetup Recording
[Fox Interview] While we were soaking up the warm sun and ocean air in Portugal during the 2022 Open edX Conference, our friends at The Center for Reimagining Learning (tCRIL) grabbed the opportunity to conduct a short video interview with Fox Piacenti, who leads business development at OpenCraft. This is a good occasion to learn more about OpenCraft, what we like to work on, and how we work – so go ahead and watch it : )
-> Watch the interview with Fox Piacenti
[User Retirement] To learn more about user retirement in the Open edX Platform, read this blog post!
Here's a recap of our April 2022 newsletter:
This edition of our newsletter will be shorter than usual, because our team is currently retreating in beautiful & sunny Lisbon, Portugal. ☀️
We're seeing each other for the first time in three years, and we're having a great time! The weather is beautiful (although quite windy at times!), the food is amazing, and we're spending quality time together. We'll soon be sharing a blog post and more details on what we've been doing here – but in the meantime, here are a few pictures. Até já!
(and sorry to those of us who could not attend because of visa/covid/other issues – we miss you dearly!)
[Open edX Conference] At the time of reading this newsletter, our team will be right in the middle of attending the 2022 Open edX Conference, hosted in Lisbon. We're busy presenting talks and workshops, helping with conference organization, chatting with friends and members of the community, and doing all sorts of activities. We'll be posting a recap of the conference next month, so stay tuned!
-> Review the conference program
[Platform Product Management] tCRIL have created three new spaces to increase engagement and interaction of Open edX Product Managers and community members across the ecosystem: the Product Working Group Slack Channel, the Open edX Roadmap, and the Open edX Product Management wiki. Please join the Product Working Group using the Slack channel if you're interested in getting involved!
[Open edX Conference] The program and schedule for the 2022 Open edX Conference are now live! Please visit Sched to see the full program and build your own custom conference schedule. Conference registration is also still open. The 2022 Conference spans four days:
Tues, April 26 – Registration + Tutorials and in-depth training
Wed, April 27 – Conference Day 1 and evening reception
Thu, April 28 – Conference Day 2
Fri, April 29 – Developer Summit
This year, conference sessions have been grouped in three distinct tracks: Pedagogy & Instructional Design, Platform & Product, and Extensions & Integrations.
The OpenCraft team is delighted to participate and contribute to the conference, as always. For our contribution this year, we are members of the conference planning committee, have submitted a record number of session proposals, and also are sponsoring the evening reception! Our team is very excited, and we hope to meet you soon in Lisbon : )
-> Read more about sessions, speakers & sponsors on the Open edX blog
[Technical Oversight Committee] The Open edX Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) has recently completed its roster with three new members, including none other than OpenCraft CEO Xavier Antoviaque! Our team is proud, and humbled, by this nomination — it is a nice testimony to OpenCraft's deep and lasting involvement in the Open edX community.
As announced a few months ago, the committee will be responsible for governing the overall technical direction and stewardship of the Open edX project. The addition of members coming from the broader community is an important step in establishing a more inclusive and open leadership for the Open edX project.
[Open edX Survey] The Center for Reimagining Learning (tCRIL) is conducting a survey to capture a more detailed understanding of the Open edX scope and impact. They aim to use the survey results to answer questions about the number of instances deployed, the platform's reach, sectors served, and so on. The results of the survey (which will be anonymized and aggregated) will be presented at the Open edX Conference in April.
If you host the Open edX platform for yourself or your clients, please take a few minutes to answer the survey. The data will help the community make more informed decisions about the future of the platform.
-> Read the instructions on how to answer the Open edX Survey
[OpenCraft in Lisbon] After 3 years of not seeing each other, OpenCraft is finally able to organize a team retreat in Lisbon : ) Most of the team will fly to Portugal the week before the Open edX Conference, and we're looking forward to seeing each other again. We'll be operating from a co-working space, living together in Airbnbs, doing various activities together, and eating way too many pasteis de natas. Hit us up if you're around! We'll post a recap of our time together in an upcoming newsletter.
[Conference Themes] The 2022 Open edX Conference will be hosted in-person in Lisbon, Portugal, from Apr. 26-29. You should register as soon as possible – the early bird rates end on Feb 28th!
The Open edX team is putting together an ambitious program: the conference will present innovative uses of open source technology in higher education and inside corporations, across a global scale. Attendees will participate in exciting talks about advancements in platform features, instructional design, course production, and technical sessions for operating, extending, and enhancing the Open edX platform. All members of the OpenCraft team have submitted proposals — we're looking forward to seeing you at our sessions! Stay tuned for the conference program reveal next month.
-> Schedule outline, travel guidelines, and more
[Keynote Speakers] The Open edX team have announced this year's keynote speakers for the Open edX Conference:
Keynote speeches will take place on the mornings of April 27th and 28th. Additional details about the tutorials and workshops will be announced in the coming weeks.
[Core Contributors] After a successful pilot, the Core Contributor Program has officially been defined, reviewed, and adopted as an Open edX Proposal (OEP-54) by the community. Victory! ?
The foundational document defines Core Contributors, explains its motivations, details all roles and processes involved (such as nominating new Core Contributors), and features a change log. Our tCRIL friend Sarina Canelake will soon publish an article on our blog that further details the history and key items of the Program.
As a reminder, Core Contributors is a program that grants rights to individuals in the Open edX community that allow them to actively participate in defining and deciding the direction of the platform. At the time of writing, 11 members of the OpenCraft team are Core Contributors, along with many more members of the community from around the world.
We would also like to take the opportunity to welcome newcomers Jorge Londoño, Maria Grimaldi, Andrés Gonzales, JayRam Nai, and Dean Jay Matthew to the Program. Congratulations on your Core Committer nomination, and welcome aboard! : )
-> Core Committers Program definition
[Translations] The Translations Working Group was formed with an initial focus on improving platform translation for ten languages: Spanish, French, Arabic, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Mandarin, and German. The group needs additional translators for Arabic, Hindi, Russian, and Ukrainian — please let us know if you're interested!
[Contribute To This Newsletter] We would love to turn this newsletter into a community effort. Do you have any news about Open edX that you would like us to share? Please let us know by going to the Newsletter threads on either OpenCraft's public discussion forum or the Official Open edX forum!
Here's a recap of our January 2022 newsletter:
[Open edX Conference] After two years of forced hiatus, the long awaited, in-person Open edX Conference is finally back! As recently announced by Open edX, the 2022 conference is scheduled for April 26th-29th, and will be hosted in Lisbon, Portugal. We at OpenCraft are preparing to submit lots of session ideas, and we invite all members of the community to do the same! We'll be sharing more details on the conference in subsequent newsletters. You should also keep an eye out on Open edX's blog for details regarding the event, including keynote speakers, conference presentations, ticket information, workshop details, and more.
-> Call For Speakers: submit your talk ideas
[New Features] Maple, the latest version of Open edX, brings a number of platform improvements and new features. You can read the Release Notes for a list of all changes and new features that will impact the experience of learners, instructors, and all others who use the platform. Our good friend Sarina Canelake at tCRIL also released a series of great blog posts detailing improvements made to key areas of the platform: a feature rundown, mobile native apps improvements, and making the learning micro-frontend the default student LMS experience. The team at OpenCraft is very proud to have contributed to many features on this highly anticipated release. We're also planning to upgrade all our hosted instances to Maple — be sure to do the same! And let us know how we can help you.
[Marketing Work Group] The Open edX marketing working group has released a "Meet the Community" video series, where you can "meet" members of the group and learn more about them and their work. See the group's latest blog announcement for a list of videos, or find them on Open edX's Youtube channel. The group is always seeking new members who are interested in sharing innovative marketing ideas and supporting the overall marketing of the Open edX project. Come say hi on Open edX's Slack at the #marketing channel!
-> Check out the Marketing Work Group's Trello board
[Governance] As the stewardship of the Open edX platform is moving from edX/2U to the newly formed Center For Reimagining Learning (tCRIL), the team has announced the creation of a Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) as a new governance structure to the project. The TOC will have nine members: three from The Center for Reimagining Learning, three from edX/2U, and three from members of the rest of the Open edX community. The first six members were recently nominated, and the remaining three members will be chosen soon.
-> Read the Technical Oversight Committee's foundational charter
[Virtual Event] The end-of-year community virtual event took place on December 14th, bringing a successful conclusion to a landmark year for the Open edX platform. Ed Zarecor from tCRIL presented a "State of Open edX" keynote that covered the creation of tCRIL, the platform's new governance structure, and the Maple release. We also enjoyed watching other talks on the program, and had fun talking with old friends and new!
-> Watch talk recordings and download presentation materials
[New Release] Maple, the latest stable version of Open edX, was released on the 20th of December, thanks to the great work of the Release working group ? ! Maple brings a good amount of fixes and features, such as the implementation of the new Learning Micro Front End as the default platform experience, granting course and library creation rights on a per-organization basis, and improvements to the Common Problem Editor — so be sure to upgrade your Open edX instance(s)! Also, please let the working group know if you spot any bugs or issues.
-> Read the official announcement
[Core Contributors] Core Contributor work is now organized into 2-week sprints, which aim to help coordinate contribution efforts and drive more contributions. During the first-ever Core Contributor sprint, the focus was on helping to assign the remaining open issues for Maple from the release working group board. It was also nice to get to meet all the core contributors!
-> Check out the latest Core Contributors Sprint
[Marketing] The Marketing Working Group is working on a number of issues to improve the Open edX platform's marketing ecosystem, such as preparing community member presentation videos, creating various promotional materials, and helping redesign the provider marketplace experience on the Open edX website. 2021 has been a productive year, and the group is excited about the year to come!
-> Check out the Marketing Work Group's Trello board
[Translations] The Translations Working Group, was formed with an initial focus on improving platform translation for ten languages: Spanish, French, Arabic, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Mandarin, and German. The group needs additional translators for Arabic, Hindi, Russian, and Ukrainian, so please let us know if you're interested! The group is also working on implementing automated translation for the official platform documentation — something that has been long requested by the community. We'll keep you abreast of our progress on this topic in the upcoming newsletters.
-> Check out the Transifex Work Group's Trello board
[Newsletter Contributions] We would love to turn this newsletter into a community effort. Do you have any news about Open edX that you would like us to share? Please let us know by going to the Newsletter threads on either OpenCraft's public discussion forum or the Official Open edX forum!
[2U Acquisition] E-Learning company 2U has completed its acquisition of the edX.org website and assets, as announced in Open edX's recent blog post. The Open edX project itself isn’t included in the sale. The proceeds from the transaction will fund a new nonprofit which will take over stewardship of the project, and also invest in other online learning projects. A Technology Oversight Committee (TOC) will be created to lead the Open edX platform's development and community governance. The committee, whose members have not been announced yet, will include representatives from the nonprofit, edX/2U, as well as other community members. edX and U2 have also made a formal pledge to contribute to the ongoing development of the platform.
-> Read the official press release by edX/2U
[End-Of-Year Virtual Event] All members of the community are invited to join Open edX's end-of-year virtual conference and meetup, scheduled on December 14th, 2 pm-5 pm UTC. The keynote speech will be a "State Of Open edX" discussion about the creation of the new nonprofit, and the way forward for edX and 2U following the acquisition. Attendees can expect a few additional talks, along with ample time for chatting and networking. We are looking forward to seeing you there!
-> Read more and register for the event on the Open edX blog
[Upcoming Release] The Build-Test-Release working group has launched the Maple beta 1 release and commenced testing it. The working group is encouraging all community members who have the chance to test Maple as well, especially if you’re using a feature in the Open edX platform that isn’t widely used. A few issues have already been reported, and we need volunteers to help fix them. These issues are low-hanging fruits and good first issues for anyone to get started with. If you’ve ever considered contributing, now would be a great time!
On some additional news, the Lilac 3 open release has been released. You’re encouraged to upgrade your Lilac instances.
-> Click here to check the Maples issues that need some love
[Core contributors] The Core Contributor program continues to grow with the addition of the first new Product & UX Core Contributor, Ali Hugo from OpenCraft, and a potential Product Management Core Contributor in prospect. To better provide context about each contributor’s efforts to one another, the idea of adding sprints is being discussed and contributors are encouraged to participate.
The frontend working group is working on removing IE 11 support and upgrading to Node.js 16. The data working group has recently been discussing the ElasticSearch vs OpenSearch issue.
-> Read more community meetup updates
[Tech Radar] The Open edX Tech Radar, first announced a few months ago, is now live! The Open edX tech radar is a visualization tool that represents the technologies used in the platform. Its goal is to help new developers get involved, but also to facilitate reviews and discussions about technologies, frameworks, techniques, and tools used in the platform. The radar was built through community effort and is maintained by the community in Github.
-> Learn more about the tech radar
Here is a recap of our October 2021 newsletter:
[Maple Release Update] The master branches for Maple, the next Open edX Release, have been prepared and announced! Note that the prepared branches are mainly for community members interested in helping review and build Maple, and not for public consumption. Tutor also recently added support for the master Maple branch.
If you’re a community member interested in helping build Maple and/or Tutor support, please set up Maple using Tutor and report any issues you face to the build/test/release working group on the official Open edX forum.
-> Learn more about the Maple release on Confluence
[Core Contributor Program] The Open edX Core Contributor Program has recently confirmed several additional members in its ranks, including additional OpenCraft team members. This brings the current number of Core Contributors to 16, including eight OpenCraft team members!
The Program, which initially focused on technical contributors called code "Committers", has now expanded to also include Non-Technical Contributors who help with platform translations, marketing activities, project management, and more. Open edX Core Contributors earn their designation through committing 20h+/month of active participation in the Open edX community by contributing code or translations to the project, serving on working groups, etc. Our team currently features 7 code Committers, and 1 Non-Technical Contributor.
-> Read more about the Core Contributor Program
[Open edX Theme] OpenCraft is on a mission to build an improved and great-looking open-source Open edX theme! We’ve started wireframing the course pages of our new theme and would love any feedback from the community.
Check out the static wireframes here. Use your left and right arrows on your keyboard to see the different pages in the presentation. Your feedback is very important to us! You can access the theme's Gitlab repository for the latest progress, and use the official forum thread linked below to suggest changes.
-> Share your feedback on this official forum thread
[Platform Translations] The Transifex Working Group has been making good progress over the past few months on advancing the Open edX's platform translations. The working group is still looking for community members to submit and review translations in the following languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Mandarin, Hindi, Portuguese, and Arabic. Let us know if you're interested in contributing!
-> Visit the group's Confluence page for detailed information
[Community Event] The Open edX community hosted an online event on Friday, September 17. It featured a talk by Ed Zarecor on the state of the Open edX project, a case study on using the platform to address public sector online education needs by academia, and a review of the platform’s market niche. We also discussed where the community can focus in order to expand its reach in the e-Learning space. We enjoyed getting to talk with other community members in the Gather space and hope to see you at the next one!
-> See the event's Youtube playlist
[Maple Release] The next release of the Open edX platform, called Maple, is scheduled to release on December 9, 2021. A beta version will be made available in early October to allow the community to test the software, report bugs, and improve documentation. Stay tuned for more news about Maple next month when the test branch is released!
-> Learn about early Maple features on Confluence
[Multi Sites] Did you know that a single Open edX instance could be split into multiple "sites," each with its own theme, home URL, and course catalog? The process of creating and administering sites can be quite tedious. To address this, we developed Sites Generator, an open source tool that automates the whole process! Read the blog post to learn how to configure Sites.
-> Explore Sites-Generator's public code repository
[Frontend] The Open edX team announced the creation of a Frontend working group that will be responsible for stewardship of the frontend of the Open edX platform. The group welcomes members of the community to discuss the goals and challenges of the platform's frontend features and partake in key technical decisions.
-> Learn more on the Frontend Working Group wiki page
[Open edX Community Event] All members of the community are invited to join a virtual Open edX conference and meetup, scheduled on Sept 17th. The event will feature Ed Zarecor, the Engineering Director for the Open edX platform, who will discuss the future direction of the platform with the audience. Attendees can expect a few additional stimulating talks, along with ample time for chatting and networking. We are eager to see you there!
-> Read official announcement and more details on the Open edX blog
[Help needed: Django 3.2 Upgrade] edX is upgrading Django to version 3.2 by mid-October (Maple version release) and needs the community to help update or replace more than 60 external dependencies which don’t yet support Django 3.2. This is a splendid opportunity to contribute to the Open edX platform and help the team reach an important platform milestone! Here is a wiki page with instructions on how community members can help. Thank you in advance for your contributions!
-> Discuss and offer your help on this official forum thread
[Transifex Working Group] The Open edX platform is available in many languages on the Transifex platform, but optimizing the translations requires help from the community. The Open edX team just launched a Transifex Working Group and is looking for community members to review translations in the following languages: French(ca), Ukrainian(uk), Russian(ru), Mandarin(cmn), Hindi(hi), and Arabic(ar). OpenCraft team members will compose a portion of the group, but your help would be immensely appreciated!
-> Discuss and offer your help on this official forum thread
[OpenCraft Is (Still) Hiring] OpenCraft is growing and working on incredible projects, and we are always seeking new developers that:
-> Check out our jobs page and apply!
Do you want to discuss the topics in the newsletter or have any questions? Please reach out to us at contact@opencraft.com.
You can also follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Here is a recap of our July 2021 newsletter:
[2U Acquires edX] 2U, an educational technology company, announced that it is acquiring edX. The proceeds of the transaction ($800 million) will go to a non-profit that will continue under the leadership of the edX founders, Harvard and MIT. The non-profit will own and keep growing the Open edX project. This will be a good opportunity to clarify the distinction between edX.org and the Open edX platform, since both projects will have their own priorities and independent funding. It will take some time to know what the new non-profit’s plan will be, but there are good reasons to be optimistic. The changes demonstrate the belief that the open source project can be more by standing on its own. We completely agree — it’s a rare chance for an open source project!
-> Watch Q&A session about the acquisition with edX CTO JP Beaudry
[OpenCraft Developer Jobs Page] OpenCraft is growing, and we are always on the lookout for new developers. We've just built a web page that summarizes the experience of working as an open source, fully remote developer at OpenCraft. Do you care about contributing to open source and appreciate a good challenge? Would you like to work with great clients, under great conditions, and with your own schedule? If so, then please consider joining our team, and submit an application.
-> Check out our jobs page, and apply!
[LTI Advantage Certification] The latest version of the Open edX platform, Lilac, has been formally certified as an LTI Advantage learning platform! The work to extend the LTI Consumer XBlock to support LTI Advantage was a collaboration between our team and edX, as a blended development project. We are very proud to have worked on making the Open edX platform more extendable by adopting this widely-endorsed educational standard.
-> Read announcement on Open edX blog
[Extensions Directory] The Open edX team have recently published the Open edX Extensions Directory, a filterable interface that displays the various XBlocks, plugins, and extensions made available for the platform. The long-requested tool was designed by the Open edX Marketing Working Group, of which OpenCraft are members. Just a few weeks after its creation, the Extension Directory gained considerable visibility and traffic as a valuable resource for the Open edX community.
-> Read announcement on the Open edX blog
[Documentation hack-a-thon] Following the success of their first Hack-a-thon, the Open edX team is hosting a new documentation rally on August 10-12, 2021. This is a time for everyone, not just developers, to get together, collaborate, and help make the platform documentation complete and up-to-date. Big or small, all contributions are welcome! You can read the official announcement for the full details.
-> Discuss your ideas with the community on the official forum thread
Here is a recap of OpenCraft's June 2021 newsletter.
[Lilac Released] Lilac, the twelfth Open edX community release, is now officially available! Like Koa before it, the Lilac release was coordinated by the Build-Test-Release community working group, led by OpenCraft team member Adolfo Brandes. This new version of the platform comes with a list of improvements and new features, many of which have been proudly worked on by our team : ) Open edX releases are now seeing a lot of community involvement, and we couldn't be happier!
-> Check out the official Lilac release notes for a full list of changes
[2021 Conference Talks] All talks presented at the 2021 Open edX Virtual Conference are now available on Open edX's YouTube channel. You can now watch keynote speaker Sanjay Sarma discuss how science impacts how we learn, learn about Campus-IL's blended learning experiments, see how OpenCraft built the LabXchange platform, and many more! Happy watching : )
-> Click to access the full conference playlist
[Data Working Group] edX have posted a call for interest to form a community group to work on the future of data and analytics in the Open edX platform. Everyone is welcome to join! This will be a great opportunity to gather ideas, compare and consolidate existing solutions, and plan a path forward for improved analytics in the platform. Interested? Join the #wg-data channel in the Open edX Slack : )
-> Click here to join the #wg-data Slack channel
Here is a recap of OpenCraft's May 2021 newsletter.
[Open edX Conference] The 2021 Open edX virtual conference happened on May 24th, and was a great success! As co-organizers, presenters, and sponsors of the event, we were very proud to participate in a series of captivating talks and discussions about the future of online education. Of course, we were equally excited to discuss with old friends and new faces! Huge kudos and thank you to edX and the other community members who worked hard to make this event a success.
If you attended the conference and would like to share some feedback about your experience, please take a brief moment to answer the following survey.
[Open edX Tech Radar] edX are planning a collaborative workshop in June to create a Tech Radar for the Open edX platform. The goal of this exercise is to review and discuss the set of technologies, frameworks, techniques and tools used in the platform, with detailed descriptions of their status, history in the platform, and level of adoption. edX are looking for community members to help co-organize the event, so let us know if you're interested!
-> Discuss the event on the "official" forum thread
[Lilac Release Testing] The Build-Test-Release working group is putting out a Lilac release candidate! The official branch is at open-release/lilac.rc1, and the group is asking community members to test it as much as possible (particularly, using the Native Installation instructions). Any issues found can be reported in the related official forum thread.
[Lilac (draft) Release Notes] The Built-Test-Release working group also announced a first draft of the release notes of Lilac, the upcoming version of the Open edX platform. Neat! Any questions or comments about the notes can be posted on this release group forum thread, or directly on the release notes pull request in Github.
-> Click here to read the draft release notes
Here is a recap of OpenCraft's April 2021 newsletter.
The 2021 Open edX Virtual Conference has officially been announced! The event is structured as a half day event and will occur on Thursday, May 27th, between 1PM and 5PM (UTC). Our CTO Braden will be hosting a talk on LabXChange and Open edX’s next-generation learning content storage system, Blockstore. OpenCraft is proud to contribute to the organization of the event, as well as being its main sponsor. Tickets are on sale now, and we hope to see you there!
-> Learn more about the Conference program
We’ve been investigating improvements to the way theming works on the Open edX platform, with the aim of making theming faster, easier to use, easier to maintain, and more flexible. One of the first things we’ve investigated is the way forward with creating a consistent theme across edx-platform and micro front-ends (MFE). MFEs are Javascript applications that contain Open edX branded headers, footers and style, and allow for flexibility and rapid development of features that affect user experience. We would love to hear your feedback on this, so please read and comment on the following Merge Request.
-> See a detailed list of our theming goals, findings, and progress
The Build-Test-Release group, steered by Adolfo from OpenCraft, has been hard at work preparing for the next release of Open edX, Lilac. The codebase has already been made available for testing, and the working group is now busy making sure that not only is everything behaving as one would expect, but is also documented! Which is to say, this time around we’re aiming for the release notes to be available on release day, which is a nice improvement. Stay tuned, and please write back if you would like to help!
-> Keep tabs in the Build-Test-Release category in the forum
Have you ever wanted to contribute a feature or a bugfix to the official version of Open edX, but didn’t know how? Would you like to avoid the recurring headache at each release upgrade, caused by changes made only on your local installation that need to be adapted? There should be a MOOC for that, right?! OpenCraft is now proud to be working with several organizations (edX, Mines-Telecom, OpenStack, Wikimedia) to co-produce a reference course on how to contribute to open source software (“upstreaming”).
-> Read more about the MOOC project on the Open edX forum
Here is a recap of OpenCraft's March 2021 newsletter.
Ned Batchelder from edX and Fox Piacenti from OpenCraft gave a joint talk during the last Online Community Meetup. Ned explained the difference between edX and the Open edX system. Fox gave an overview of the components that make up the platform. They both answered intriguing questions about existing and upcoming features.
A series of developments are underway for the Open edX native mobile apps to support an increased number of assessment types. Upon completion, three widely-used XBlocks–Open Response Assessment (ORA), Drag And Drop, and Word Cloud–will be fully supported in the mobile apps, helping eliminate roadblocks that can prevent learners from completing courses.
-> Read full announcement on Open edX Blog
The Open edX Toggles and Settings Doc-a-thon ended on March 15th. A total of 17 members of the community joined forces, and wrote documentation for no less than 104 previously undocumented toggles and settings, including 32 contributed by OpenCraft! This example shows that meaningful contributions can come in small pieces : )
-> Click here for a full recap on the Open edX Blog
After much anticipation, we have completed the removal of XModule from the Open edX platform. XModule was the platform's original course component mechanism, and the predecessor of XBlock. This massive effort took the form of a blended development project involving both OpenCraft and edX. This milestone will bring about a major simplification of the courseware internal system, and we couldn't be happier! To mark the occasion, edX is even hosting an online "piñata celebration" on April 1st. Join us and celebrate!
