28 March - 8 April 2023
After an unforgettable Open edX 2022 conference and co-working retreat last year in Lisbon, Portugal, we were eager to see what our 2023 trip had in store!
As our team is 100% remote, these two weeks of the year are a great way to connect, catch-up, and meet new team members. Sadly, not everyone was able to join in the fun, but we still had representatives from Australia, Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and Africa. Here’s the lowdown on the two weeks we spent together.
This year, Open edX went back to its roots and hosted its annual conference at MIT, the birthplace of the Open edX project. In fact, the conference was held in the very same building in which the first lines of code were written for the platform. Sitting there 12 years later, you couldn't help but think how much the platform has grown and how far we've come as a community over the years.
As some of Open edX's biggest fans and most active contributors, the OpenCraft team makes an effort to attend the conference whenever we can. It's a wonderful opportunity for us to reunite with the people we work with during the year - both within our own team and the community at large. Also, because our team members are often selected as speakers at the conference, we get the opportunity to show off what we've been working on and share our ideas with the community. In turn, we get the chance to learn about what others have been working on. We often leave a lecture hall feeling inspired by the efforts of other community members and brimming with new ideas!
Four OpenCraft team members presented a talk this year. Xavier Antoviaque spoke about "Building Collaborative Courses" by involving learners in the course creation process. Braden MacDonald joined other members of the Product Development team to introduce the Modular Learning Initiative to the community and discuss how community input helps shape product development. Jillian Vogel joined Brian Mesick to share the progress of the OARS (Open Analytics Reference System) project: an ambitious effort to improve the analytics of the Open edX platform. Lastly, Piotr Surowiec discussed the work that went into migrating a comprehensive theme from a legacy frontend to the MFE. He outlined the key differences between the theming options in the comprehensive theme and the MFE.
Every year, the welcome address and keynote talks are some of the main highlights of the conference. For those of you who couldn’t make it to Boston this year, we’ve linked to the videos of these talks below:
When not presenting talks, participating in workshops, or meeting with our clients, the OpenCraft team managed to sneak in some good old-fashioned fun! We beat the cold by visiting the Cambridge Brewing Company (who, by the way, serve delicious fried Brussel sprouts that even devout haters of the vegetable would enjoy!). We embarked on a self-guided tour through the MIT grounds where we marveled at the Biomimetic Robotics lab, got chased out of the library, and walked the campus grounds alongside a group of Canadian geese. On Wednesday night, we attended the conference reception where we wined and dined within the walls of the MIT Museum. And on the last day, just to throw in a little bit of culture, we visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where we found each display to be more interesting and opulent than the last.
The conference went by in a flash, but we certainly managed to make the most of our time! Not only were we able to interact with the community in a way that remote collaboration doesn't always allow, but we also got the chance to strengthen our bond as a team - something money just can't buy! Once the 2023 conference had drawn to a close, we headed back to our Airbnbs to prepare for our next adventure: an OpenCraft co-working week in Bogotá, Colombia!
We arrived around the 1st of April, ready to have fun in the vibrant city of Bogotá. The Colombian capital is a whopping 2,625 meters (8,660 feet) above sea-level. We were warned that the city’s dizzying heights can give you a touch of soroche, or altitude sickness. So we made sure to take it easy the first few days after we’d landed.
One week is definitely not enough to catch all the sights of Bogotá. The city sprawls as far as the eyes can see, cradled between the chilly peaks of the Andes mountains. We experienced four seasons in one day. Sun, rain, wind, hail - you name it. We never knew what to expect. Thank goodness for our cozy co-working space at CO+LABORA in Usaquén. The area oozes cool. Trendy restaurants and bars adorn cobblestone streets, while storefronts are painted with bright patterns and colors.
When we travel as a team, you never go hungry. Everyone is eager to try everything! This time it was arepas, empanadas, pescado frito, ceviche, bunuelos, arequipe, and, of course, coffee!
While we do work a bit and the face-to-face interactions are invaluable, we also play a lot. Our team has an amazing adventurous spirit. But there’s also no pressure if a proposed activity is not your jam. For example, only a few of us decided to tackle the mountain of Monserrate. It sits 3,152 m (10,341 feet) above sea level, and it dominates the center of Bogotá. At the top of the mountain rests a church with a shrine, devoted to El Señor Caído. We set out, and it was testing. But in the words of our intrepid leader, Xavier Antoviaque, “This mountain isn’t going to hike itself!” And it didn’t. We used every muscle and every breath to make it to the top. The steep rise in altitude is what makes the hike a beast. The route is scenic and peppered with colorful vendors and their canine friends.
We stopped multiple times, not just to take in the majestic views, but to also catch our breath. But, we did it in the end! And it was worth it. Magnificent gardens lie at the foot of the church. The views are so good that no picture can really do them justice.
Other highlights of the trip included visiting and working at the awesome EduNext offices. We’re so lucky to have such wonderful friends and colleagues like you!
We also visited the beating heart of Bogotá, La Candelaria. The neighborhood‘s narrow streets are adorned with out-of-this-world graffiti, shops selling emeralds, handcrafts, religious artifacts, crystals, and sacred herbs for smudging. This melting pot of culture leads to hotspots like the Gold Museum and Museo Botero. Both showcase absolutely amazing collections. Not to be missed!
Now back to food. Every year we end our week with a special team dinner. Our team dinner this year was nothing short of spectacular. We were treated to course after course at Humo Negro. The chef presented us with his preferred menu. He was full of passion and it just added to the beauty of the experience. The dishes were beyond original, and praised local ingredients. Think “salad” that comes in the form of a ball that pops in your mouth, grilled oysters with burnt cream and seaweed, sea urchin mousse, crispy sea snail with pumpkin seed puree and pickled guatila, chawanmushi with pirarucu, scallops and spirulina, and arracacha with grilled wild berries and yogurt. I would never have been so daring if the food hadn’t been set down in front of me. And man, it’ll remain one of the best memories of food I’ll ever have. Our team laughed and bonded over these strange, surreal dishes. Well done, Humo Negro. Well done, OpenCraft!
On the last night, we had a festive night in. We sat around the fireplace at Xavier, Jill, and Piotr’s Airbnb. Kshitj cooked us a delicious curry and we tried a variety of native Colombian fruits. Some were more palatable than others 😂. Watching everyone pull a variety of faces was priceless.
I can’t believe another conference and co-working week has come and gone. I’ll forever be grateful to be part of this kind, wonderful team and community.
Until next year…
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.
Written by Gabriel D'Amours, a member of the OpenCraft team.
After three years of not seeing each other in the flesh, the OpenCraft team flew to Lisbon, Portugal to attend a well-deserved team retreat and participate in the 2022 Open edX Conference. All OpenCraft team members work remotely — the Conference is always a great occasion for us to meet in person, to work together, and cram in a few team meals and fun activities. Our time at the Conference was preceded by a week-long team retreat around Lisbon, Portugal, where we spent quality time together! Here’s a recap of those two weeks:
Most of the team arrived around the weekend of April 16-17 — coming from all corners of Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. While the majority of the team managed to fly to Lisbon, a few of us unfortunately could not make it, because of Covid-19 and visa-related issues. Sad. We'll see you next year! Still, there were more than 20 of us on-site, all ready to meet and have a good time!
Since the conference venue was located in the town of Carcavelos, roughly 20 km West of Central Lisbon, we decided to rent accommodations around that town to enjoy the weather, the beachfront location, and the relaxed atmosphere of the area. The Lisbon larger metropolitan area has a vast and efficient network of public transit, which made moving to other locations and getting to downtown very easy.
We bundled up in cozy Airbnbs, ready to work (a little), eat (a lot), and spend good times all together. Speaking of work — we rented two nice coworking spaces in nearby Estoril (another prime beachfront town!) to allow team members to catch up on work whenever they wished. Many of us also needed to prepare sessions for the conference, and the coworking spaces proved perfect for this.
During the first week, our days mostly consisted of going to the coworking space in the morning to get some work done, eating lunch together (often with a beach view!), working a little more, and spending the rest of the afternoon and evening doing stuff together. Oh, and we drank lots of strong espresso coffee, and ate unreasonable quantities of Portuguese pastries. Some went for the ubiquitous, sweet egg custard-filled pastel de natas, while others (such as myself) favored salty pastries such as the classic pastel de bacalhau, filled with cod fish. Portuguese take their pastries seriously, I'll tell you that — they're just everywhere!
Here are a few highlights from the first week:
We went on an e-bike tour, visiting a number of locations around Lisbon that offered gorgeous viewpoints of the city and its surroundings, featuring some of the city's brilliant street artwork. Things suddenly took an unexpected turn when our colleague Fox flew over his bike, and broke his arm. Yikes! Thankfully, he was taken good care of, and was able to enjoy the rest of his trip (although in a cast).
A board game night took place at Gabriel, Geoffrey, and Giovanni's place (a.k.a. the G-House). Many games were played, a bottle of fine whiskey was shared (thank you, Xavier!), pizza was eaten, and additional beverages were delivered to the apartment at a late hour. Success!
Some of us went diving in Cascais. After the logistical challenges (no car, no gear, zero knowledge of the area) were sorted out (Uber, gear hire and expertise from Bork), this was worth the effort. Xavier deserves all the credit for this, by the way — without his determined optimism, we never would have even gotten in! The water was cold, but the day was gorgeous. By swimming only a few meters off the coast, we saw octopus, many fishes, starfish, and sea urchins, buried amongst the rocky underwater ravines.
We went for an all-out bar crawl in the traditional neighborhood of Alfama, visiting all sorts of drinking and eating establishments. Which ones? How many? We don't remember exactly… but the food, ginjinha (cherry liqueur), cachaça (sugarcane spirit), and other delicacies were definitely abundant. To the great misfortune of one of our colleagues, one thing we definitely remember is that we did not find any chicken wings.
Following our team retreat, we all attended and participated in the 2022 Open edX Conference, hosted at the beautiful seaside campus of Nova School Of Business and Economics, in Carcavelos. The conference spanned from Tuesday, April 26th to Friday, April 29th — you can review the complete schedule in Sched.
We were truly eager to meet the Community again, and see old faces and new: people from The Centre for Reimagining Learning (tCRIL), friends at edX, team members from other service companies, and many of our clients attended in numbers. What a pleasure it was to reunite with familiar faces, and to meet new members of the community! After a lengthy period of isolation, coming all together again certainly felt like a blessing.
For this year's edition, the OpenCraft team got pretty involved in many aspects of the conference. Some of us had been busy for months helping tCRIL with the conference planning. Some volunteered for on-site help and many of us were invited to present sessions during the conference. In 2022, OpenCraft team members presented 4 hands-on tutorials, 4 breakout sessions, and 3 lightning talks — not bad! We were also the event's reception sponsor for this year.
This year's conference offered four distinct session tracks: Integrations and Extensions, Pedagogy and Instructional Design, Platform and Product, and a Virtual Track for those who could not attend in person. Our sessions touched on various topics, including UI/UX, Micro Front-Ends, platform deployment, LTI, and the Core Committers Program. By the way, all session recordings are available on Open edX's Youtube channel — go watch them!
We also enjoyed attending the excellent sessions prepared by our colleagues, clients, and friends, which explored a wealth of complementary topics. We were equally excited to attend the keynote speeches, and these two in particular:
Ed Zarecor and Jenna Makowski from tCRIL presented the much-awaited "State Of Open edX" keynote (watch here). The talk gave insights on the important changes happening in the Open edX project's governance following the 2U/edX acquisition and the creation of tCRIL, and touched on other important topics such as Core Contributors, and the product vision and evolution of the platform. The talk was concluded with a guest appearance by Racoon Gang CEO Sergiy Movchan, who explained how the Open edX platform can be leveraged to support and maintain educational programs in war-torn Ukraine.
Open Source evangelist Tobie Langel's keynote speech, titled "From Open Governance to Collective Ownership" (watch here), discussed the critical topic of collective ownership of open source software. He argued for the importance of true, community-driven open source projects that are based on openness, collaboration, and equality. Needless to say, as strong open source advocates ourselves, we were quite captivated by Tobie's presentation. A few of us even had the pleasure to sit down with Tobie and discuss some more.
Kudos and special thanks to tCRIL, edX, and every member of the Community who worked hard to make this event a success! We're thrilled to see that the broader Open edX Community is increasingly involved in the project's governance, and in the planning of activities such as the Conference. We're taking steps in the right direction : )
Another definitive highlight during the week of the conference was the OpenCraft-sponsored food & wine tour, organized by yours truly. What better way to mingle and discover Lisbon other than touring historical neighborhoods on foot, eating great food, and drinking great wine? We organized a lucky draw, formed a group of 12 lucky tour guests, and had a wonderful Thursday night walking Lisbon's colorful streets. Our tour guides took us off the beaten path, sharing intriguing anecdotes about Portugal and Lisbon's history in the process. We visited a specialty olive oil shop for some tastings, ate charcuterie in a traditional Portuguese grocery store, and sat down in three (!) different restaurants to sample Lisbon's finest traditional dishes. Needless to say, our stomachs were full, and our heads were now filled with memories. Faithful to what is seemingly becoming a tradition, I took the remaining survivors for a bar-hopping ride to end the night in true Portuguese fashion.
We ended the week with our traditional team dinner, sharing a few last bites of excellent vegetarian food at The Green Affair, a few drinks, and warm goodbyes until next year. It all went in the blink of an eye!
Some of us visited Sintra towards the end of the trip, which is a beautiful and well-preserved castle town near Lisbon that hosts a variety of fascinating historical buildings and stunning natural scenery. A perfect day trip!
Before we knew it, our two weeks in Portugal were over, and it was time to head back home. But what a time we had! We are all very grateful for our presence in Portugal this year, and can't wait to do this all over again next year in Cambridge, USA : ) Thanks to everyone who made this possible!
Photo credits: Gabriel D'Amours, Jill Vogel, Geoffrey Lehée, and Giovanni Cimolin da Silva.
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.
This article was written by Sarina Canelake, Engineering & Community Manager at The Center For ReImagining Learning (tCRIL).
The Open edX Core Contributor Program grants community members expanded rights and ownership over various aspects of the Open edX Project, allowing them to actively participate in defining and deciding the direction of the platform. Members of the Core Contributor program earn this distinction by participating in Open edX community with distinction. They embody what we call the “3 Cs”: Commitment to the project, exemplary Conduct, and high Caliber contributions.
The program began in 2020, with an initial 9 community members being granted write access rights to various Open edX code repositories. Since then, the program has expanded to include nearly 40 core contributors, who not only commit code but oversee translations, manage projects, and more.
Recently we codified the program in OEP-54. “OEP” stands for Open edX (Enhancement) Proposal. An OEP is a document that details a specific decision being made by the Open edX community; the community agrees that they will follow the processes defined in the OEPs.
In OEP-54, we define various aspects of the Program, such as membership criteria and the nomination process for a new member. I’ll dive into some of these, with a focus on Core Contributors who commit code changes.
As we’ve expanded the number of Core Contributors who can commit code, we’ve also begun expanding the number of roles a Core Contributor can take on. Contributors are welcome to hold more than one role, as well! A full list of roles and responsibilities can be found at this link; a few roles I’ll highlight are:
For information on how to really dig into the community, see OEP-54’s “Where Do I Start?” section - there’s a lot of good resources there to get you started, as well as a few pointers on how you can reach out on the forums or to specific working groups. Joining a working group is a wonderful way to meet members of the community and get started on tasks identified by the group as having high value.
For those who code, I recommend joining the Build-Test-Release or Frontend working groups, as both groups tend to have a backlog of tasks they’d like people to pick up. The Deprecation working group is pretty fun (in my opinion!) - they focus on removing dead code from the system. They also tend to have a large backlog, but some tasks may be pretty complicated unless you know some Open edX architecture or are strong in Django/Python.
If you work at a company that’s developing Open edX features you’d like to someday see in the main codebase, you should reach out early in your development process to get pointers on the best way of architecting and implementing your change in order for it to have the greatest chance of being accepted. Reach out in the discussion forums in the Collaborative Proposals topic. Submitting your bug fixes, changes, and features upstream is a great path towards becoming a Core Contributor.
Community members who have demonstrated the 3 C’s, with a history of contributions to the Open edX project, may be nominated for inclusion in the program by an existing program member. For coders, the nomination would specify one or more repositories in the openedx GitHub organization for the nominee to get write access to. The process is designed to be straightforward and transparent: it takes place on the discussion forums, and other Core Contributors in the program weigh in on the nomination. Members are encouraged to give constructive feedback if they don’t feel a nominee is quite ready to join the program.
The Core Contributor program is administered by The Center for Re-Imagining Learning (tCRIL), the nonprofit organization that stewards the Open edX project. At any point on the road to becoming a core contributor, the program administrators may be reached in the #core-contributors Slack room in the Open edX Slack, or at cc-program-admins@tcril.org.
It’s been a joy and a privilege to be a part of the Open edX community and to have the chance to help administrate the Core Contributor program. I look forward to working with more and more of you as the program goes.
—---
Sarina Canelake
Engineering & Community Management, tCRIL
Sarina has 5+ years experience hacking on the Open edX platform and working with the Open Source community. She is dedicated to enabling open source contributors to the Open edX platform via extensibility and process improvements. She lives in Boston, MA with her 3 cat sons and has a lifelong love for all things Pokémon.
Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash
This article was co-written by OpenCraft team member Adolfo Brandes and Daniel Seaton, Sr. Learning Systems Designer at MIT.
In this article, we'll describe how problems, videos, and pages from Open edX courses can be reused on the Canvas LMS via a new LTI implementation in Libraries v2, a feature recently developed by OpenCraft for MIT Open Learning. This project builds upon a wider effort commissioned by edX to enhance LTI compliance (1,2) and build more flexible and robust content libraries (1) for the Open edX platform.
Before getting into the details, let's dive a little on why this was done in the first place.
If you've ever authored courseware, you know how difficult it is to produce quality content. And if you spend a lot of time doing it, chances are you'll end up with an extensive library on a particular platform, such as Open edX courseware. What happens, though, when you want to reuse that content elsewhere? Few people would relish rewriting everything from scratch!
There are different ways a platform can allow content to be reused. The most common is by letting data be exported. This has been possible in Open edX since its inception: one can export courseware using the Open Learning XML format. But while it's straightforward to import the resulting tarball into a separate Open edX instance, bringing this content into another platform altogether presents a series of challenges:
Luckily, an organization called the IMS Global Learning Consortium came up with LTI, which aims to solve the issues above. LTI is short for "Learning Tools Interoperability": as long as both platforms support it, you can simply point the target platform to the source, and voilà! The learner will be able to interact with your painstakingly created content transparently, no import necessary. Best of all, if you make changes to the original content, those changes will be reflected anywhere you have reused it.
Open edX has been able to act as an LTI provider for a long time, and Canvas has correspondingly been able to consume from Open edX courses on a block-by-block basis. What else was needed, then?
Here's the thing. Reusing content originally written as part of a regular course is clunky at best. There are difficulties with content structured in this manner, particularly when it comes to Open edX:
It is for these and other reasons that Content Libraries development began in 2019. (OpenCraft CTO Braden MacDonald gives a great overview of the motivation behind this push, which includes the Blockstore backend, in this video.) With better search features and making grouping of related content much easier, they’re designed to support content reuse within Open edX courses.
The catch? As of early 2020, Open edX Content Libraries did not yet support any kind of LTI integration. While it was possible to reuse library content from within an Open edX instance, you couldn’t do so externally.
MIT, by any measure, is a heavy user of Open edX, maintaining an instance solely for on-campus teaching and learning. The instance has hosted over 200 unique courses for MIT students, leading to more than 35,000 unique problems, 15,000 unique videos, and 23,000 pages. The on-campus instance of Open edX is not the primary LMS at MIT, but exists as an optional system for creating enhanced, blended learning experiences.
In Fall 2021, the Canvas LMS was introduced at MIT to replace a homegrown, legacy system that did not offer the features of a modern LMS. Given the extensive library of rich content on MIT’s on-campus Open edX instance, the introduction of Canvas created new opportunities to think strategically about content integrations between the two platforms. MIT approached OpenCraft about their recent work on Content Libraries with Blockstore and began formulating a starting point to address broader ambitions related to content interoperability.
In short: MIT needed LTI for Content Libraries. So, over a few months at the end of 2021, OpenCraft built not only a way for Canvas to use LTI to integrate Content Libraries, but a way for authors to import content from preexisting courses into Content Libraries. The current implementation allows single xblocks (e.g., a problem, video, or page) to be reused via LTI.
Instead of just describing the new features, let’s show you how to actually use them with the Open edX and Canvas development environments. (The steps below require you to set up a local Open edX devstack and a local Canvas development environment.)
To start, set up your Open edX devstack with the Libraries v2 frontend and Blockstore backend, as outlined in Library Authoring project README. Then proceed to set up a Canvas development environment using the automated setup described in its Quick Start guide. We won’t walk through individual steps in setting these environments up, as that would be beyond the scope of this post. Worry not, though! The corresponding setup procedures are well documented in each project.
From this point on we’ll assume you were able to set them up successfully, including being able to access:
Continue by logging into your local development instance of Canvas as an administrator, and creating a Developer Key. You can do so from the Admin > Account panel, as shown below:
To start creating the key, click on + Developer Key, then + LTI Key, like so:
On the "method" drop-down, select "Paste JSON", and copy/paste the following into the text box (you could fill fields individually, but this makes it easier!):
{
"title": "edX Content Library",
"scopes": [],
"extensions": [
{
"platform": "canvas.instructure.com",
"settings": {
"platform": "canvas.instructure.com",
"placements": [
{
"placement": "assignment_selection",
"message_type": "LtiDeepLinkingRequest"
}
]
},
"privacy_level": "anonymous"
}
],
"public_jwk": {},
"description": "edX Content Library",
"custom_fields": {},
"public_jwk_url": "http://127.0.0.1:18010/api/libraries/v2/lti/1.3/pub/jwk/",
"target_link_uri": "http://127.0.0.1:18010/api/libraries/v2/lti/1.3/launch/",
"oidc_initiation_url": "http://127.0.0.1:18010/api/libraries/v2/lti/1.3/login/"
}
Note: the last three URLs point to Studio on your local Open edX devstack.
Give the key a name, such as “Open edX Tool”, and save it. Then immediately enable it by clicking on its ON button as shown below, and copy the client ID (“10000000000001”, here) to your clipboard.
Now we’ll add an “App”. Go to Site Admin > Settings, and on the Apps tab, click on the + App button. Choose the “By Client ID” configuration type, and paste the client ID from the key you created above:
After clicking Submit, confirm you want to install the app by clicking on Install. You should now see an “edX Content Library” app in the list of external apps.
Click on the app’s configuration icon, then on Deployment Id. You’ll need the identifier (here, “1:8865aa05b4b79b64a91a86042e43af5ea8ae79eb”) when setting up Open edX, so copy it to the clipboard.
Start by enabling the content libraries LTI tool for Studio. You’ll need to edit the Features setting from the Studio container itself:
cd devstack
make studio-shell
vim /edx/etc/studio.yml
...
FEATURES:
ENABLE_CONTENT_LIBRARIES_LTI_TOOL: true
Save the file, exit, and restart Studio via:
make studio-restart
Next, you’ll need to pre-generate a JSON Web Token keypair as a means for Open edX and Canvas to trust each other. An easy way to do it from the command line using SSH and openssl is:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -m PEM -f jwt.key
openssl rsa -in jwt.key -pubout -outform PEM -out jwt.key.pub
cat jwt.key
cat jwt.key.pub
Note the contents of each file, as you’ll need them shortly.
Now log into Studio as an administrator, then proceed to the Django admin interface at the following address:
http://localhost:18010/admin/lti1p3_tool_config/
Click + Add on the “Lti 1.3 tool keys” entry, give it an arbitrary name, and paste the corresponding keys you created above. In other words, under “Private key”, paste the contents of jwt.key, and under “Public key”, paste jwt.key.pub, like so:
Once the key is saved, go to the list of LTI tools at:
http://127.0.0.1:18010/admin/lti1p3_tool_config/ltitool/
Click on ADD LTI 1.3 TOOL on the top right, and fill the fields with the corresponding information:
That’s it! When you click save, Open edX Content Libraries and Canvas will be set up to communicate with each other via LTI.
What’s left to do is to actually create a content library with some content in Open edX, and to finally consume it in the Canvas instance.
Start at the Open edX library authoring frontend, which in the devstack setup is located at:
http://localhost:3001
Click on New Library, filling the fields out as you see fit: the library details are arbitrary. Just make a note of them for later! For instance:
After submitting, add a “Poll” block by clicking on the Advanced button, then on Poll. (For the purposes of testing LTI integration, you don’t need to customize it, but feel free to do so by clicking on the block’s Edit button.) The block should be visible in the library you created, like so:
Next, you'll need to explicitly allow this library to be shared via LTI. For now, the only way to do so is via Studio’s admin interface, at:
http://127.0.0.1:18010/admin/content_libraries/contentlibrary/
Click on the library's ID (in this case, "library01") to edit its metadata. Under "Authorized LTI configs", simply click on the first "LtiTool object" (which refers to the LTI configuration that points to Canvas you created earlier) so that it remains selected:
Click Save, then go back to the library authoring frontend and the library you created (here, http://127.0.0.1:3001/library/lib:DeveloperInc:library01), and refresh the page. You should now see a "Copy LTI URL" button alongside the poll block you just created.
The presence of the Copy LTI URL button is confirmation that this library is accessible via LTI. Click on it: doing this will copy this block's LTI integration URL to your clipboard.
Instead of creating blocks from scratch, you can also import them from a preexisting course into a library. To do so, go to the library’s Settings menu, and click on import:
Next, click on Show Importable Courses, then import the Demonstration Course by clicking on its Import Course button. After a few seconds, the import should be completed:
If you then go back to the library page, you should see a list of all the imported blocks, all of which could also be used via LTI:
Now, go back to the Canvas Dashboard and click on Start New Course. Give the course any name you like, then from its home page click on Assignments, then + Assignment to create a new (you guessed it!) assignment. Its name is also arbitrary (we're calling ours "Open edX Poll"), but under "Submission Type", choose "External Tool". And for External Tool URL, paste the LTI URL that's on your clipboard. In our case, it looks like this:
http://127.0.0.1:18010/api/libraries/v2/lti/1.3/launch/?id=lb:DeveloperInc:library01:poll:c3fe9810-3811-4794-878f-da08ca07ff00
Click on save, and… That's it! Your Canvas learners should now be able to interact with the poll block from within a Canvas course, just as if they were using it inside Open edX. And yes, this includes grading!
Note: LTI urls can also be used in an <iframe> in any Canvas Page, which is great for embedding videos, pages, and other non-graded content. An easy way to try this is by including an LTI url, for a video or page, within the content editor for an assignment. You can include an <iframe> with an LTI url anywhere you can access the Rich Content Editor in Canvas.
It's still early days for Open edX Content Libraries, but the fact that Library items can now be used via LTI integration opens up a realm of possibilities. Because libraries are unbound from the traditional courseware structure, they allow more effective content reuse. And because their content can be accessed programmatically, it can be used in all kinds of interesting ways, for instance, for adaptive learning. In addition, Libraries offer an easier entry point to the vast array of Open edX problem types. Allowing instructors to start their authoring journey from a Library might make for an easier introduction to the power of the Open edX platform.
If you’d like to know more, let us know!
Header image: "Canvas Skies" by Nichole Renee is licensed under CC BY 2.0
[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.
This article was written by Jeff Miller, a member of the OpenCraft marketing team.
So, you’ve been looking for a learning management system (LMS) and have decided that the open source Open edX platform makes the most sense. You’re not alone! It’s the most widely used LMS platform in the world, with 45 million people using it in 34 different languages. It’s open source, so you don’t have to take a vendor’s word, alone, for anything, but it’s proven itself to be a resilient, effective learning tool that can scale to support thousands of simultaneous learners.
The official documentation for Open edX is excellent, but we know that setting it up and hosting it on your own can still be daunting. OpenCraft is here to help.
We sat down with OpenCraft’s very own product specialist Gabriel D’Amours to talk about how OpenCraft handles hosting and address some of the common technical questions that clients ask about Open edX.
So, for starters, how can OpenCraft help organizations customize, deploy, and maintain an Open edX installation?
We can help at every step of the way, from designing a custom Open edX instance, developing the code, and hosting and maintaining it. We can even provide training on how to build courses.
OK, so let’s say I want to get started and begin working with you all to design an Open edX instance. What version of Open edX do you use?
All good questions. As for the platform, we always use the current version when building a new instance, and we upgrade all of our hosted instances within a few weeks of a new release. That’s included in the subscription fee for all our hosting plans, so clients don’t need to worry about getting charged to ensure they’re up to date. It’s important, because not only do new releases provide new features and better performance, but they also ensure and enhance security.
What if I need to incorporate functions not yet supported in Open edX, like video conferencing? Can you add that?
When clients want features or integrations that aren’t already supported by the Open edX platform, we’ll do what’s necessary to develop it. Frankly, that’s what we love doing most.
For instance, the LabXChange team wanted users to be able to quickly incorporate and reuse content to create new learning pathways on the fly. At the time, Open edX didn’t support that capability, so we wrote a completely new storage architecture called Blockstore that’s now the standard storage architecture for the project.
It’s true that Open edX doesn’t support video conferencing out of the box, but OpenCraft can integrate apps like Zoom, and many others, into instances and courses using the LTI protocol.
How about hosting? Do you host clients’ instances? If so, what does that entail and what do you provide?
We frequently host our clients’ Open edX instances on OpenStack servers which are based in Europe, though if your needs are different, we’re happy to discuss it. In a nutshell, we have two plans.
Our Pro & Teacher is designed for clients looking for a full-featured, dedicated Open edX instance at a reasonable price. It includes the Open edX LMS and the Studio authoring tool for developing courses. Pricing is based on the number of monthly users, up to 1,000, and support is provided via email.
Our Institutional Plan is intended for clients who need significant customization and advanced functionality such as e-commerce, single sign-on, edX Insights analytics and dedicated mobile apps. With this plan, themes are completely customizable, there is no limit to the number of users and OpenCraft provides priority support with one of our senior developers.
For full details on the different plans we offer, click here.
Do clients need to use the OpenCraft domain if you host the instance or can they use a custom URL?
We provide custom domains for clients on both plans, though the Pro & Teacher option does require an additional monthly fee to enable this (it’s included in the Institutional plan). We can point your instance to any valid custom domain.
What examples can you provide of the work you’ve done?
We’re doing a lot of work directly for edX, which is pure platform development for Open edX. From our early days we've done work such as developing much of the platform's single sign-on capabilities, Drag and Drop XBlock (where the learner drags items to zones on a target image) and the Content Libraries feature. We're currently working on multiple projects with edX to update and improve many areas of the platform such as discussion tools, open response assessment, LTI exercises, Common Cartridge compatibility, content libraries and taxonomies, theming & branding, and more obscure backend stuff! We have many more projects to come in Q3 and Q4 2020.
We also work with many high-profile academic institutions. We currently provide Open edX services to universities such as MIT, multiple Harvard schools, Arizona State University, Notre Dame University, and have worked with many others.
We’ve worked with the French Ministry of Higher Education to develop the French national platform for promoting the use of massive open online courses, and currently work on a similar project with the Government of Israel on a national platform called Campus-IL. We also work with private firms. For example, we provide deployment, hosting and maintenance of Cloudera OnDemand, the California technology company’s learning platform.
Safe to say, if you need a learning platform, OpenCraft can deliver it.
Need support for the Open edX platform? Book a free 1hr consultation and we will help you out.
Photo by Angelina Litvin on Unsplash
Congratulations to Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Amgen Foundation, and the LabXchange team on this win!
Even though the Open edX Conference was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the awesome team at Open edX chose to celebrate the work of its community by announcing the inaugural Open edX prize earlier this year.
Open edX have published an official blog post to announce the good news. Read it here.
The nominations were evaluated according to two categories, the “most important technical project” and the “most important project in instruction or learning design”.
LabXchange was one of the many nominated projects by the community. It is a free and powerful online learning platform charged with innovative features and content. Powered by Open edX software, it provides users with enriching learning experiences and assets to help them grow. Through the development of the LabXchange platform, OpenCraft has contributed major new Open edX features such as Blockstore, a new XBlock Runtime, and a new visual assessment editor. You can learn more about LabXchange by checking our other blog post.
It gives us immense pleasure to announce that LabXchange was chosen to be “the most important technical project” among the many compelling nominations submitted by the community. We would like to congratulate Robert Lue, Professor of the Practice of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University and UNESCO Chair on Life Sciences and Social Innovation, Gaurav Vazirani, Managing Director of LabXchange, and David Ormsbee, Staff Software Engineer at edX. We would also like to congratulate Braden MacDonald, our CTO at OpenCraft, Usman Khalid, Senior Open Source Developer at OpenCraft, and every OpenCraft member who put any of their valuable time towards growing this platform; after all, we are a team working together to help each other grow alongside OpenCraft.
As a company dedicated to contributing to Open Source Software, such a prize is a bright indication of the appreciation the community has for the work we are proud to be contributing daily.
