Contributors Meetup Async Update - Jan 4th - Jan 17th, 2025

Working Groups Core Contributors
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Core Contributor Update: Jan 4th - Jan 17th, 2025

Use the jump links below to view the section that interests you:

  1. Working Groups Updates
  2. Events
  3. Projects
  4. Next async update and meetup

1. Working Groups Updates

Working Groups Calendar

1.1. BTR Working Group

Chair: @jalondonot

:paperclip: Latest news

  • Retrospective action items follow-up
  • Teak release schedule:
    • Stick with June 9 for the release: Want to do some work on the retrospective before we can choose a date for cutting the release candidate.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.2. Contributor Coordination Working Group

Chair: Jorge Londoño

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-11-26 CC Working Group Meeting Notes

  1. Enhancement of CC Experience
  • Refine proposals and planning by year-end.
  • Prepare for a focused start to the year with structured proposals.
  • Ensure initiative owners start defining plans.
  1. Upcoming Meetings:
  • Decision to cancel the December 24th meeting.
  • Next scheduled meeting: January 21, 2025.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.3. Data Working Group

Chair: @e0d & @blarghmatey

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-11-13 Meeting notes

:memo: Meeting notes

1.4. DEPR Working Group

Chair: @feanil

:paperclip: Latest news

:memo: Meeting notes

1.6. Tutor Users’ Group

Chair: Kyle McCormick

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes Tutor Users GW 2024-11-18

:memo: Meeting notes

1.7. Educators Working Group

Chair: @john_curricume

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-10-07 Educator WG

  • In this session of the Open edX Educators Working Group, Eric J. Larson discusses AI literacy, focusing on the distinction between AI capabilities and human-like reasoning. Participants, primarily educators, explore the implications of AI in education, emphasizing the potential and limitations of current AI technologies. Larson elaborates on his book ‘The Myth of Artificial Intelligence,’ highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of AI as an educational tool. They discuss issues such as hallucinations, the impact of AI on student learning, and the importance of maintaining critical and creative thinking. Larson promotes leveraging AI thoughtfully to complement human cognitive abilities, especially in educational settings, while acknowledging the inherent challenges and unpredictable errors of AI systems.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.8. Frontend Working Group

Chair: @arbrandes

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-10-24 Frontend Working Group Meeting Notes

  1. “Frontend Base” Initiative:
    • David Joy introduced a unified library to replace various frontend components, such as headers and footers, enhancing configurability and usability.
    1. Header Configurations:
    • New headers are configured through a “site config” file, enabling dynamic updates tailored to specific modules without major code changes.
    1. Footer Development:
    • A prototype for an adaptable footer was showcased, inspired by layouts like edx.org, offering structured link layouts and improved internationalization.
    1. Module Federation and App Configuration:
    • David presented three app configuration methods (internal apps, federated modules, and external apps) to support modular, flexible builds with potential default configurations for easier integration.
    1. Plugin and Module Slot Configurations:
    • The team discussed organizing plugins and modules for a balance between flexibility and simplicity, suggesting helper functions and default setups for easier configuration.
    1. Internationalization Improvements:
    • Updates were shared on language selection, leveraging browser APIs for language options based on configured translations, eliminating the need for large external libraries.

Outcomes and Next Steps:

  • The group expressed overall approval for the proposed configurations and recommended further testing to explore complex use cases.
  • David will summarize the current work and gather additional feedback on Discourse.
  • The team acknowledged the importance of balancing configurability with usability and agreed to continue refining the system.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.9. Large Instances Working Group

Chair: @braden & @Felipe

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-12-10 Large Instances Meeting Notes

  • eduNEXT
    • Felipe Montoya : We have started the process of migrating our production clusters to Harmony. Starting with smaller clusters and documenting the process, and opening PRs as we encounter issues.
  • OpenCraft
    • Braden MacDonald We’re preparing for Sumac upgrade - happy with removal of Elasticsearch and the fact that forum can now use MySQL as a backend instead of MongoDB.
    • Gábor Boros has opened a PR to add Terraform code for AWS & DigitalOcean to Harmony.
    • Discussion between Gábor Boros and Felipe Montoya agreed that we don’t need to have “one way” to deploy Harmony using Terraform - we can provide examples of how OpenCraft does it, how eduNEXT does it, etc. and people can mix and match, if that’s helpful.
  • RaccoonGang
    • Currently focused on migrating to Tutor for deployments, and encountering quite a few issues.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.10. Marketing Working Group

Chair: Eden Huthmacher

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-11-20 MWG Meeting Notes

:memo: Meeting notes

1.11. Maintainers

Chair: Feanil

  • Codejail:
    • Is 2U planning to use the edunext service or build out a different one that’s django based?
    • 2U is digging into this and will share out the info when they have it.
  • Retro of DEPR Breaking Changes Pilot:
  • What works
    • Having a place to find anything that might break me as an operator.
      • It was smart to use this, at first, at least
    • Defining the expansion/contraction of maintenance is useful for our operators to rely on our platform.
    • Added clarity and expectation to the number of deletions that could happen. Pre-pilot, depr was anxiety-inducing. Pilot has ‘totally changed’ that.
    • Month target, not just release target.
  • What doesn’t work
    • Feanil:Going through the DEPR process for every single breaking change is fairly costly, hard to know if something is small and un-used vs big and impactful.
    • Question of “What is a breaking change?”
      • “Removing support for the old way we used to do X” as a DEPR for adding a new way to do something.
    • Sarina: community members who don’t come to this maintenance meeting find the process overwhelming
    • 6-months is supposed to be to give operators time to get ready, but there was confusion about when operators could start doing work and what work they could do.
    • When do we introduce the overhead because we think the overhead is worth it.
    • DEPR became a less-useful notification channel for ops when we started pushing smaller and smaller things through it.
    • Need more clarity on when and how to send changes down which processes, and how they inter-relate: DEPRs, product process, OEPs, ADRs, and any other “breaking change” process that we do or don’t come up with here
  • Teak Maintenance Priorities: edx-platform/requirements/edx-sandbox at master · openedx/edx-platform

:memo: Meeting notes

1.12. Product Working Group

Chair: Jenna Makowski

LTI

UX/UI Working Group

  • Design Tokens Overview (Presented by Brian Smith):
    • Explained the concept of design tokens and their application within Open edX:
      • Runtime Theming: Transition from SCSS to CSS variables for dynamic changes and multi-tenancy support.
      • Integration: Using JSON-based tokens transformed via Style Dictionary into platform-specific formats (CSS, iOS, Android, etc.).
    • Figma Integration Potential:
      • Opportunities for integrating design tokens into Figma via plugins.
      • Possibility of generating JSON files from Figma for direct application.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.13. Security Working Group

Chair: Feanil Patel

:memo: Meeting notes

1.14. TOC

Chair: Ed Zarecor

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-12-10 TOC Meeting Summary

Announcements

Partnership & New TOC Member
It was announced that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) had been signed with a large university, which involves them joining the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) starting in the new year. The announcement of a new member from that organization joining the meetings from February was mentioned, and plans were in place to work with their communications team on a further public announcement.

Migration of 2U Engineers to the core contributor program
An update was provided regarding the migration of all 2U engineers to the core contributor program for obtaining permissions within the project. Existing permissions will be grandfathered into core contributor & maintainers status, but obtaining new permissions will require following the same standards as the rest of the community, going forward.
On the flip side, it will require the community to keep stepping up its contributions in core contributor & maintainers time, to compensate for the shift of responsibility to the community.
Aligning 2U engineers and practices with the community guidelines requires a fair amount of changes within 2U, the rough timeline for the completion of this migration is set for February.

2025 Conference Update

Information was shared about the progress of arranging the upcoming conference, emphasizing that the Call for Proposals (CFP) had closed, and the submissions were under review. It was mentioned that the selection process involved a juried review by community members and stakeholders using a tool called Sessionize. The results were expected to be finalized soon, with keynote announcements pending.

Sumac Release

Concurrently with the meeting, the Sumac release ceremony was being held, though it has since been delayed by a few days. This release is significant and incorporates new functionalities like a central content library, enhancing content reusability across courses. Draft release notes were shared, and community contributions to this release were acknowledged, appreciating last-minute fixes and enhancements.

Market Research

During the presentation of a market research analysis performed for Open edX, extensive discussions centered around identifying the most beneficial markets and strategic focus areas for Open edX. The dialogue primarily navigated through the merits and potential of targeting specific sectors such as community colleges, ministries, corporate training, and certain international educational initiatives.

Presentation

Market Identification

  • Introduced the core market segments that Open edX could serve effectively: community colleges, ministries, and employers.
  • Emphasized the growing need for upskilling across these segments, both in the U.S. and globally.
  • Highlighted the potential in non-credit educational programs which are rapidly growing and are underserved by current Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Go-To-Market Strategy

  • Suggested that a channel partner model should be the primary route to market rather than Open edX building out a large direct sales force.
  • Discussed the benefits of leveraging existing relationships that channel partners may have within the educational and corporate sectors.
  • Shared insights on the substantial investments typically required for go-to-market activities citing examples from other companies in the education industry.

Barriers and Opportunities

  • Acknowledged the technical challenges and support issues currently facing new users of Open edX, stressing the need for improvements to user experience and platform accessibility.
  • The discussion also covered the necessity of raising market awareness given the low existing visibility of Open edX among potential users and partners.

Strategic Partnerships and Engagements

  • Detailed current discussions with large international organizations, aimed at using Open edX for large-scale educational initiatives.
  • Expressed the need to identify and engage with more partners who can aid in distribution and localized support.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.15. Translation Working Group

Chair: Eden Huthmacher

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-11-06 Translation WG Meeting notes

:memo: Meeting notes

2. Events

  • Registration for the 2025 Open edX Conference is open! Join the Open edX Conference 2025 in the Télécom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris
  • Call for Papers: Open edX Conference 2025: Proposals are due by December 4, 2024, with early feedback available for submissions before November 11.
  • Would anyone like to highlight any past or upcoming events? Let us know in the comments!

3. Projects

Are there any new or ongoing projects you’d like to discuss? Get the conversation started in the comments below.

4. Next async update and meetup

  • Tuesday January 21st - Join the meetup here!
  • Friday January 31st - Async update
  • Details and draft agenda on Confluence

:speech_balloon: Anything to add?

If there’s anything else you’d like to mention, please let us know in the comments below.