Core Contributor News for Sprint: Apr 11th - Apr 24th, 2026
This sprint brought mostly positive experiences. 77% of participants rated their experience as good or great, while 23% reported a neutral experience or faced some challenges.
What are we celebrating?
- The upcoming conference is approaching! It’s nice to get to see everyone soon
Who needs help?
What Pull Requests (PRs) need review?
As a CC, check for PRs that are stuck and need attention. Don’t have write access? No problem! You can still help by reviewing to move things forward. Ping Axim if there are issues merging after you review.
Below is a list of stalled PRs that need urgent attention. These are just some of the many PRs that require immediate review and action. In addition, there are several Draft PRs that need attention to move forward. Please take a moment to review and update them as needed so they don’t remain blocked. Thank you!
Stuck waiting for review
- fix: answer range format validation and error message in Numerical input
- feat: add asset existence check before replacing static URLs
- build: update release workflow to create PR with release changes
- WIP: fix: allow JWT auth for views used in Authoring MFE
- fix: do not update LMS user during retirement
- fix: fixed embedded video not showing in about page
- feat: add hasUnmetPrerequisitesList in CoursewareAccessSerializer
- feat: Validate country input during student registration
- feat: add script to update from main
- feat: add hasUnmetPrerequisitesList in CoursewareAccessSerializer
Draft PRs: Require review and updates to move forward:
- feat!: upgrade to mathjax v3
- feat: [FC-0044] Unit page - manage tags xblocks
- [WIP] refactor: change lang selector logic
- fix: CardImageCup stretches image on Safari
- docs: migrate to scriv to manage changelog
- feat: [FC-0047] Implement offline content generation:
- feat: add GTM integration
- feat: add GTM integration
- [POC] feat: add support for divided discussions with user groups
- docs: add arch decision record for the migration path for legacy user grouping mechanisms
Find a full list of PRs ready for review here, or focus on edx-platform PRs that need attention.
What are the Working Groups up to?
| Working Group | Latest Updates |
|---|---|
| BizDev | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2026-04-02 Partnership development Meeting |
| Build-Test-Release (BTR) | All Verawood roles were fully confirmed, and planning continues for a Testathon at the Open edX Conference, with details still pending. The release is progressing with many features completed, while key items like LTI block copy-paste and RBAC milestone 2 remain critical risks under active review. A final go/no-go decision will be made before the release cut, based on testing results and readiness of these remaining components. Latest meeting notes → 2026-20-04 BTR Meeting Minutes |
| Governance WG | The main focus during this period was preparing the Contributions Review Hackathon, with progress on defining PR filters and keeping the April–May timeline on track. Key contributors committed resources, including eduNEXT and OpenCraft, to help reduce the OSPR backlog. No progress was made on other initiatives like communication tools or notifications proposals, which remain unchanged. Last meeting notes → Mar 23 to Apr 6 2026 — Open edX Governance WG |
| Core Product | The session focused on Phase 1 of Modular Learning × Aspects dashboards (Willow), reviewing early requirements and progress. Discussion centered on aligning analytics capabilities with modular learning needs and defining key dashboard functionalities. The work is still in progress, with continued refinement needed before moving into later phases. Latest meeting notes → 2026-04-07 Core Product Meeting Notes |
| Data | The session highlighted ongoing efforts to improve the operator experience, along with upcoming enhancements through Superset themes and upgrades. It also focused on new and updated Aspects dashboards aligned with modular learning initiatives. The discussion reviewed early requirements for these dashboards as part of the evolving Aspects × Modular Learning strategy. Last meeting notes → 2026-04-08 Meeting notes |
| Deprecation | The group discussed improving DEPR project management by introducing a clearer distinction between Abandoned, Rejected, and Draft (help wanted) statuses to better track ticket lifecycle and encourage community contributions. Deborah initiated outreach to find maintainers for enterprise repos, with plans to create DEPR tickets for unclaimed ones after March 26. Next steps include updating the OEP, documenting decision rationale in tickets, and publicizing the new status framework. Last meeting notes → DEPR Meetings Notes (2026) |
| Documentation | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2026-02-04 Docs WG |
| Educators | The session explored how generative AI is transforming course development and grading, highlighting MIT’s Ask Tim for learner support and Grady for AI-assisted feedback at scale. Key benefits include personalized tutoring, automated grading with human oversight, and advanced analytics to improve learning outcomes and course design. Overall, the discussion emphasized AI as a tool for amplifying educators’ impact while maintaining academic integrity and scalability. Latest meeting notes → 2026-04-27 Educators |
| Frontend | The frontend-base project is nearly ready for the Verawood cutoff, with no major features or critical bugs pending, and strong confidence in meeting the deadline. Remaining work focuses on final fixes (e.g., help button, CSS issues), pending PRs, and completing dashboards, especially Instructor and Learner Dashboard updates. Next steps include intensive testing, improving documentation, and preparing for adoption and release after the conference, with a planned v1.0 stabilization period. Latest meeting notes → 2026-04-27 Frontend Working Group Meeting Notes |
| Large Instances | The meeting focused on operating Open edX at extreme scale, sharing real-world experience handling up to ~32,000 concurrent users and massive traffic spikes, proving the platform can scale with proper infrastructure tuning. Key challenges discussed included database bottlenecks, node scaling issues in GCP, and limitations of read/write splitting (ProxySQL), leading to optimizations like caching and infrastructure adjustments. The group also explored future collaboration on deployment tooling (e.g., Launchpad), infrastructure strategies, and cloud provider trade-offs, emphasizing shared learning across large-scale deployments. Latest meeting notes → Large Instances Meeting Notes 2026-04-15 |
| Learning Tools (LTI) | No current updates available. Latest meeting notes → 2025-11-25 Meeting notes |
| Maintenance | The team reviewed the openedx-platform on-call rotation schedule, ensuring clear ownership and continuity for maintenance responsibilities. They emphasized keeping the GitHub team updated and improving visibility of the rotation across the community. Next steps include announcing the rotation on the forums and updating workflows to automatically tag the active on-call engineer. Latest meeting notes → 2026-04-16 Meeting notes |
| Marketing | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → Agenda, Oct 14th, 2025 |
| Mobile | No current updates available. Latest meeting notes → Agenda, 2026-01-30 |
| Technical Oversight Committee | The session covered major updates including AI experimentation, plugin-based architecture improvements, and the universal mobile app proposal, highlighting a shift toward a more modular and scalable Open edX ecosystem. A strong focus was placed on AI-assisted code contributions, emphasizing human review, transparency, and the potential of AI to reduce technical debt and accelerate development. Strategic discussions also explored frontend-base migration, customization challenges, and a university-focused LMS distribution, positioning Open edX as a flexible platform to capture new global market opportunities. Latest meeting notes → TOC Meeting Notes - 2026-03-11 |
| Translation | The Translation Working Group shared updates on a leadership transition and upcoming improvements in documentation, best practices, and community coordination. They highlighted the use of Transifex AI to automate translations, with high-quality outputs auto-reviewed and lower-quality ones requiring human validation. Key next steps include recruiting a new WG leader, improving workflows and tooling understanding, and reducing notification noise to streamline collaboration. Last meeting notes → 2026-03-18 Translation WG Meeting |
| Design | The Translation Working Group reviewed string completion progress via Transifex, highlighting improved coverage supported by AI-assisted translations. They shared updates on leadership transition and upcoming documentation/best practices, while reinforcing the use of AI with human review based on quality scores. Key next steps include recruiting a new WG leader, improving workflows, and reducing notification noise to streamline collaboration. Last meeting notes → 2026-03-18 - Design Working Group Meeting |
What events are coming up?
-
The countdown is ON
The Open edX Conference 2026 is happening May 19–22 in Salt Lake City, hosted by Western Governors University — and the full schedule is now live.
Take a look, plan your sessions, and get ready to connect, learn, and shape the future of Open edX
https://con.openedx.org/ -
Join a working group meeting using the community calendar.
What are we working on?
- Our community is working on exciting projects! Visit our Open edX Roadmap and Release Planning Spreadsheet to find out what’s happening.
Want to participate in Core Contributor Governance?
- Participate to the work of the Contributor Coordination Working Group. The group works asynchronously using the working group tasks board, and we’d love your input there. You can review and comment on existing threads there, or post your own topic to discuss with the group by creating your own ticket on the board (“+ Add item” in “New topics and issues to discuss”).
Anything to add?
Share your thoughts in Slack (openedx.slack.com) or the comments below!