# “Course Instructor” advanced setting usage in course metadata

**URL:** <https://discuss.openedx.org/t/course-instructor-advanced-setting-usage-in-course-metadata/19083>\
**Category:** Site Operations Help\
**Tags:** how-to, ulmo\
**Created:** [June 2, 2026, 8:59am UTC](https://discuss.openedx.org/t/course-instructor-advanced-setting-usage-in-course-metadata/19083 "2026-06-02T08:59:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Meet\_Boghani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/discuss.openedx.org/meet_boghani/32/6998_2.png) [@Meet\_Boghani](https://discuss.openedx.org/u/Meet_Boghani)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 8:59am UTC](https://discuss.openedx.org/t/course-instructor-advanced-setting-usage-in-course-metadata/19083/1 "2026-06-02T08:59:25Z")

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Hi everyone,

I was checking the **Course Instructor** advanced setting in Open edX Studio, but I couldn’t find any official documentation explaining how this field works.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/openedx/original/2X/1/19552f9cca1c8729d9dd7b808d512ebf6a5d1bc5.png)

In Studio, under **Advanced Settings** , I can see the field with a default value like:

```auto
{
  "instructors": []
}

```

I also tried adding JSON data for an instructor, for example:

```auto
{
  "instructors": [
    {
      "name": "John Doe",
      "title": "Course Instructor",
      "organization": "Example Academy",
      "bio": "Short instructor bio."
    }
  ]
}

```

## What I tested

- Opened a course in Studio

- Went to **Settings → Advanced Settings**

- Updated the **Course Instructor** field with instructor JSON data

- Saved the changes

- Republished the course

- Checked the course About page and course card

## Expected behavior

- Instructor information should be displayed somewhere on the course page, About page, or course card

- Or the field should be used by some platform API/template

## Actual behavior

- I could not see any visible change in the LMS

- Instructor details were not displayed on the course card

- Instructor details were not visible on the course About page

- I could not confirm where this field is consumed

From testing, it looks like this field may be stored as course metadata, but I am not sure whether it is actively used by default Open edX templates or MFEs.

Is the **Course Instructor** advanced setting still supported in current Open edX releases?

If yes, where should the added instructor details be visible?

Also, is there any specific JSON structure expected for this field, or does it depend completely on the active theme/course About template?

I am currently checking this on **Ulmo**.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sarina](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/discuss.openedx.org/sarina/32/2308_2.png) [@sarina](https://discuss.openedx.org/u/sarina)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2026, 5:24pm UTC](https://discuss.openedx.org/t/course-instructor-advanced-setting-usage-in-course-metadata/19083/2 "2026-06-15T17:24:47Z")

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I strongly suspect this is an unused/outdated setting. edX build in-platform course catalog in 2012, settings proliferated, then they switched to a custom frontend and content management system without cleaning up these fields. We only ported settings to the new Catalog MFE that were actually being used by the legacy Catalog.

I don’t have time to do code spelunking right now but if you take a look through settings I’d be pretty certain you’d see this defined as a field with no code referencing it. In which case filing a fast-track DEPR to remove this setting would be the correct course of action.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/openedx/original/2X/e/e0015f89e879bc75925b71fd11133ab15fe98297.png) [@system](https://discuss.openedx.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2026, 5:25pm UTC](https://discuss.openedx.org/t/course-instructor-advanced-setting-usage-in-course-metadata/19083/3 "2026-09-13T17:25:38Z")

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