Deprecation/Removal: MATLAB-specific handling in edx-platform

dave · May 10, 2023, 10:31pm

I’d like to remove the special handling for MATLAB in edx-platform, since it is my understanding that this doesn’t actually work any longer anyway, and LTI is the accepted way to integrate MATLAB content these days:

github.com/openedx/public-engineering

[DEPR]: MATLAB-specific handling in edx-platform

opened 10:24PM - 10 May 23 UTC

ormsbee

### Overview Our system currently has special handling for MATLAB problems via …an old integration through xqueue that isn't really supported any longer, and appears to be broken today. Since this integration should now be done via LTI, we can remove: * [`matlab_api_key`](https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/capa_block.py#L333-L341) attribute in ProblemBlock, as well as the version [defined for inheritance purposes](https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/f8737d343980ca8531d65c41be3b982e8333dc93/xmodule/modulestore/inheritance.py#L148-L155). * [`MatlabInput`](https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/capa/inputtypes.py#L839-L1032) * Associated JavaScript, CSS, template, and text fixture code. * It may be that removing this would adversely affect grades, in which case it may be better to leave behind a bare shell that does nothing but acting as a dumb placeholder for legacy content scoring purposes. More investigation needed. * Scattered special-case hanlding for MATLAB in `coderesponse` and xqueue. Affect on old course content: * Student scores must be preserved. * It is not necessary to be able to render the original student submission or detailed response information. ### Proposal Date 10 May 2023 ### Target Ticket Acceptance Date 24 May 2023 ### Earliest Open edX Named Release Without This Functionality **Quince**. Since it is not currently in a working state, there's no need to offer an extra release for migration. ### Rationale 1. The current endpoint does not hook up to a working external service, and is not useful. 2. LTI is already the accepted way to integrate MATLAB content. 3. It will slightly simplify ProblemBlock and the LMS's XBlock runtime to remove this.

If this older style of xqueue-based MATLAB integration is still working for you, please let me know. My understanding at the moment is that it’s been broken for quite some time. The proposed comments deadline is 2023-05-24.

Thank you.

colin.fredericks · May 11, 2023, 12:52pm

As someone who has a course that teaches MATLAB, I am 100% fine with this getting removed. Mathworks wasn’t even encouraging us to use it 4 years ago when the course launched.

shellyu · May 18, 2023, 4:04pm

I’m fine with this - MITs current MOOC and Residential catalogs only use the LTI.

dave · May 23, 2023, 6:59pm

Pasting this Slack thread comment from @jkotwick for additional context:

MathWorks stopped issuing API keys for automated assessment in MATLAB several years ago when we released a new LTI-based tool. Anyone interested in using the LTI functionality can still use the moocsupport@mathworks.com email address to contact MathWorks. The older API setting in the edX Studio UI remained to handle legacy courses as they made the conversation. I can confirm that there are no longer any courses that still use this functionality and it can safely be removed.

dave · May 24, 2023, 4:32am

This DEPR has been moved to “Accepted”.

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Deprecation/Removal: MATLAB-specific handling in edx-platform

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