[Proposal] Enabling Common Cartridge Course Archive Imports via the Open edX Import Page

[MarshMike]

Abstract

This proposal results from a collaborative discovery effort by Raccoon Gang and AXIM, building upon the earlier initiative, Proposal: Improve Common Cartridge Import to Open edX, published in April 2024 and approved by the community.

The document details the integration of the CC2OLX converter into the Open edX interface to streamline the import of Common Cartridge course archives. It highlights previous enhancements made to the CC2OLX converter, evaluates integration options within the Open edX ecosystem, and proposes a detailed approach to facilitate seamless migration of course archives from other LMS platforms.

Detailed Product Proposal

https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OEPM/pages/4735270923/Proposal+Enabling+Common+Cartridge+Course+Archive+Imports+via+the+Open+edX+Import+Page

Context & Background (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)

Goals and Objectives
This proposal aims to outline the most effective method for integrating the CC2OLX converter into the Open edX interface, enabling the seamless import of course archives from LMS platforms that utilize the Common Cartridge format into Open edX.

What is Common Cartridge?

A Common Cartridge (CC) is a set of open standards developed by the 1EdTech member community that enable interoperability between content and systems. Basically, it is a standard for creating and sharing digital learning content in the education sector. This standard is supported by major LMS systems on the market like Blackboard Learn, Moodle, Brightspace, Canvas. As a result, users of these systems can effortlessly export course data in .imscc archive from one system and seamlessly upload it to another, ensuring fast and easy migration between systems. A Common Cartridge file contains features such as an IMS manifest file, roles metadata, LTI links, weblinks, embedded files, and question data.

More information about common cartridge content can be found in Proposal: Improve Common Cartridge Import to Open edX #352

CC2OLX Current State

Open edX currently does not support the Common Cartridge standard, meaning tha courses exported in .imscc format cannot be seamlessly imported into the system. However, a cc2olx converter has been developed to transform Common Cartridge .imscc files into .tar.gz files, which can then be imported into Open edX Studio.

During the work on the previous scope outlined in Proposal: Improve Common Cartridge Import to Open edX #352, the converter was significantly improved.

Users Analysis

While developing this proposal, we conducted a survey within the Open edX community to gather insights about their experiences transferring courses from other LMS platforms and to understand their expectations for future functionality.

Scope & Approach (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)

Approach

The solution design process involved analyzing the needs of Open edX users through community feedback and assessing the technical constraints of the current CC2OLX converter and Open edX import functionality. This included reviewing the progress achieved during the enhancement of the Common Cartridge converter. The next steps will focus on validating the proposed scope and solution in collaboration with Open edX working groups.

Based on the user feedback and technical analysis we diced to recommend the following implementation: in the existed import page, after the archive uploading, if .tar.gz archive is received, the default importing flow is applied. If imscc archive is received, the form with converter-related flag values (link_file, passport-file) appears which user can fill and press "Submit" button. Here we need to think what if the user will re-upload the archive and it will be .tar.gz: maybe, the additional form will disappear and the importing process will start immediately. Or we will always have "Submit" button. After imscc-related form submitting, the converting to OLX status should be added in "Course import status" list widget. The backend logic will be the same as in the previous option.

High-Level Scope
The scope of the proposal include the following items:

Backend development:

• Automate the migration of videos uploaded to third-party services to simplify the current migration flow.
• Enable automatic detection of archive formats.
• Generate detailed reports listing files that failed to import, along with the reasons for failure.
• Add a waffle flag in the admin panel to support importing the .imscc format.

Frontend Development:

• Create a modal window with the configuration settings for
• Source LMS Domain to ensure conversion of images and media
• LTI mapping to automatically configure LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) settings for the content.
• Modal window with the detailed report.

Additional:

• Documentation describing implemented improve.

Value & Impact (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)

The proposed solution will significantly decrease the efforts for course creators to transfer courses from other LMSs that support Common Cartridge format into Open edX.

As a result, the proposed functionality will improve following metrics:

• Time needed to transfer the Common Cartridge course archive to Open edX;
• The number of educational institutions who migrate to Open edX from systems that support Common Cartridge.

Milestones and/or Epics

To enable the import of Common Cartridge course archives into Open edX, we have broken down the task into the following work items. The designs of the proposed functionality be found by link.

The envisioned user flow is illustrated in the activity diagram.

Detailed user stories and solution description are outlined in Product Proposal on Confluence wiki.

Named Release

Teak

Timeline (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)

TBD

Proposed By

Raccoon Gang

Additional Info

GitHub - openedx/cc2olx: A library to convert Common Cartridge Courses to OLX.

Proposal: Improve Common Cartridge Import to Open edX · Issue #352 · openedx/platform-roadmap

Converter Integration to OeX

[github-actions]

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