1.3. Preface

Course teams, researchers, developers, learners: the edX community includes groups with a range of reasons for using the platform and objectives to accomplish. To help members of each group learn about what edX offers, reach goals, and solve problems, edX provides a variety of information resources.

To help you find what you need, browse the edX offerings in the following categories.

All members of the edX community are encouraged to make use of any of the resources described in this preface. We welcome your feedback on these edX information resources. Contact the edX documentation team at docs@edx.org.

1.3.1. The edX Partner Portal

The edX Partner Portal is the destination for partners to learn, connect, and collaborate with one another. Partners can explore rich resources and share success stories and best practices while staying up-to-date with important news and updates.

To use the edX Partner Portal, you must register and request verification as an edX partner. If you are an edX partner and have not used the edX Partner Portal, follow these steps.

  1. Visit partners.edx.org, and select Create New Account.
  2. Select Request Partner Access, then fill in your personal details.
  3. Select Create New Account. You will receive a confirmation email with your account access within 24 hours.

1.3.1.1. Course Team Support in the edX Partner Portal

EdX partner course teams can get technical support in the edX Partner Portal. To access technical support, submit a support ticket, or review any support tickets you have created, go to partners.edx.org and select Course Staff Support at the top of the page. This option is available on every page in the Partner Portal.

1.3.2. The Open edX Portal

The Open edX Portal is the destination for all edX users to learn about the edX roadmap, as well as hosting, extending the edX platform, and contributing to Open edX. In addition, the Open edX Portal provides product announcements, the Open edX blog, and other rich community resources.

All users can view content on the Open edX Portal without creating an account and logging in.

To comment on blog posts or the edX roadmap, or subscribe to email updates, you must create an account and log in. If you do not have an account, follow these steps.

  1. Visit open.edx.org/user/register.
  2. Fill in your personal details.
  3. Select Create New Account. You are then logged in to the Open edX Portal.

1.3.3. Release Announcements through the Open edX Portal

To receive and share product and release announcements by email, subscribe to announcements on the Open edX Portal.

  1. Create an account on the Open edX Portal as described above.
  2. Go to https://open.edx.org/announcements.
  3. Under Announcement Type in the Subscriptions block, select the type of announcements that you want to receive through email.
  4. Select Save.

You will now receive email messages when new announcements of the types you selected are posted.

Note

EdX partners can complete the same steps on the Announcements page in the edX Partner Portal.

1.3.4. System Status

For system-related notifications from the edX operations team, including outages and the status of error reports. On Twitter, you can follow @edxstatus.

Current system status and the uptime percentages for edX servers, along with the Twitter feed, are published on the edX Status web page.

1.3.5. Resources for Course Teams

Course teams include faculty, instructional designers, course staff, discussion moderators, and others who contribute to the creation and delivery of courses on edx.org or edX Edge.

1.3.5.1. edX101: Overview of Creating a Course

The edX101 course was built in Studio and is available for enrollment on edx.org. This course takes one to two hours to complete, and is designed to provide a high-level overview of the course creation and delivery process. It also highlights the extensive capabilities of the edX platform.

1.3.5.2. Documentation

Documentation for course teams is available on the docs.edx.org web page.

  • Building and Running an edX Course is a comprehensive guide with concepts and procedures to help you build a course in edX Studio, and then use the Learning Management System (LMS) to run a course.

    When you are working in edX Studio, you can access relevant sections of this guide by selecting Help on any page.

  • Using edX Insights describes the metrics, visualizations, and downloadable .csv files that course teams can use to gain information about student background and activity.

  • edX Release Notes summarize the changes in each new version of deployed software.

  • edX Open Learning XML Guide provides guidelines for building edX courses with Open Learning XML (OLX). Note that this guide is currently an alpha version.

These guides open in your web browser. The left side of each page includes a Search docs field and links to the contents of that guide. To open or save a PDF version, select v: latest at the lower right of the page, then select PDF.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for edX documentation. This is a known limitation.

1.3.5.3. Email

To receive and share information by email, course team members can:

  • Subscribe to announcements and other new topics in the edX Partner Portal or the Open edX Portal. For information about how to subscribe, see Release Announcements through the Open edX Portal.
  • Join the openedx-studio Google group to ask questions and participate in discussions with peers at other edX partner organizations and edX staffers.

1.3.5.4. Wikis and Web Sites

The edX product team maintains public product roadmaps on the Open edX Portal and the edX Partner Portal.

The edX Author Support site for edX partners hosts discussions that are monitored by edX staff.

1.3.6. Resources for Researchers

Data for the courses on edx.org and edX Edge is available to the “data czars” at our partner institutions, and then used by database experts, statisticians, educational investigators, and others for educational research.

1.3.6.1. Documentation

The edX Research Guide is available on the docs.edx.org web page.

This guide opens in your web browser, with a Search docs field and links to that guide’s contents on the left side of each page. To open or save a PDF version, select v: latest at the lower right of the page, and then select PDF.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for edX documentation. This is a known limitation.

1.3.6.2. Email

To receive and share information by email, researchers can join the openedx-analytics Google group to ask questions and participate in discussions with peers at other edX partner organizations and edX staffers.

1.3.6.3. Wikis

The edX Analytics team maintains the Open edX Analytics wiki, which includes links to periodic release notes and other resources for researchers.

The edx-tools wiki lists publicly shared tools for working with the edX platform, including scripts for data analysis and reporting.

1.3.7. Resources for Developers

Software engineers, system administrators, and translators work on extending and localizing the code for the edX platform.

1.3.7.1. Documentation

Documentation for developers is available on the docs.edx.org web page.

  • The edX Platform Developer’s Guide includes guidelines for contributing to Open edX, options for extending the Open edX platform, using the edX public sandboxes, instrumenting analytics, and testing.
  • Installing, Configuring, and Running the edX Platform provides procedures for getting an edX developer stack (Devstack) and production stack (Fullstack) operational.
  • Open edX XBlock Tutorial guides developers through the process of creating an XBlock, and explains the concepts and anatomy of XBlocks.
  • Open edX XBlock API Guide provides reference information about the XBlock API.
  • edX Open Learning XML Guide provides guidelines for building edX courses with Open Learning XML (OLX). Note that this guide is currently an alpha version.
  • edX Data Analytics API provides reference information for using the data analytics API to build applications to view and analyze learner activity in your course.
  • edX Platform APIs provide reference information for building applications to view course information and videos and work with user and enrollment data.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for edX documentation. This is a known limitation.

1.3.7.2. GitHub

These are the main edX repositories on GitHub.

Additional repositories are used for other projects. Our contributor agreement, contributor guidelines and coding conventions, and other resources are available in these repositories.

1.3.7.3. Email and IRC

To receive and share information by email, developers can join these Google groups to ask questions and participate in discussions with peers and edX staffers.

  • For conversations about the code in Open edX, join edx-code.
  • For conversations about running Open edX, join openedx-ops.
  • For conversations about globalization and translation, join openedx-translation.

Additional Google groups are occasionally formed for individual projects.

Note

Please do not report security issues in public. If you have a concern, please email security@edx.org.

EdX engineers often monitor the Freenode #edx-code IRC channel.

1.3.7.4. Wikis and Web Sites

The Open edX Portal is the entry point for new contributors.

The edX Engineering team maintains an open Confluence wiki, which provides insights into the plans, projects, and questions that the edX Open Source team is working on with the community.

The pull request dashboard is a visualization of the count and age of the pull requests (PRs) assigned to teams at edX. Select the bars in this chart to get more information about the PRs.

The edx-tools wiki lists publicly shared tools for working with the edX platform, including scripts and helper utilities.

1.3.8. Resources for Open edX

Hosting providers, platform extenders, core contributors, and course staff all use Open edX. EdX provides release-specific documentation, as well as the latest version of all guides, for Open edX users. The following documentation is available.

  • Open edX Release Notes provides information on the contents of Open edX releases.

  • Building and Running an Open edX Course is a comprehensive guide with concepts and procedures to help you build a course in Studio, and then use the Learning Management System (LMS) to run a course.

    When you are working in Studio, you can access relevant sections of this guide by selecting Help on any page.

  • Open edX Learner’s Guide helps students use the Open edX LMS to take courses. This guide is available on the docs.edx.org web page. Because learners are currently only guided to this resource through the courseware, we encourage course teams to provide learners with links to this guide as needed in course updates or discussions.

  • Installing, Configuring, and Running the edX Platform provides information about installing and using Devstack and Fullstack.

  • The edX Platform Developer’s Guide includes guidelines for contributing to Open edX, options for extending the Open edX platform, using the edX public sandboxes, instrumenting analytics, and testing.

  • Open edX XBlock Tutorial guides developers through the process of creating an XBlock, and explains the concepts and anatomy of XBlocks.

  • Open edX XBlock API Guide provides reference information on the XBlock API.

  • EdX Open Learning XML Guide provides guidelines for building edX courses with Open Learning XML (OLX). Note that this guide is currently an alpha version.

  • EdX Data Analytics API provides reference information for using the data analytics API to build applications to view and analyze learner activity in your course.

  • EdX Platform APIs provide reference information for building applications to view course information and videos and work with user and enrollment data.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for edX documentation. This is a known limitation.

1.3.9. Resources for Learners

1.3.9.1. Documentation

The EdX Learner’s Guide and the Open edX Learner’s Guide are available on the docs.edx.org web page. Because learners are currently only guided to this resource through the courseware, we encourage course teams to provide learners with links to these guides as needed in course updates or discussions.

1.3.9.2. In a Course

All edX courses have a discussion forum where you can ask questions and interact with other students and with the course team: select Discussion. Many courses also offer a wiki for additional resources and materials: select Wiki.

Other resources might also be available, such as a course-specific Facebook page or Twitter feed, or opportunities for Google Hangouts. Be sure to check the Course Info page for your course as well as the Discussion and Wiki pages.

From time to time, the course team might send email messages to all students. While you can opt out of these messages, doing so means that you can miss important or time-sensitive information. To change your preferences for course email, select edX or edX edge at the top of any page. On your dashboard of current courses, locate the course and then select Email Settings.

1.3.9.3. From edX

To help you get started with the edX learning experience, edX offers a course (of course!). You can find the edX Demo course on the edX web site. EdX also maintains a list of frequently asked questions and answers.

If you still have questions or suggestions, you can get help from the edX support team: select Contact at the bottom of any edX web page or send an email message to info@edx.org.

For opportunities to meet others who are interested in edX courses, check the edX Global Community meetup group.