@jordan I think I may have an idea that fits this grant.
There’s been a lot of talk in the product group about competency-based education. Although it hasn’t been decided how this should be incorporated into the platform yet, I think we might be able to use existing features to jumpstart the progress. This is what I have in mind:
Course authors use tags to align parts of their course to particular competencies or skills (this functionality exists)
We design a dashboard that displays to learners how competent they are in a specific skill based on what course / course content they have completed successfully
I’ve added some screenshots from other services to show how they implemented something similar (Duolingo, Exercism, Khan Academy etc). I’ve also included a screenshot of a dashboard from the Open edX mobile app that we could use for inspiration
@Ali Thanks Ali, I reached out by email but I’ll comment on the proposal as well. I like the competency based learning approach and think there’s a lot of potential to expand on this work down the line. I’m wondering though how we can highlight the “innovative approach” angle or perhaps something related to the data behind it or impact on learner engagement and completion? If anyone has other ideas on this, please feel free to chime in. I think the scope could even be expanded slightly for the grant.
This will take some brainstorming. It’s on my to do list.
In the meantime, I wanted to know if you think it would be worth investigating creating courses (the actual content) for this grant? Perhaps something similar to:
WGU has written in asking us to meet with them in order to create something LabXChange like (at least, UI wise) and I suspect the underlying desire is going to be creating competency-based learning, which will have big implications for UI/UX design. Either way, WGU is dead set on making competency-based education a big feature of the platform, so I think before we consider doing anything in particular here, we should query them about it. They’ve been doing it in various forms for a long time and would be the team to ask about what they’d like to see in the platform to make this happen.
As for the courses, that’s not normally within our wheelhouse. Not to say we can’t, but it’s possible that there’s something we could adapt rather than create from scratch, and, again, WGU may be a resource here.
Great to hear that WGU is a strong advocate for CBE! I’m really curious to hear their ideas. I’ll watch the recording of next week’s meeting to stay up to speed on all the product updates.
Make sense. Let’s put this idea on the back burner for now, and I’ll revisit it if it seems worth pursuing in the future.
Is there a specific deadline for submitting proposals to the Vietsch Foundation? I ask because it might make sense to wait for WGU’s “wish list” to help guide which features we propose. Does the timeline allow for that?
@Ali The submissions are accepted on an ongoing basis, so there’s no rush in terms of an actual deadline. I agree it makes sense to find out the wish list first so we can align the proposal if it makes sense to.
Hey @jordan. I thought I’d give you a quick update:
I’m busy collecting wish list items from educators on this forum thread. Once I’ve collected a few, I plan to go through them and see if any would be suitable for the Vietsch grant. Watch this space!
Hey @jordan. I’ve been thinking about ways to make the idea I posted previously more innovative. I came up with a few ideas, but am not sure if any are right for this grant, or if they’re innovative enough!:
Allow learners to “level up” in a skill, unlocking advanced content, or community challenges
Add a leader board where learners’ progress is displayed in relation to their peers’
Build a “skills transcript” that learners can export or share with employers
Add a way for learners to connect completed competencies to real job postings
Alternatively, we could go a different route, and perhaps propose some kind of interactive problem design. Here are a few examples of interactive problems from other providers:
@jordan Hmmm, this suggestion from Elizabeth Gordon at Arizona State University could possibly be a fit for this grant:
An Open Source proctoring solution. Ideally, AI-powered and human-confirmed
There seem to be a number of ways to solve for this. This video about a service called LockDown Browser describes a few of them.
I came across this recent article on the Open edX blog about proctoring, but it looks like the service they mention isn’t open source. I also found this section in the docs about enabling a “proctoring service” in Studio, but it’s not clear which services are actually available.
@Ali Thanks for both suggestions! We actually have a check-in call with Elizabeth scheduled for today, so I can get some more information on what she has in mind for the proctoring solution and report back.
There are two services that have native support for proctoring that the platform supports. Neither of these are open source. The tools for building open source proctoring are available but as far as I know, no one has organized these into a cohesive product, especially not for the Open edX Platform.
For example, here’s a browser similar to the Lockdown browser called the “Safe Exam Browser.”
Additionally, here’s an open source AI proctoring thing that checks for stuff like looking away from the screen and using your phone.
Between these and the fact the platform itself already has the hooks for proctored exams, adding the ability to have instance operators configure and run their own proctoring seems to be a matter of turning the components into a proper product and building the right interfaces for them. Stuff like ‘where do we store the recordings/analysis data’ also needs to be solved. But these seem hardly insurmountable.
ID verification would be a nice to have but could be skippable for MVP.
@Fox Thanks for that info. This is starting to sound like something worth exploring—especially since some of the foundation is already in place.
A while ago, @antoviaque and @tikrapproved using some prospecting hours to develop two new product proposals. I’m wondering if proctoring might be a good candidate for one of them. @Fox@jordan@antoviaque@cassie — what do you think?
@jordan Did Elizabeth provide any additional information about ASU’s proctoring needs?
@Ali I think it’s a good fit due to the widespread demand and use for it. Elizabeth shared the features she’d want:
The ability to lock down the browser during an exam
The ability to monitor a learner’s webcam during an exam
When starting the exam, choosing whether to activate the browser lockdown, webcam monitoring or both
The option would show up in the instructor tab
Humans can review the recorded footage from the exam, ideally there could be an AI component that automatically flags certain actions or videos for review (this is on the wish list)
Need to think about privacy as well and how these videos are stored and hosted
I think this project meets the criteria of internet technology in support of higher education, high impact at minimal cost and innovative technologies. In terms of contributing to the openness and neutrality of the internet, we’d just need to keep the focus on open sourcing everything and privacy safeguards.
I like this idea! It makes SO much sense. It feels like a gap in the platform to me. Just a thought - it might be worth messaging some of the participants in the forum thread directly. I was particularly thinking of Colin Fredricks. He was very keen on participating, and he’s a manager in Instructional Design at Harvard.
@jordan@Fox Out of interest, have any other clients asked for this feature? I just want to make sure we’ve got the best shot at getting funding to see this through if we put this project proposal forward.
@cassie That’s a great idea! I think support for this functionality from reputable institutions is definitely helpful for this grant. Whether or not they are actually are actually contributing to the project, their feedback, backing and authority is still useful for us. I do think it works in our favour to highlight privacy regarding the webcam monitoring and data safeguards. Proctoring is a necessary tool for higher ed, so building it safely and completely open source certainly meets the criteria for this grant in my opinion.
Great project, it would be good to have an open source way to handle proctoring in Open edX.