Issue on page /front_matter/preface.html

[brianmccandless]

Readthedocs update needed for section 1.2 "Other edX Resources." The current section refers to the Partner Portal which has been deprecated, and also to courses that are no longer available on edx.org in section 1.2.3.

I have removed all mention of the Partner Portal throughout section 1.2 and have updated section 1.2.3 to reflect the current courses that edX offers to course teams on edx.org.

NOTE - I am a 2U employee who has not used GitHub before; if there is another way that I should be submitting these changes to this section of readthedocs, please let me know the appropriate process, thanks.

Below is content that should take the place of the current section 1.2 content:

1.2. Other edX Resources
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.

The Open edX Portal
System Status
Resources for Course Teams
Resources for Researchers
Resources for Developers
Resources for Open edX
Resources for Learners

All members of the edX community are encouraged to make use of the resources described in this preface. We welcome your feedback on these edX information resources. Contact the edX documentation team at [email protected].

1.2.1. 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.

1.2.1.1. Release Announcements by Email
To receive and share product and release announcements by email, you can subscribe to announcements on the edX portal site.

1. Create an account on the Open edX Portal as described above.
2. Select Community and then Announcements.
3. Under Subscriptions, select the different types of announcements that you want to receive through email. You might need to scroll down to see these options.
4. Select Save.

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

1.2.2. System Status
For system-related notifications from the edX operations team, including outages and the status of error reports. On X, you can follow @edxstatus.
Current system status and the uptime percentages for edX servers, along with the X feed, are published on the edX Status web page.

1.2.3. 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.

1.2.3.1. Designing, Building and Running an edX Course Program
The courses in the Designing, Building, and Running an edX Course Program provide foundational knowledge about using the edX platform. These courses are available on edx.org.

1.2.3.1.1. Designing an edX Course
Designing a Course with edX is grounded in pedagogical principles to ensure that a course’s design is aligned with learning theory and best practices in online learning.

1.2.3.1.2. Building an edX Course
Building a Course with edX provides an in-depth look at edX Studio. It covers using Studio to create a course, and adding a wide variety of rich content and assessments.

1.2.3.1.3. Running an edX Course
Running a Course with edX covers the process of launching a course, as well as the processes that need to be followed during a course run. Additionally, it covers how to improve a course with edX Insights, and the steps to take when a course’s run is ending.

1.2.3.2. 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.
• The edX Release Notes summarize the changes in each new version of deployed software.

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 the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.

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

• Subscribe to announcements and other new topics in 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.

1.2.3.4. Wikis and Web Sites
The edX product team maintains public product roadmaps on the Open edX Portal.
1.2.4. Resources for Researchers
At each partner institution, the data czar is the primary point of contact for information about edX data. To set up a data czar for your institution, contact your edX partner manager.
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.
Resources are also available for members of the Open edX community who are collecting data about courses running on their sites and conducting research projects.

1.2.4.1. Documentation
The edX Research Guide is available on the docs.edx.org web page. Although it is written primarily for data czars and researchers at partner institutions, this guide can also be a useful reference for members of the Open edX community.
The edX Research Guide opens in your web browser, with a Search docs field and links to sections and topics 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 the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.

1.2.4.2. Discussion Forums and Email
Researchers, edX data czars, and members of the global edX data and analytics community can post and discuss questions in our public research forum: the openedx-analytics Google group.
Important
Please do not post sensitive data to public forums.
Data czars who have questions that involve sensitive data, or that are institution specific, can send them by email to [email protected] with a copy to your edX partner manager.

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

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

1.2.5.1. 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 Open 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 the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.

1.2.5.2. GitHub
These are the main edX repositories on GitHub.

• The edx/edx-platform repo contains the code for the edX platform.
• The edx/edx-analytics-dashboard repo contains the code for edX Insights.
• The edx/configuration repo contains scripts to set up and operate the edX platform.

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

1.2.5.3. Community Discussions
The Community Discussions page in the Open edX Portal lists different ways that you can ask, and answer, questions.

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

1.2.6. 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 course, we encourage course teams to provide learners with links to this guide as needed in course updates or discussions.
• Installing, Configuring, and Running the Open 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 the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.

1.2.7. Resources for Learners

1.2.7.1. 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 course, we encourage course teams to provide learners with links to these guides as needed in course updates or discussions.

1.2.7.2. 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. Be sure to check the Home 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.

1.2.7.3. 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 [email protected].
For opportunities to meet others who are interested in edX courses, check the edX Global Community meetup group.