Instructor Experiences — Area Overview
Platform area: Instructor Experiences
Color: Yellow (#F2D400)
Audience: Course instructors, teaching assistants, course staff
What This Area Covers
Instructor Experiences covers the tools course staff use to manage a running course — viewing learner progress, adjusting grades, managing enrollments, moderating discussions, generating reports, and communicating with students at scale.
This area sits between the authoring surface (where courses are built) and the administrator surface (where the platform is configured). Instructors operate within courses they've been granted staff access to, without platform-wide administrative rights.
Feature Areas
| # | Feature Area | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Analytics & Insights | Learner activity, engagement, and course analytics | scaffold |
| 2 | Grading & Exam Tools | Grade viewing, overrides, bulk grade management, reports | scaffold |
| 3 | Enrollment & Cohort Management | Enrollment management, cohort groups, access control | scaffold |
| 4 | Discussion Moderation | Forum moderation, flagging, staff posts | scaffold |
| 5 | Learner Communications | Email campaigns and bulk messaging to enrolled learners | scaffold |
| 6 | Scalable Open Response Grading | ORA2 staff grading, peer review management, rubric scoring | scaffold |
| 7 | Credentials & Certificate Management | Certificate issuance, program credentials, and management | scaffold |
Key Architecture Themes
- Instructor dashboard split: The legacy Django-rendered instructor dashboard is being decomposed into dedicated MFEs (gradebook, communications, ORA grading)
- Aspects as the analytics future: Legacy tab-based analytics are being superseded by Aspects (ClickHouse + Superset) which provides richer, real-time dashboards
- Course-scoped access: All instructor features are scoped to specific courses (CourseStaffRole, CourseInstructorRole); instructors do not have site-wide permissions
- Event-driven data: Analytics and reporting rely on the event tracking pipeline (event-tracking → event-routing-backends → ClickHouse/Aspects)
Primary Repositories
| Repository | Role |
|---|---|
| openedx-platform | Instructor dashboard backend, bulk email, grade APIs |
| frontend-app-gradebook | Gradebook MFE |
| frontend-app-communications | Bulk communication MFE |
| openedx-aspects | Analytics platform (ClickHouse + Superset) |
| frontend-app-discussions | Discussions MFE with moderation tools |
| edx-ace | Async communication engine |