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docs: add ADR for pathway catalog and content split #761
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90
docs/openedx_learning/decisions/0004-pathway-catalog-content-split.rst
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| .. _openedx-learning-adr-0004: | ||
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| 4. Pathways: Split Between Catalog and Content | ||
| ============================================== | ||
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| Status | ||
| ------ | ||
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| Draft | ||
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| Context | ||
| ------- | ||
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| Courses in ``openedx-core`` already separate the *catalog* side (``openedx_catalog``: ``CatalogCourse``, | ||
| ``CourseRun`` - what learners browse and enroll against) from the *content* side (``openedx_content`` - what is | ||
| authored, versioned, and published). Pathways have the same two aspects, and the same reasons to keep them apart: | ||
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| - **Different change rates.** The display name, description shown in the catalog, and SEO metadata are revised | ||
| frequently and casually. The definition of what a learner must do to complete the Pathway changes rarely and | ||
| deliberately. | ||
| - **Different people doing the editing.** Catalog data is typically maintained by marketing or communications staff; | ||
| the Pathway definition is maintained by content authors. Both are visible to learners, so the distinction is about | ||
| who edits what, not about who can see it. | ||
| - **Different permissions follow from that.** We expect instances to want to let marketing staff update catalog | ||
| copy without granting them the ability to change what learners must complete, and vice versa. Keeping the two | ||
| apart makes that possible without inventing field-level permissions. However, with the new RBAC system, this | ||
| may be less of a concern. | ||
| - **Auditability.** Progress and credentials must be judged against the definition that was in effect at the time, | ||
| which requires versioning the definition - but versioning catalog copy would be pure overhead. | ||
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| Decisions | ||
| --------- | ||
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| 1. A Pathway is split into two parts: | ||
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| - **Catalog Pathway** - the learner-browsable, enrollable thing. It includes the display name, the description | ||
| shown in the catalog, SEO metadata, and a **Category**. It is **not versioned**. | ||
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| - **Pathway content** - the definition of the Pathway: its Items and its completion criteria. The content is | ||
| **versioned**, so that we can always tell what the definition was at any given moment. A version of the Pathway | ||
| content *implements* a Catalog Pathway. | ||
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| 2. The **Category** is a student-facing label for the kind of Pathway (e.g. "Master's Degree", "Annual Training"). | ||
| Learners see the Category rather than the word "Pathway". It is always required: rather than falling back to | ||
| "Pathway" in code, we ship a default database entry with that name, so the behavior is uniform and operators can | ||
| rename or extend the set without a code change. | ||
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| 3. In authoring contexts (Studio, Django admin, code, docs), the terminology is always "Pathway", with the Category | ||
| shown explicitly. Relabelling is a learner-facing concern of the catalog side only. | ||
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| 4. **Dependency direction**: ``openedx_content`` knows about ``openedx_catalog``, never the reverse. This has the | ||
| following consequences: | ||
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| - Pathway Items may reference ``CourseRun`` entities directly. | ||
| - The link from a Catalog Pathway to the Pathway content that implements it lives on the content side. | ||
| - Anything that has to tie the two sides together belongs in ``openedx_content``, or in something downstream of | ||
| it, but never in ``openedx_catalog``. | ||
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| 5. **Enrollment** ties a learner to a Catalog Pathway. Progress is evaluated against the currently published | ||
| content version, not against a version frozen at enrollment time, so that authoring changes reach learners who | ||
| are already enrolled. | ||
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| Example content of each model: | ||
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| ============================ =================================== | ||
| Catalog Pathway Pathway content | ||
| ============================ =================================== | ||
| Display name Pathway Items | ||
| Category Completion criteria | ||
| Description References to CourseRuns | ||
| SEO metadata Link to the related Catalog Pathway | ||
| Enrollment | ||
| ============================ =================================== | ||
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| .. Run `dot -Tsvg images/pathway-catalog-content.dot > images/pathway-catalog-content.svg` to regenerate the diagram | ||
| after making changes to `images/pathway-catalog-content.dot`. | ||
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| .. image:: images/pathway-catalog-content.svg | ||
| :alt: Catalog Pathway vs versioned Pathway content | ||
| :width: 100% | ||
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| Consequences | ||
| ------------ | ||
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| - Catalog edits never create new content versions; definition edits (Items, criteria) always do. | ||
| - Because evaluation follows the published version rather than the enrollment-time version, edits to a Pathway apply | ||
| to learners who are already enrolled, which is what we want, but it means edits need care and re-evaluation. | ||
| - The unversioned Catalog Pathway can be long-lived even if its content definition is changed significantly over time. | ||
| - The dependency direction means a Catalog Pathway cannot, on its own, tell which content implements it. Queries in | ||
| that direction start from the content side. | ||
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docs/openedx_learning/decisions/images/pathway-catalog-content.dot
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| digraph pathway_catalog_content { | ||
| rankdir=LR; | ||
| fontname="Helvetica"; | ||
| compound=true; | ||
| node [shape=box, style=rounded, fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=11]; | ||
| edge [fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10]; | ||
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| subgraph cluster_catalog { | ||
| label="openedx_catalog (not versioned)"; | ||
| fontsize=10; | ||
| fontcolor="#4d4d4d"; | ||
| style=dashed; | ||
| color="#b3b3b3"; | ||
| catalog [label="Catalog Pathway\n\nname, category,\ndescription, SEO"]; | ||
| courserun [label="CourseRun"]; | ||
| } | ||
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| subgraph cluster_content { | ||
| label="openedx_content (versioned)"; | ||
| fontsize=10; | ||
| fontcolor="#4d4d4d"; | ||
| style=dashed; | ||
| color="#b3b3b3"; | ||
| v1 [label="content v1\n\nItems, criteria"]; | ||
| v2 [label="content v2\n\nItems, criteria\n(currently published)"]; | ||
| v1 -> v2 [style=dotted, color="#808080", arrowsize=0.7, label="revision"]; | ||
| } | ||
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| user [label="User", shape=ellipse]; | ||
| enrollment [label="Enrollment"]; | ||
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| user -> enrollment [label="learner"]; | ||
| enrollment -> catalog [label="enrolled in"]; | ||
| enrollment -> v2 [label="progress evaluated\nagainst the currently\npublished version", style=dashed, color="#808080", fontcolor="#4d4d4d"]; | ||
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| v2 -> catalog [label="implements"]; | ||
| v2 -> courserun [label="Items reference"]; | ||
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| direction [label="dependency direction:\nopenedx_content knows about\nopenedx_catalog, never the reverse", shape=plaintext, fontsize=10, fontcolor="#4d4d4d"]; | ||
| } |
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docs/openedx_learning/decisions/images/pathway-catalog-content.svg
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Can you say more about this? It sounds like a credential will tie together a learner, a catalog pathway, and particular content pathway that "implemented" that catalog pathway.
Is that right? Will an enrollment do the same?
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@kdmccormick, I added more details about the enrollments in 9218009. I will add the details about the credentials to #764, since it's out of scope for the current ADR (and I wanted to avoid forward refs here).
In short: