Course Administration
- David Lau
Course Creation
Creation of a course on the UW Math/CS OpenEdX server can be requested from Todd Lichty (todd.lichty@uwaterloo.ca).
Site URLs
There are three separate URLs used for managing and deploying OpenEdX courses:
https://online.cs.uwaterloo.ca - LMS (Learning Management System)
https://studio.online.cs.uwaterloo.ca - CMS (Content Management System)
https://openedx.dev.cs.uwaterloo.ca/dashboard - Test site (LMS) for pre-production testing of XBlocks
https://studio.openedx.dev.cs.uwaterloo.ca - Test site (CMS) for pre-production testing of XBlocks
The LMS site is used to deploy and deliver the courses to the students. This is the site to use for various administration tasks associated with delivering the course, such as:
Registering students
Setting availability times and dates for content and assessments
Reviewing and retrieving grades
The CMS site is used to design, structure, and author the content that is used in the course.
Course Settings
The following course settings are important to consider when setting up the course.
Course Visibility in Catalog
This setting affects whether or not students can view and access the course. If this setting is not set correctly, students will receive an error when attempting to access the course even though they are enrolled in the OpenEdX course. The error message says There was an error loading this course.
From the CMS site, open the course.
From the top menu, select Settings → Advanced Settings.
Find the setting for Course Visibility in Catalog.
By default, this setting is set to
"none". Change this setting to"both".Click the Save Changes button.
Adding Instructors
To register instructors for the course, use the CMS site.
From the CMS site, open the desired course.
Select Settings → Course Team.
Click the + New Team Member button.
Enter the email address of the instructor to add and click the ADD USER button. The instructor’s account should appear in the list below.
On the instructor’s record, click the Add Admin Access button to grant the instructor full administrator privileges on the course.
Duplicating Content
It is recommended to use a parent course to store primary copies of the content for each course. When a new instance of a course is created for a specific term, all content can be exported from the parent course and imported into the child course.
Exporting course
Export a copy of the parent course to a single file.
From the CMS site, open the parent course.
Select Tools → Export.
Click the Export Course Content button. It may take a minute for the download to be prepared.
Click the Download Exported Course button. This should download a .tar.gz file locally.
Importing course
Import the content from the parent course into the child course.
From the CMS site, open the child course.
Select Tools → Import.
Click the Choose a File to Import button.
Select the .tar.gz file that was previously downloaded.
Click the Replace my course with the selected file button. It may take a minute for the import to complete.
Click the View Updated Outline button.
Restoring key course settings
When a course is imported, all settings from the parent course are imported, such as the Course Display Name. It can be confusing to have two separate courses with the exact same Course Display Name. Therefore, this should be set immediately back to the appropriate course name for the child course.
Select Settings → Advanced Settings.
Scroll down to the Course Display Name field.
Enter the course name for the child course (e.g.
ECE 140 - Winter 2025).
Click the Save Changes button (bottom of the window).
It is also recommended to set the Course Start Date and Course Start Time.
Select Settings → Schedule & Details.
Set the Course Start Date and Course Start Time fields.
Click the Save Changes button (bottom of the window).
Registering Students
Export a list of all student email addresses from Learn.
Open the Learn course.
Go to the Grades page.
Select Enter Grades.
Click the Export button.
Under the User Details section, ensure that Email is selected.
Click the Export to Excel button.
Once the export has been prepared, click the Download button.
Clear unnecessary rows from class list.
Open the downloaded file in Microsoft Excel.
Delete the first three rows of the spreadsheet. The first row is the heading. The next two rows are for Test Student accounts.
Keep the Excel spreadsheet open, as it will be used later to copy the email addresses.
To register students for the course, use the LMS site.
From the LMS site, open the desired course.
Go to the Instructor dashboard.
Go to the Membership tab.
Switch to the Excel spreadsheet and select the entire column of email addresses. Note: It may be necessary to copy email addresses in batches of 25 as OpenEdX may not be able to handle the entire list at once.
Copy the column (CTRL+C).
Switch to OpenEdX and paste into Batch Enrollment field.
Click the Enroll button.
Clearing Attempts
From the LMS site, open the desired course.
Go to the Instructor dashboard.
Go to the Student Admin tab.
Scroll down to the section for Adjust a learner's grade for a specific problem.
Type in the user’s userid or email address into the field for Learner's UW Online email address or username.
On another tab, go to the CMS and navigate to the Unit for which we wish to clear the submission record.
Copy the block ID from the URL. The block ID is of the form
block-v1:UW+ECE140+2023_05+type@vertical+block@fefca496d6f44018b9dc4d92f0107a23.In the LMS, paste the block ID into the field
Scroll down to Problem History and click the Delete Learner’s State button.
You will be presented with a pop-up to confirm the deletion. Click OK.
There may be an error message saying that there was a problem with deleting the state. Ignore this message, as the deletion should have taken place correctly.
Exporting Grades
Course Data Researcher membership
In order for an Instructor or a TA to be able to export grades from the OpenEdX LMS, they must have a membership on the list of Course Data Researchers for the course.
Login to the LMS (e.g. https://online.cs.uwaterloo.ca).
Open the desired course.
Click on the Instructor tab to go to the Instructor Dashboard.
Within the Instructor Dashboard, click on the Membership tab.
Scroll down to the Course Team Management section.
Click on the Select a course team role: drop-down and select Course Data Researcher.
Enter the Instructor or TAs username (their UW ID) into the Username field and click on the Add Course Data Researcher button.
Now, when the Instructor or TA logs into the OpenEdX LMS and goes to the Instructor Dashboard, they should see a Data Download tab available.