[DEPR]: lms/djangoapps/badges

[e0d]

Proposal Date

January 13th, 2023

Target Ticket Acceptance Date

February 9th, 2023

Earliest Open edX Named Release Without This Functionality

Palm

Rationale

This app was originally developed to support integration with badgr.io which is now Canvas Badges.

In addition, work is on-going to make the credential IDA the domain owner for learner credentials. Sharing of Open edX credentials with external networks should happen from the credentials IDA and learner record MFE in the future.

Removal

All code under:

lms/djangoapps/badges

will be removed.

Replacement

There will be no direct replacement for Badgr as that is now a Canvas product.

Credential sharing to external network via Open Badges 3 will be possible via the credential IDA. The initial reference implementation will support interactions with the Digital Credentials Consortium wallet.

Deprecation

No response

Migration

No response

Additional Info

No response

[e0d]

@mrtmm I noticed that you had made some relatively recent changes to this app, so I wanted to alert you to the deprecation proposal.

@hurtstotouchfire Per our conversation.

@mikix I noticed you had done some relatively recent maintenance work on this app, so wanted to alert you as well.

[mrtmm]

Ack, thanks for the heads up @e0d!

[feanil]

Communicated on Discourse here: https://discuss.openedx.org/t/deprecation-removal-lms-djangoapps-badges/9220

[throwaway-a]

I don't know if this is related, or if it's just a documentation error, but I noticed when I'm on Olive, the "Issue Open Badges" option which is mentioned here https://edx.readthedocs.io/projects/open-edx-building-and-running-a-course/en/latest/set_up_course/studio_add_course_information/studio_creating_certificates.html doesn't seem to exist anymore. Is that expected?

[dianakhuang]

@throwaway-a , we believe there's probably a backend setting that needs to be set before the Studio setting will show up, as set up here: https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/lms/envs/common.py#L709. I'm pretty sure this behavior will change in the future though as part of this work, so I don't think it's safe to rely on it.

[dianakhuang]

@e0d can this removal be a part of the work to add new wallet functionality to credentials?

[feanil]

FYI, I'm hoping the new Aximprovements team can pick this up in the next couple of weeks.

[feanil]

Aximprovements is working on this via: openedx/axim-engineering#852

[e0d]

@hurtstotouchfire this will roll ahead soon.

[mboisson]

If you are going to remove a feature, please fix the documentation and remove the section about badging so that other poor folks like me who are trying to configure OpenEdX don't waste their time...
https://edx.readthedocs.io/projects/edx-installing-configuring-and-running/en/latest/configuration/enable_badging.html

[pomegranited]

@feanil CC @mariajgrimaldi ^ Looks like some documentation about Badgr still remains after this feature removal :(

Is there anything we can update in our DEPR process to catch things like this in future?

[feanil]

Thanks for the catch, I created openedx/edx-documentation#2302 to clean that up.

Usually there is a search that is done as a part of cleanup but I guess it got missed.

[mboisson]

Is there a way to add back Badgr support through some sort of plugin ? We could go with the Canvas Badgr free tier, but Credly seems rather expensive and we will probably need to avoid doing badges at all if that's the only option.

[feanil]

@mboisson it should be possible to add badgr support back via a plugin and the creation of such a plugin is welcome but as far as I know, no one is working on such a plugin at the moment so you may need to begin the initiative yourself.

[mboisson]

I am afraid I lack the necessary knowledge to do so. Maybe we will have to give up the idea of badging. I am surprised the removal of support for Badgr did not raise more issues with users of OpenEdX. I guess people did not use it much.