A short presentation given at the first Boston Open edX Meetup event that was held at the edX offices on 9/28/2015. We discuss some of the design challenges we encountered in the process of migrating our current MOOC to the very brilliant Open edX platform. The slides are not very helpful on their own, but here they are.

1. The Perils of Building a Plane While Flying It

2. thegymnasium.com

3. Andrew Miller
Jeremy Osborn

4. Jeremy

5. DISCLAIMER:
What we’re doing is an anomaly

6. • our users are designers and developers
• our team is made up of designers and developers
• we aren’t an accredited educational institution
• we aren’t selling anything (really)
• our courses are free
• our courses don’t follow school terms (and they never close)

7. Punchlines
• Every LMS has its own DNA
• Migrating existing content is paradoxically harder than creating it from
scratch
• There will always be a tension between customization and
configuration

8. The Gymnasium Back Story
• Aquent?
• The Mission™
• How it works…

9. The Courses
• Video
• Assessments
• Discussion Forum

14. Microcosmic Quizzes

15. Off-the-rack

20. Current Platform - One question per page

21. Edx - Multiple questions per page

22. That came with some
baggage…

23. Wording decisions in the quizzes

25. Getting the custom fit

26. The out-of-the-box experience is
absolutely fine…
(as long as your users aren’t designers)

32. Information
Architecture

33. course > lesson > section > subsection > unit > component
course > lesson > chapter > component

34. So there’s this…

41. we have to make this say welcome too…

42. We were pleased with our
fixes…

44. In case you missed it, he couldn’t
figure out how to start the course!!!

45. Customization vs. Configuration

49. –Xavier Antoviaque
“Everything is possible, with money.”

52. Punchlines
• Every LMS has its own DNA
• Migrating existing content is paradoxically harder than creating it from
scratch
• There will always be a tension between customization and
configuration

53. thegymnasium.com