THE STORY OF AN API

Bertrand Marron, CTO @tusbar2014.11.18

• IONIS Education Group

• Leader of private education in France

• 20 schools (Technology, Business, Art…)

• More than 62,000 alumni

• Inside startup of 10 people

• Full production (content, pedagogy & platform)

• IONISx launched in Jan 2014

• Jan 2014: First SPOC (Python for college prep Math teachers)

• Feb 2014: First blended private course (Math)

• Mar 2014: First MOOC (Data Science)

• Now running more than 20 courses

• Active Open edX contributor

• Responsive theme ( IONISx/edx-theme)

• XBlocks ( IONISx/xblock-taggedtext)

• Multiple contributions to the core code

FACTMore and more people use and setup Open edX

(different people, businesses, etc.)

TWO ASPECTSFront-end: branding, online presence, …

Back-end: custom needs, productivity, …

• Not enough info

• Not accessible (mobile)

• No control over what’s

displayed

Front-end Back-end

• Not enough info

• List too long

• Hard to find a course

Front-end Back-end

• Not customizable

• Not actively developed

• Not very optimized for

search engines

Front-end Back-end

• Designed for developers

• Not actively developed

Front-end Back-end

SOLUTION(at least for the front side of things)

ENABLE_MKTG_SITE

• wiki/Alternate-site-for-marketing-links

• This is what edx.org uses (I believe)

IN THE END…Great platform for education content

Not for marketing/text content

BROWSE YOUR MODULESTORE“how do I list my courses on my website?”

“what content do I have?”

MODULESTORE API

• REST API, currently exposing

• /courses

• /chapters

• /sequentials

• /modules (location based)

MODULESTORE API

• Built in node.js, on top of IONISx/edx-modulestore

• Component for browsing and editing modulestores

• No user management

• No access control

• Not designed to replace Studio

DEMOA few usage examples

http://localhost:5000/

HOW WE USE IT

• Analytics (external lookups, coupled with tracking logs)

• Reporting (generate course trees, etc.)

• Administration app:

• List courses, filter them, link them with other entities

• Create a course, then give me a link to Studio

• Front app (list courses with extreme flexibility)

RELEASED TODAYEverything is available on Github

https://github.com/ionisx

WHY EXTERNAL? WHY NOT A PR?

• Following UNIX philosophy…

• “Small is beautiful”

• “Make each program do one thing well”

• If it needs other data, it communicates with another with text

• Easier to maintain (really)

MERCI !@IONISx

fb.me/IONISx

IONISx

IONISx

2014.11.18Bertrand Marron, CTO @tusbar