The much-awaited 2023 Open edX conference was held this year from March 28th to 31st in Cambridge, Massachusetts. eLearning experts from around the world participated in engaging workshops and featured sessions, discussing the latest innovations in the industry and the future of ed-tech. With over 300 attendees, the conference was a remarkable success.

Like last year, Edly was the premier sponsor of the 2023 Open edX conference. Our team had a wonderful time meeting a variety of industry experts and the rest of the Open edX community. We also participated in some of the featured sessions, and made some exciting announcements!

Introducing Axim Collaborative

One of the most notable announcements at the Open edX conference was the renaming of tCRIL, a non-profit initiative jointly introduced by Harvard and MIT, building on the edX platform’s success. Now known as the Axim collaborative, the non-profit aims to make learning more accessible and relevant to a diverse audience with a renewed sense of purpose.

To bring these ideas to fruition, Stephanie Khurana was introduced as the inaugural CEO of Axim Collaborative. Stephanie brings decades of experience in the educational technology landscape to the initiative. Having been involved with the Open edX community and social development ventures at length, Khurana is well-equipped to bring Axim’s vision to reality. 

Edly’s Acquisition of Tutor

Edly also announced its latest step in making open-source software more accessible at the 2023 Open edX conference. The recent acquisition of Tutor, Open edX’s official docker-based distribution, aims to better serve the Open edX community. With a shared goal of making open-source contributions to Open edX, the partnership promises more innovation in the ed-tech landscape.

The Chief Architect and Founder of Overhang, Régis Behmo, will be joining our team as the VP of Engineering at Edly. Both Régis and Yasser Bashir, the CEO of Arbisoft, welcomed the partnership and promised to share a detailed roadmap in the coming weeks and months. 

Highlighted Sessions

The conference also featured highlighted sessions from featured speakers in the Open edX community. The sessions discussed innovative uses of education technology within three particular areas: 

• Pedagogy & Instructional Design
• Product Development
• Developing & Operating 

The topics of these sessions ranged from learning design success strategies to the Open edX product strategy and more. Participants shared interesting insights about Open edX security, and designing peer-reviewed assignments at scale, and included a technical Micro-Front End workshop. 

Open edX Product Roundtable

Edly also participated in the Open edX product roundtable. In this session, various organizations across the community presented brief updates about any major contributions, feature developments, or significant changes. Edly presented new developments in the H5P XBlock, and introduced new features like Contemplate and WatchIQ. 

Reimagining Course Discovery

Getting into the more technical side of things, Edly’s team also presented an idea to reimagine the edX course discovery site as a product marketplace. The concept can be used to market regional courses on the Discovery site. It would be a great way to connect learners to courses that are otherwise challenging to find. 

Our team went into detail about the possible challenges developers could face with regard to this idea, most notably, the challenge of having to work with multiple sources of truth. The team also went on to highlight the areas within Discovery that would be impacted as a result. Having acknowledged all these challenges, the presenters were confident that the Open edX community would embrace the much-needed revamp to the Discovery experience. The talk was a resounding success!

Get In Touch

The 2023 Open edX conference provided an opportunity for the Open edX community to present new developments, exchange ideas, and learn from each other.

As one of the oldest Open edX service providers, Edly offers tailored Open edX-powered learning experiences and custom solutions. Designed to provide tailored and well-crafted LMS to learners from a variety of industries, Edly aims to make eLearning more accessible.

To find out more about the industries we serve and our learner-centric solutions, feel free to get in touch with us or try our platform for free!