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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
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.. _openedx-learning-adr-0004:

4. Pathways: Split Between Catalog and Content
==============================================

Status
------

Draft

Context
-------

Courses in ``openedx-core`` already separate the *catalog* side (``openedx_catalog``: ``CatalogCourse``,
``CourseRun`` - what learners browse and enroll against) from the *content* side (``openedx_content`` - what is
authored, versioned, and published). Pathways have the same two aspects, and the same reasons to keep them apart:

- **Different change rates.** The display name, description shown in the catalog, and SEO metadata are revised
frequently and casually. The definition of what a learner must do to complete the Pathway changes rarely and
deliberately.
- **Different people doing the editing.** Catalog data is typically maintained by marketing or communications staff;
the Pathway definition is maintained by content authors. Both are visible to learners, so the distinction is about
who edits what, not about who can see it.
- **Different permissions follow from that.** We expect instances to want to let marketing staff update catalog
copy without granting them the ability to change what learners must complete, and vice versa. Keeping the two
apart makes that possible without inventing field-level permissions.

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Keeping the two apart makes that possible without inventing field-level permissions.

In our new RBAC world, I would expect that there's not much difference between implementing "field-level" permissions and "model-level" permissions, since we're using Casbin to define whatever roles and permissions make sense for each API. Either way, it's simply permissions and needs to be enforced in the REST API via permission_classes as appropriate.

However, I still think this split makes sense for the other reasons you've stated.

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@bradenmacdonald, ah, that's good to know - I'm not very familiar with the recent RBAC changes. Should we remove this point from the ADR?

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I'd say we should add a note that this reason may not be as important with the new RBAC system. But as I said, I still think the overall decision makes sense and is a nice way to structure it.

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Got it - added in 4966440.

- **Auditability.** Progress and credentials must be judged against the definition that was in effect at the time,
which requires versioning the definition - but versioning catalog copy would be pure overhead.

Decisions
---------

1. A Pathway is split into two parts:

- **Catalog Pathway** - the learner-browsable, enrollable thing. It includes the display name, the description

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Can you say more about this? It sounds like a credential will tie together a learner, a catalog pathway, and particular content pathway that "implemented" that catalog pathway.

Is that right? Will an enrollment do the same?

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@kdmccormick, I added more details about the enrollments in 9218009. I will add the details about the credentials to #764, since it's out of scope for the current ADR (and I wanted to avoid forward refs here).

In short:

  1. Enrollment binds User and Catalog Pathway, because a learner enrolls in a pathway, not its content - i.e., any active authoring (content) changes are visible to the learner. Therefore, I believe there is no real reason to track, at the DB level, the exact state in which the learner was enrolled.
  2. Credential is different - it binds User and a specific version of the pathway content, because a credential is a claim that a particular definition of requirements (that was active at that point in time) was met.

shown in the catalog, SEO metadata, and a **Category**: a student-facing label for the kind of Pathway it is
(e.g. "Master's Degree", "Annual Training"). If it is specified, learners see the Category instead of the word
"Pathway". The Catalog Pathway is **not versioned**.

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From a code point of view, I think we should always force it to be specified, and we can create a default database entry for "Pathway". If we do it with a hardcoded fallback-in-code, we're more likely to get inconsistent behaviors.

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@ormsbee, good point - added in 9218009.


- **Pathway content** - the definition of the Pathway: its Items and its completion criteria. The content is
**versioned**, so that we can always tell what the definition was at the moment a learner enrolled or earned a
credential.

2. In authoring contexts (Studio, Django admin, code, docs), the terminology is always "Pathway", with the Category
shown explicitly. Relabelling is a learner-facing concern of the catalog side only.

3. Learners enroll against the Catalog Pathway. Progress and credential evaluation run against a version of the
Pathway content.

Example content of each model:

============================ ==========================
Catalog Pathway Pathway content
============================ ==========================
Display name Pathway Items
Category Completion criteria
Description
SEO metadata
Enrollment
============================ ==========================

.. Run `dot -Tsvg images/pathway-catalog-content.dot > images/pathway-catalog-content.svg` to regenerate the diagram
after making changes to `images/pathway-catalog-content.dot`.

.. image:: images/pathway-catalog-content.svg
:alt: Catalog Pathway vs versioned Pathway content
:width: 100%

Consequences
------------

- Catalog edits never create new content versions; definition edits (Items, criteria) always do.
- Credential and progress records can reference the exact content version in effect at the time, keeping them
auditable after the Pathway changes.
- The unversioned Catalog Pathway can be long-lived even if its content definition is changed significantly over time.
21 changes: 21 additions & 0 deletions docs/openedx_learning/decisions/images/pathway-catalog-content.dot
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
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digraph pathway_catalog_content {
rankdir=LR;
fontname="Helvetica";
node [shape=box, style=rounded, fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=11];
edge [fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=10];

learner [label="Learner", shape=ellipse];
catalog [label="Catalog Pathway\n(not versioned)\nname, Category,\nmarketing, SEO"];

subgraph cluster_content {
label="Pathway content (versioned)";
fontsize=11;
style=dashed;
v1 [label="v1: Items, criteria"];
v2 [label="v2: Items, criteria"];
v1 -> v2 [style=dotted, label="revision"];
}

learner -> catalog [label="browses / enrolls"];
catalog -> v2 [label="current definition"];
}
66 changes: 66 additions & 0 deletions docs/openedx_learning/decisions/images/pathway-catalog-content.svg
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