feat: Data Researcher to have access on course progress page of Students

[OmarIthawi]

Current Status

Data Researcher cannot access the student progress page on couses they're data researchers on.

This is the standard edx-platform permissions.

Desired Status

The Data Researcher can access the progress page on courses they're data researchers on, or on all courses if they have tenant-wide Data Researcher access.

[OmarIthawi]

This is a frustration that customers are facing.

We hope that's a quick fix via the permissions.py files, regardless we can discuss the implementation details in a way that's upgrade friendly.

[tehreem-sadat]

Following Open edX APIs are involved to access progress page on the basis of another learner from frontend.

• /api/course_home/v1/progress/<course-key/
• /api/course_home/v1/course_metadata//

In order to make progress page accessible:

• user need to be enrolled in the course
  • enrolment checks are there in both above mentioned API's and even to enable 'progressTab'
• user must have staff access
  • There is a check in progress API that says that user can only access other users progress page if it has course access or CCX_COACH.

Here is the diff of changes I made to progress page accessible

diff --git a/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/course_metadata/views.py b/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/course_metadata/views.py
index e534d03..2620a62 100644
--- a/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/course_metadata/views.py
+++ b/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/course_metadata/views.py
@@ -82,11 +82,12 @@ class CourseHomeMetadataView(RetrieveAPIView):
         # We must compute course load access *before* setting up masquerading,
         # else course staff (who are not enrolled) will not be able view
         # their course from the perspective of a learner.
+        
         load_access = check_course_access(
             course,
             request.user,
             'load',
-            check_if_enrolled=True,
+            check_if_enrolled=False,
             check_if_authenticated=True,
             apply_enterprise_checks=True,
         )
diff --git a/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/progress/views.py b/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/progress/views.py
index dc0ea63..2cf39fa 100644
--- a/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/progress/views.py
+++ b/lms/djangoapps/course_home_api/progress/views.py
@@ -165,8 +165,8 @@ class ProgressTabView(RetrieveAPIView):
 
         has_access_on_students_profiles = is_staff or coach_access
         # Requesting access to a different student's profile
-        if not has_access_on_students_profiles:
-            raise Http404
+        # if not has_access_on_students_profiles:
+        #     raise Http404
 
         try:
             return User.objects.get(id=student_id)
@@ -196,8 +196,8 @@ class ProgressTabView(RetrieveAPIView):
         enrollment = CourseEnrollment.get_enrollment(student, course_key)
         enrollment_mode = getattr(enrollment, 'mode', None)
 
-        if not (enrollment and enrollment.is_active) and not is_staff:
-            return Response('User not enrolled.', status=401)
+        # if not (enrollment and enrollment.is_active) and not is_staff:  #TEHREEM
+        #     return Response('User not enrolled.', status=401)
 
         # The block structure is used for both the course_grade and has_scheduled content fields
         # So it is called upfront and reused for optimization purposes

With above changes I can not see Progress Tab as I am not enrolled in the course and just commented out the enrolment check but I can access progress page from direct URL.

[tehreem-sadat]

@OmarIthawi With above R&D there is no quicker way to access progress page.

There are following options
1- We need to change both backend and frontend edX code for the support of data-researchers.
2- We can add our custom or copied frontend and use fx dashboard APIs as a backend

CC: @shadinaif

[OmarIthawi]

@shadinaif @tehreem-sadat I think this means that open edx doesn't support the standard permissions.py for viewing the progress.

If so, we should follow the following path:

• Move the view progress page permission to the standard permissions.py file: https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/lms/djangoapps/courseware/permissions.py
• Override the default role, so data researchers can see the progress page: https://github.com/nelc/eox-nelp/blob/366e0b5c6a743adba1bf8a8d49885d8b77878468/eox_nelp/cms/api/v1/views.py#L6

Let me know what do you think?