Course discussion is accessible by beta testers before course start date

[mariajgrimaldi]

Steps to Reproduce

1- Maker a course start date on 3 June 2024
2- Set the "Days early for beta users" to 5
3- Add the user as beta tester
4- Navigate to openedx using beta tester
5- Observe that the Discussion forum is displayed and the beta tester can add posts

Original issue: openedx/wg-build-test-release#372

[mariajgrimaldi]

Test in the redwood sandbox:

Screencast.from.02-06-24.18.55.07.-.Beta.Tester.Discussions.-.Redwood.webm

Test in the quince sandbox:

Screencast.from.02-06-24.18.54.03.-.Beta.Tester.Discussions.-.Quince.webm

[mariajgrimaldi]

FYI @arbrandes @brian-smith-tcril @openedx/2u-infinity

[mariajgrimaldi]

As I reported above, this issue also happens in quince. Do you know if this has always worked this way, although the documentation says otherwise?

cc @jmakowski1123 @crathbun428

[sarina]

@mariajgrimaldi is there documentation you're finding that states this behavior, or is this a test in the testing spreadsheet? I don't know what I'd consider the "correct" behavior to be.

[crathbun428]

Sorry - can I confirm I understand the bug, correctly? The issue is that if a beta tester is added before the N days before they're able to access course-related stuff, that user can log in and add discussion posts for the course earlier than that?

I'm not sure if this issue has always existed. I took a look at docs and it doesn't seem to mention beta testers and access to the discussion posts, but maybe I missed this?

I wonder if this is something we'll want to capture related to RBAC work? The beta testers can see x, y, z things only after the days set by the course author or course staff member.

[sarina]

The question is what is the requirement- yes, this should be captured for RBAC work, but if this is the wrong behavior, it can be fixed now.

If no one knows what the right behavior is, I'm inclined to say it shouldn't be changed.

[marcotuts]

Learners can be granted access to a course before it starts, but I forget what configuration does that. Beta Testers I thought got 2 weeks (or N weeks) or early access, but the default might be that access is at course start for all learners, so beta testers would be N weeks before then.

If you can get into the course at all you have full discussion forum access, there was never any time gated access to Discussions or Wiki tools to my knowledge.

[sarina]

OK, so it sounds like this isn't a bug. It may be a good idea to note Marco's comment about the discussion access somewhere in the docs, or at least on the test sheet if this is part of a test.

[mariajgrimaldi]

Thank you all for the help, @sarina @marcotuts @crathbun428. The thing is that the documentation says the beta testers don't have access to discussions:
https://docs.openedx.org/en/latest/educators/concepts/releasing-course/beta_testing.html#the-beta-testing-role
#709 (comment)

However, beta testers are not the same as other learners in the course, either. They have privileged access to the course and have more time to review and complete the course materials than the enrolled learners do. Course discussions are not open before the course start date, so beta testers cannot participate in community conversations. As a result of these differences, beta testers do not receive certificates when they complete a course.

I'm not sure if this worked like this in the legacy FE, so I needed a bit more context. This makes me think this is more related to discussions being opened before the course starts than to the beta testers' behavior.

[jmakowski1123]

I think it's reasonable to assume that if a user has been granted beta tester access by course staff for early access to the course content, then they would be equally trusted with early access to the forums. The use case is for beta testers to be test driving course content before it's available to all learners. If they also have access to see the discussion prompts (even if they can't participate/respond), even for things like proofreading, etc, I don't see this as a problem.