[Proposal] Display a course run's end date on course certs as "issued date" for courses with display behavior of "end date of course"

[justinhynes]

We wanted to propose a small change to the dates that are displayed on course certificates that we think would have impact for learners of OeX instances.

Problem

We often see learner confusion around the "issued date" of certificates for courses configured with a Certificate Display Behavior (CDB) of "End date of course". Learner's enrolled in a course with this CDB configuration will see a message on their dashboard stating their certificate's will be ready on the end date of the course.

Many learner's assume that the issued date should match the date the certificate became visible/available to them.

How "issued date" works today

The displayed date is determined by the display_date_for_certificate function (https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/9ae65bbe9dd0292f87090e6dda684ceef743e756/lms/djangoapps/certificates/api.py#L865-L883).

• If there is a course certificate date override associated with a certificate record, we return the certificate override date as the "Issued Date"
• If the course run is instructor-paced with a CDB of A date after the course ends we return the Certificate Available Date (CAD, as configured in Studio) as the "Issued Date"
• Else, we display the modified_date of the certificate record for all other course configurations.

Proposal

We can adjust the logic so that the "issued date" displayed on a course certificate matches learner expectations. Thus...

• If a certificate record is associated with a certificate date override, continue to display this overridden date as the issued date.
• For instructor-paced course runs with a CDB of "A date after the course ends", continue to display the CAD of the course as the issued date.
• For instructor-paced course runs with a CDB of "End date of the course", display the end date of the course as the issued date. (this is the proposed change)
• For instructor-paced course runs with a CDB of "Immediately Upon Passing", continue to display the modified_date of the certificate as the issued date.
• For self-paced course runs, continue to display the modified_date of the certificate as the issued date.

[kayaelle]

Hi @justinhynes - somewhat related re: Open Badges 3.0 credentials for when you plan on implementing them or consider some alignment now.

awardedDate: timestamp it was decided the credential/certificate was earned
issuanceDate: timestamp when the credential was issued/signed

awardedDate would stay the same but issuanceDate could change (e.g credential was lost and re-issued)

[github-actions]

Thanks for your submission, @openedx/openedx-product-managers will review shortly.

[sarina]

Hi @justinhynes just to give an update, we triage new proposals at the Product WG meeting every other Tuesday (next one is 2/11 at 10am et). If you know anyone else who has context or could give some feedback to this proposal please tag them - I don't have any background on this particular issue.

[justinhynes]

Heyo! Happy to attend and share any details I can. I can't think of anyone else to tag off the top of my head, though.

[jmakowski1123]

@crathbun428

[crathbun428]

I've pinged two members of the build test release working group who discovered this issue during Sumac testing. @angonz and @mariajgrimaldi - I believe both members would be on board with resolving this issue.