Manage Course Cohorts#
Enable Cohorts in your Course#
To enable cohorts in your course, follow these steps.
In the LMS, select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
Select Enable Cohorts.
You can now add cohorts to your course.
Warning
Be very careful in deciding to enable the cohort feature in a live course, because doing so affects the course experience for learners. Learners might no longer have access to course and discussion topics that were previously visible to them.
If you must make changes to cohort configuration while your course is running, be sure you understand the consequences of doing so. For details, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.
Add Cohorts#
After you enable the cohorts feature for your course, you can add cohorts. To add a cohort to your course, follow these steps.
In the LMS, select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
Click Add Cohort.
Enter a name for the cohort.
Note
Learners can see the name of the cohort they are assigned to. The message “This post is visible only to {cohort name}” appears with each post in discussion topics that are divided by cohort. See Read the Group Indicator in Posts.
Specify whether learners are automatically or manually assigned to this cohort.
Optionally, select Select a Content Group to associate the cohort with a content group. For information about creating cohort-specific course content by associating cohorts with content groups, see About Learner Cohorts and Offering Different Content to Different Learner Groups.
Select Save.
Continue implementing your cohort strategy by creating additional cohorts as applicable, and specifying the assignment method for each cohort.
Note
By the time your course starts, you must have at least one cohort in your course that is automatically assigned. If you have not created at least one automated assignment cohort in the course by the time that the first learner accesses your course content or a divided discussion topic, the platform creates a default cohort in your course to which learners are automatically assigned.
For details about adding learners to a cohort by uploading a .csv file, see Assign Learners to Cohorts by Uploading a .csv File.
For a report that includes the cohort assignment for every enrolled learner, review the learner profile information for your course. See View Learner Data.
Note
You cannot delete cohorts, but you can change their names or the way in which learners are assigned to them. If you need to make changes to the way you have configured cohorts while your course is running, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.
Assign Learners to Cohorts#
To use cohorts in your course, you must select a strategy for assigning your learners to cohorts: automated assignment, manual assignment, or a hybrid approach. For more information, see Options for Assigning Learners to Cohorts.
Note
Although you can change the assignment method for cohorts at any time, you should have a strategy in mind as you design your course, and only make changes to cohorts while the course is running if absolutely necessary.
Assign Learners to Cohorts Manually#
If you have implemented a manual assignment strategy for cohorts in your course, make sure your manual assignments are as complete as possible before your course starts. If learners enroll after your course starts, you should assign new learners to cohorts as soon as possible.
Note
Making changes to cohort assignments after the course starts can affect the course experience for learners. Learners might no longer have access to course and discussion topics that were previously visible to them. For more information, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.
To manually assign learners to cohorts in your course, follow these steps.
View the live version of your course. For example, in Studio click View Live.
Select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
Scroll to the Cohort Management section at the bottom.
From the Select a cohort list, select the cohort to which you want to manually assign learners.
On the Manage Learners tab, under Add learners to this cohort enter the username or email address of a single learner, or enter multiple usernames or addresses separated by commas or new lines. You can copy data from a .csv file of email addresses or usernames, and paste it into this field.
Select Add Learners.
Learners you added with accounts in your Open edX instance are assigned to the selected cohorts. A confirmation message indicates the number of learners who were successfully added to the cohort.
Learners you added who do not yet have accounts in your Open edX instance are listed as “Preassigned” to the cohort. When preassigned learners enroll in the course, they are automatically added to the cohort.
If some learners that you listed could not be added to cohorts, an error message lists the email addresses or usernames of learners who could not be added to the cohort.
Note
Because learners can belong to only one cohort, adding a learner to a cohort moves them from any cohort they were previously assigned to. The confirmation message indicates the number of learners who were moved from their previous cohort assignment as a result of your adding them to the current cohort.
For a report that includes cohort assignments for your course, review the learner profile information for your course. See View Learner Data.
Assign Learners to Cohorts by Uploading a .csv File#
Uploading a .csv file containing a list of learners and the cohorts that you want to assign them to is another way of assigning learners to cohorts manually. For details about the other manual assignment method, see Assign Learners to Cohorts Manually.
Any assignments to cohorts that you specify in the .csv files you upload will overwrite or change existing cohort assignments. The configuration of your cohorts should be complete and stable before your course begins. You should complete manual cohort assignments as soon as possible after any learner enrolls, especially for enrollments that occur after your course has started. To understand the effects of changing cohort assignments after your course has started, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.
Note
Be aware that the contents of the .csv file are processed row by row, from top to bottom, and each row is treated independently. If the same learner is assigned to different cohorts in different rows in the spreadsheet, the last assignment to be performed is that learner’s final assignment.
For example, if in your .csv file Learner A is first assigned to Cohort 1, then later in the spreadsheet is assigned to Cohort 2, the end result of your .csv upload is that Learner A is assigned to Cohort 2. However, the upload results file will include Learner A twice in the “Learners Added” count: once when they are added to Cohort 1, and again when they are added to Cohort 2. Before submitting a file for upload, check it carefully for duplicated learners and other errors.
If the same learner is assigned to a cohort that they already belong to, they are not included in the count of “Learners Added”.
The requirements for the .csv file are summarized in this table.
Requirement |
Notes |
Valid .csv file |
The file must be a properly formatted comma-separated values file:
|
File size |
The file size of .csv files for upload is limited to a maximum of 2MB. |
UTF-8 encoded |
You must save the file with UTF-8 encoding so that Unicode characters display correctly. |
Header row |
You must include a header row, with column names that exactly match those specified in “Columns” below. |
One or two columns identifying learners |
You must include at least one column identifying learners: either “email” or “username”, or both. To preassign learners who do not yet have accounts in your Open edX instance, you must provide their email addresses in an “email” column. If both the username and an email address are provided for a learner, the email address has precedence. In other words, if an email address is present, an incorrect or unrecognized username is ignored. |
One column identifying the cohort |
You must include one column named “cohort” to identify the cohort to which you are assigning each learner. The specified cohorts must already exist in Studio. |
Columns with headings other than “email”, “username” and “cohort” are ignored. |
To manually add learners to cohorts by uploading a .csv file, follow these steps.
Note
To add learners who do not yet have accounts in your Open edX instance to cohorts using a .csv file upload, you must provide their email addresses in a column with the heading “email”. Learners without accounts are “preassigned” to cohorts; they are not included in the count of learners “added” to cohorts.
View the live version of your course. For example, in Studio, select View Live.
Select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
From the Select a cohort list, select the cohort to which you are adding students.
Select Assign students to cohorts by uploading a CSV file, then select Browse to navigate to the .csv file you want to upload.
Select Upload File and Assign Students. A status message is displayed above the Browse button.
Verify your upload results on the Data Download page.
Under Reports Available for Download, locate the link to a .csv file with “cohort_results” and the date and time of your upload in the filename. The list of available reports is sorted chronologically, with the most recently generated files at the top.
The results file provides the following information:
Column |
Description |
Cohort |
The name of the cohort to which you are assigning learners. |
Exists |
Whether the cohort was found in the system. TRUE/FALSE. If the cohort was not found (value is FALSE), no action is taken for learners who you assigned to that cohort in the .csv file. |
Learners Added |
The number of learners added to the cohort during the row by row processing of the .csv file. This number does not include learners who are not enrolled in the course. |
Learners Not Found |
A list of the usernames of learners that could not be matched and who were therefore not added to the cohort. |
Invalid Email Addresses |
A list of email addresses that were not valid. These learners could not be added to the cohort. |
Preassigned Learners |
The email addresses of learners who do not yet have an account in your Open edX instance but who you have preassigned to a cohort using their email addresses. These learners are not included in the count of “Learners Added”. When these preassigned learners create an account and enroll in your course, they are automatically added to the cohorts that you preassigned them to. |
For a report that includes the cohort assignment for every enrolled learner, review the learner profile information for your course. See View Learner Data.
Creating a Unicode-encoded .csv File#
Make sure the .csv files that you upload are encoded as UTF-8, so that any Unicode characters are correctly saved and displayed.
Note
Some spreadsheet applications (for example, MS Excel) do not allow you to specify encoding when you save a spreadsheet as a .csv file. To ensure that you are able to create a .csv file that is UTF-8 encoded, use a spreadsheet application such as Google Sheets, LibreOffice, or Apache OpenOffice.
Changing the Assignment Method of a Cohort#
Although you can change the assignment method of a cohort at any time after you create it, you should have a strategy in mind as you design your course, and only make changes to cohorts while the course is running if absolutely necessary. Be aware of the implications of changing cohort configuration while your course is running. For more information, see Options for Assigning Learners to Cohorts and Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.
Note
When your course starts, you must have at least one cohort in your course that has automatic assignment. If you have not created at least one automated assignment cohort in the course by the time that the first learner accesses your course content, a default cohort to which learners are automatically assigned will be created in your course. If the default group is the only automated assignment cohort in your course, you cannot change its assignment method to Manual.
To change the assignment method of a cohort, follow these steps.
View the live version of your course. For example, in Studio select View Live.
Select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
From the Select a cohort list, select the cohort whose assignment method you want to change.
On the Settings tab, the current assignment method is selected. Change the assignment method by selecting the other option, either Automatic or Manual.
Select Save.
The cohort assignment method is updated.
Note
Changing the cohort assignment method has no effect on learners who are already assigned to this and other cohorts. Learners who access the course after you make this change are assigned to cohorts based on the new assignment method of this cohort combined with the assignment methods of all other cohorts.
Change Learner Cohort Assignments#
After your course starts and learners begin to contribute to the course discussion, each post that they add is visible either to everyone or to the members of a single cohort. When you change the cohort that a learner is assigned to, the following occur:
The learner continues to see the posts that are visible to everyone.
The learner now sees the posts that are visible to their new cohort.
The learner no longer sees the posts that are visible only to their original cohort.
The visibility of a post and its responses and comments does not change, even if the cohort assignment of its author changes. To a learner, it can seem that posts have “disappeared”.
To verify the cohort assignments for your learners, download the student profile report for your course. If changes are needed, you can assign learners to different cohorts manually in the LMS by selecting Instructor and then Cohorts, or upload cohort assignment changes in a .csv file.
Rename a Cohort#
You can change the name of any cohort, including the system-created default cohort.
To rename a cohort, follow these steps.
View the live version of your course. For example, in Studio select View Live.
Select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
From the Select a cohort list, select the cohort whose name you want to change.
On the Settings tab, in the Cohort Name field, enter a new name for the cohort.
Select Save. The name for the cohort is updated throughout the LMS and the course, including learner-visible views.
Disable Cohorts in Your Course#
Warning
Be very careful in deciding to disable the cohort feature if you previously had it enabled in a live course, because doing so affects the course experience for learners. Course materials and discussion posts that were shared only with members of particular cohorts are now visible to all learners in the course.
If you must make changes to the way you have configured cohorts while your course is running, be sure you understand the consequences of doing so. For details, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.
To disable cohorts in your course, follow these steps.
In the LMS, select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
Clear the Enable Cohorts option.
All course content and discussion posts that were previously divided by cohort immediately become visible to all students.
Delete a Cohort#
You cannot delete cohorts. However, you can rename a cohort, change its assignment method, or move learners to other cohorts.
If you decide that you must alter cohort configuration after your course starts and learners begin viewing the course and the discussion topics, be sure that you understand the consequences of these actions. For more details, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.
See also
About Learner Cohorts (concept)
Best Practices for Cohort Assignment Strategies (reference)
Maintenance chart
Review Date |
Working Group Reviewer |
Release |
Test situation |
2025-01 |
Educators WG - J Swope |
Redwood |
Pass |