Cohorts in moodle 2

COHORTS IN MOODLE 2.0Exploring the Possibilities... LindyKlein.com

WHY COHORTS?

Corporate confidentiality (eg Client A must not see Client B’s courses)

Collections of users independent of teaching courses, such as community groups (eg All of Year 9 students)

Easier enrolment options! Uses in your context?

WHAT ARE COHORTS?

Simply put, using cohorts is a way of categorising users in your Moodle system...

The term “cohort” has been introduced to signal the difference between cohorts, groups and groupings (as opposed to the previous term “system-wide groups”)

A cohort is a collection of users, that can be allocated across a Moodle system as a whole, or across course categories

SO WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE??

Cohort – a collection of users within a system-wide or course category

Group – a collection of users within a course

Grouping – a collection of groups within a course

THE DIFFERENCE...

Groups and Groupings cannot be allocated to other courses – Cohorts can!

SO WHO CAN CREATE COHORTS?

By default, only the system administrator and manager can create, delete and manage cohorts BUT:

This can be added to other roles, by setting privileges in the define role area (Site Administration>Users>Permissions>Define Roles):

HOW ARE COHORTS CREATED?

One of two ways, either through Users or Courses:

Or

COHORT CREATION - USERS

Two great YouTube videos are available demonstrating how to create cohorts from the User options – check them

out:http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMWZW_n0eVIhttp

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMqaeOGXuHQ

COHORT CREATION - COURSES

COHORT CREATION – COURSES CONT’D

COHORT CREATION – COURSES CONT’D

SEEING COHORTS

Cohorts can only be seen in the context they were created for – so be careful!

CUSTOMISING WHAT USERS CAN SEE

Be aware that the front page settings override cohort settings, so if you’re using cohorts to keep courses only visible to cohort-based users, don’t enable visibility of courses or categories on the Front Page!

Image courtesy k8marieuk, available from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1092504

ALTERING COHORT ENROLMENTS

Remember, when you unenrol a cohort, you remove all the user data from the course!

Same goes for when you remove a user from a cohort – all the data is removed with them!

Image courtesy ba1969, avail from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1344755

WAYS YOU CAN USE COHORTS!

Cohorts are great for when you have naturally occuring categories of users that are spread across more than one course enrolment. For example, a collection of Science teachers needing a space to share ideas, a collection of students all studying the same degree, but many different courses, or corporate clients who need their own private spaces.