Cohorts

Cohorts, or site-wide groups, enable all members of a cohort to be enrolled in a course in one action, either manually or synchronised automatically.

Creating a cohort

Cohorts can be created by site administrators and other users with appropriate permissions.

• Access Settings > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Cohorts

• Click the Add button
• NOTE In the dropdown you can choose between making your cohort available throughout the site "system" or in a named category.
• Complete the details and save the changes.
• Follow the assign link opposite the cohort name in the list of available cohorts.

• Select potential users from the list then click the Add button.

To synchronise cohort members with course participants, the Cohort sync enrolment plugin should be enabled in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins.

Adding users to a cohort in bulk

New feature
in Moodle 2.2!

1. Access Settings > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Bulk user actions
2. Find users by setting an appropriate filter
3. Add users from the available list to the selected list
4. Choose 'Add to cohort' with selected users

Uploading users to a cohort

New feature
in Moodle 2.2! An administrator can upload users via CSV file to existing cohorts as follows:

1. Access Settings > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Upload users
2. Upload a text file with the following format:

username,password,firstname,lastname,email, cohort1
tomjones,Pass1234*,Tom,Jones,tomjones@example.com, year3
marysmith,Pass1234*,Mary,Smith,marysmith@example.com, year4

where year3 and year4 are the cohort ids of existing cohorts (i.e. not their names)

Searching cohorts

When a site has a large number of cohorts, entering keywords into the "Search cohorts" box will search or filter for the required cohort(s)

Managing category cohorts

Cohorts which have been created for a category rather than the system can be located by selecting the appropriate category and then clicking the Cohorts link in Settings>Category (name)>Cohorts

Cohort capabilities

• Add and remove cohort members
• Create, delete and move cohorts
• Configure cohort instances
• View site-wide cohorts

See also

• A three minute Cohort in Moodle 2.0 video
• Cohorts in Moodle 2.0 video
• Using cohorts with Moodle 2.2 blog entry by Gavin Henrick