Cohorts FAQ

What is the difference between a cohort and a group?

A group exists only within a course. You might have a class 10B for example which you want to enroll in course 1 and course 2. The group would need to be created in both courses and its members enrolled separately in both courses. Cohorts are groups of users created by admin which can then be brought in "en masse" to courses. So if class 10B is created as a cohort by admin, then it can be selected in those courses where enrolment via cohort has been enabled. (For more information on creating and using cohorts, see here: Cohorts) Once members of a cohort have been added to a course, they can be included in a group, either by using the "auto create groups" feature or by adding the members to an empty or pre-created group.

Read more in Groups FAQ

Can I synch cohorts with LDAP groups?

This is not currently available as standard. However, the tracker issue for this (MDL-25011) offers a patch which works on versions up to and including 2.3. It has not yet been tested on 2.4.

Where can I practise with some ready made cohorts?

1. Log into the Mount Orange School demo site with username: manager and password: moodle
2. You can access system cohorts from the Administration block > Site Administration > Users > Accounts > Accounts

I want to enrol a cohort of students in all courses in a category

This is not currently possible to add a cohort to a course category and automatically enrol members in every courses at once in that course category. Please see MDL-36951 for the reasoning behind this.

• You can create a special role which will allow the user to self enroll in a course. For example, all courses in the French course category are set to manual enrolment. Then assign a cohort in the context of the French course category the special role. Only special role students (all of the same cohort) can self enrol, the others will have to be manually enrolled.
• You can add add a cohort without any members to a new or existing course, then add members later. This is done on a course by course basis.