9.4. Setting up Discussions in Courses with Cohorts

This section provides information about setting up discussions for specific cohorts.

9.4.1. Overview

In courses that have cohorts enabled, discussion topics can be either divided by cohort, or unified and accessible to all learners.

Discussion topics that are divided by cohort are visible to all learners but the posts, responses, and comments within them are divided so that they are visible only to members of the same cohort. Posts, responses, and comments within unified discussion topics are visible to all learners in the course, regardless of cohort.

When you first enable cohorts in your course, the initial behavior for course-wide discussion topics is different from the behavior of content-specific discussion topics.

By default, course-wide discussion topics are unified because these discussions are generally used for posts that are of broad interest to all learners in the course. In contrast, content-specific discussion topics are by default divided by cohort. On the Instructor Dashboard, you can change discussion topics of either type to be divided or unified.

Warning

If you change the cohort settings of discussion topics in a live course after learners have begun reading and contributing to discussion posts, you are changing their course experience. Learners might see posts that were previously not visible to them, or they might no longer see posts that were previously available to all learners. If you make changes to cohort settings in a running course, be aware of the implications of your changes. For more details, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.

For information about cohort settings for discussion topics, see the following topics.

For overview information about discussions in a course, see Managing Course Discussions. For information about using cohorts in a course and managing discussions that are divided by cohort, see Using Cohorts in Your Courses and Managing Discussions in Courses with Learner Cohorts.

Note

Making discussion topics divided by cohort, described in this and the following topics, only divides posts within the discussion topics by cohort; the discussion topics are still visible to all learners in the course. If you want to make specific content-specific discussion topics visible only to certain cohorts, you can implement content groups and change the visibility settings on the discussion components. For more details, see Creating Cohort-Specific Courseware.

9.4.2. Course-Wide Discussion Topics and Cohorts

When you first create a course-wide discussion topic, it is unified, and all learners in the course can post, read, respond, and comment in the topic without regard to their cohort assignments.

After you add a course-wide topic, you can configure it so that it is divided by cohort instead. For step-by-step instructions for specifying whether a course-wide discussion topic is unified or divided by cohort, see Specify Whether Course-Wide Discussion Topics are Divided by Cohort.

9.4.2.1. Example: Making Some Course-Wide Discussion Topics Divided by Cohort

Course-wide discussion topics are by default unified, so that all learners can participate. In some instances, however, you might decide that it makes sense to divide some course-wide discussion topics by cohort, so that members of each cohort only see and respond to posts made by learners in the same cohort.

For example, in addition to the system-supplied General topic, you add three new course-wide discussion topics, for a total of four discussion topics.

  • General
  • Course Q&A
  • Announcements
  • Brainstorming

The posts that you intend to make to the General and Course Q&A topics, and the subjects you expect learners to explore there, are appropriate for a unified learner audience.

However, you decide that it will be useful for the Announcements and Brainstorming topics to be divided by cohort. For information about specifying whether course-wide discussion topics are divided by cohort, see Specify Whether Course-Wide Discussion Topics are Divided by Cohort.

You also decide to apply a naming convention so that learners will know the audience for the discussion topics before they add any posts. For information about naming conventions, see Apply Naming Conventions to Discussion Topics.

9.4.3. Specify Whether Course-Wide Discussion Topics are Divided by Cohort

When you create course-wide discussion topics, they are by default unified, and all learners in the course can see and respond to posts from all other learners. You can change course-wide discussion topics to be divided by cohort, so that only members of the same cohort can see and respond to each other’s posts.

To change the cohort settings for course-wide discussion topics, follow these steps.

  1. In the LMS, select Instructor, then select Cohorts.

  2. Select Specify whether discussion topics are divided by cohort.

  3. In the Course-Wide Discussion Topics section, select the checkbox next to each course-wide discussion topic that you want to divide by cohort. Clear the checkbox next to each course-wide discussion topic that you want to make unified.

  4. Select Save.

    The list of course-wide discussion topics is updated to show which topics are divided by cohort, and which are unified.

    Two course-wide discussion topics in list, one cohorted and one unified.

For more information about managing discussions that are divided by cohort, see Managing Discussions in Courses with Learner Cohorts.

9.4.4. Content-Specific Discussion Topics and Cohorts

When you enable the cohort feature for a course, and create content-specific discussion topics by adding discussion components to units in Studio, these content-specific discussion topics are by default divided by cohort. A learner who is assigned to one cohort cannot read or add to the posts, responses, or comments contributed by the members of another cohort.

If you want all content-specific discussion topics in your course to be divided by cohort, you do not need to take any action. For more information, see Specify that All Content-Specific Discussion Topics are Cohorted.

Alternatively, you can specify that you want most of the content-specific discussion topics in your course to be unified, and make only a few discussion topics divided by cohort.

9.4.5. Specify that All Content-Specific Discussion Topics are Cohorted

The default behavior for content-specific discussion topics is that they are divided by cohort when you first add them in your courseware. If you want all content-specific discussion topics in your course to be divided by cohort, you do not need to take any action.

You can confirm this setting on the Instructor Dashboard Cohorts tab.

  1. In the LMS, select Instructor, then select Cohorts.
  2. Select Specify whether discussion topics are divided by cohort.
The link in the UI to specify whether content specific discussion topics are divided by cohort.

In the Content-Specific Discussion Topics section, you see that the Always cohort content-specific discussion topics option is selected.

All content-specific discussion topics in your course are divided by cohort, and you cannot change the cohort settings of individual content-specific discussion topics.

Content specific discussion topics controls with the "Always cohort content specific discussion topics" option selected.

For information about changing the cohort settings for your content-specific discussions to make all of them unified except a few, see Specify that Some Content-Specific Discussion Topics are Divided by Cohort.

9.4.6. Specify that Some Content-Specific Discussion Topics are Divided by Cohort

The default behavior for content-specific discussion topics is that they are divided by cohort when you first add them in your courseware.

To make only a few of your content-specific discussion topics divided by cohort, you change the cohort settings for content-specific discussion topics to make them all unified, and then explicitly select only the topics that you want to be divided by cohort.

Warning

When you change the cohort setting from Always Cohort Content- Specific Discussion Topics to Cohort Selected Content-Specific Discussion Topics, you are making all content-specific discussion topics in your course unified, unless you explicitly change them to be divided by cohort before saving your changes. This means that any posts that were previously divided by cohort and restricted to viewing, responding, and commenting by members of the same cohort are now visible to all learners in your course.

If you make changes to cohort settings in a running course, be aware of the implications of your changes. For more details, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.

To specify that only some content-specific discussion topics in your course are divided by cohort, follow these steps.

  1. In the LMS, select Instructor, then select Cohorts.

  2. Select Specify whether discussion topics are divided by cohort.

    The link in the UI to specify whether content specific discussion topics are divided by cohort.
  3. In the Content-Specific Discussion Topics section, if it is not already selected, select Cohort selected content-specific discussion topics.

    Warning

    If you make changes to cohort settings in a running course, be aware of the implications of your changes. For more details, see Altering Cohort Configuration in a Running Course.

    All content-specific discussion topics that you add in your course are unified and visible to all learners. The list of content-specific discussion topics becomes editable.

  4. Select the checkbox next to each content-specific discussion topic that you want to divide by cohort.

    Content specific discussion topics controls with the "Cohort selected content specific discussion topics" option selected.
  5. Select Save.

    The changes to your content-specific discussions are saved. The content-specific discussion topics that you selected are saved as being divided by cohort. All other content-specific discussion topics are unified.

For more information about managing discussions that are divided by cohort, see Managing Discussions in Courses with Learner Cohorts.