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Open and closed cohorts

Using open and closed cohorts

Most courses on OpenLearn Create are open for anyone to enrol and complete without any barriers.

However, some courses are set up for closed cohorts – that is, a specific group of people – so are not open courses. On OpenLearn Create, this is done by using a password called an ‘enrolment key’ as a barrier to enrolment, and switching off guest access to the course so that the content cannot be seen by anyone who has not enrolled.

Note: Some activities such as quizzes will require enrolment for them to be viewed and completed, even if guest access is allowed.

There are various options for open and closed courses:

  • Open cohort: Anyone can enrol and anyone can see the course content without enrolling (open enrolment, guest access switched on, no need for an enrolment key).
  • Open enrolment: Anyone can enrol and only those who have enrolled can see course content (open enrolment, guest access switched off, no need for an enrolment key).
  • Closed enrolment: A restricted group of people can enrol and anyone can see the course content without enrolling (enrolment key applied, guest access switched on). This combination is unusual.
  • Closed cohort: A restricted group of people can enrol and only those who have enrolled can see course content (enrolment key applied, guest access switched off). 

If a course is a closed cohort, it is better that it does not appear in the free courses listing on the site because anyone finding it there and clicking on it for more information will get the enrolment key screen with no further information about the course or how to obtain the enrolment key. The only way to stop it from appearing in the free courses listing is to set it up in a private collection.

Private collections do not appear in the collections section of the website. They are set up for organisations who do not want their collection to be publicly available and are usually for a specific group of users. The private collection page can still be found by search engines but the content of closed cohort courses in the private collection cannot. A private collection can only be set up by an OpenLearn Create platform manager.