.. _About Divided Discussions:

About Divided Discussions
###################################

.. tags:: educator, concept

This section provides information about setting up discussions that are
divided by learner groups (cohorts) within your course.

.. contents::
  :local:
  :depth: 1

For overview information about discussions in a course, see :ref:`About Course Discussions`.

For more information about creating differentiated course content for learners
in different groups (cohorts), see :ref:`Offering Differentiated Content`.

For information about Setting Up Divided Discussions, see :ref:`Set Up Divided Discussions`.


What Are Divided Discussions?
******************************

With divided discussions, discussion topics are visible to all learners, but
the posts, responses, and comments within these topics are divided so that
learners participate in the discussion only with other members of the same
group (cohort).

Discussion topics that are not divided are unified, meaning that all learners
in the course can see and respond to posts, responses, and comments from any
other learner in the course.

=======================================
Best Practices for Divided Discussions
=======================================

If you divide discussions, a good practice is to use a naming convention for
discussion topics, so that learners clearly understand the audience for a
discussion topic before they add posts to that topic. For information about
naming conventions, see :ref:`Apply Naming Conventions to Discussion Topics`.

You can also appoint learners as Community TAs or Group Commmunity
TAs to help you to moderate course discussions. You might use Group
Community TAs if the content of discussion topics by one group (cohort) should not be
shared with another group. Group Community TAs are themselves members of
learner groups (cohorts) that you use in your course. As discussion moderators, they can
only see and respond to posts by other members of their own group (cohort). For information,
see :ref:`Assign discussion roles`.

For more information about managing discussions, see :ref:`Guide to Managing Divided Discussions` and :ref:`Best Practices for Configuring Course Discussions`.

.. note::

  Another method of providing different discussion experiences for learners in
  different groups in your course is to use the access settings of discussion
  components. For example, you can add multiple discussion components and use
  each component's access settings to restrict access to each discussion
  component to a specific content group. You can then assign these content
  groups to learner groups (cohorts). For more information,
  see :ref:`Set Up Divided Discussions`.

.. seealso::

  :ref:`About Course Discussions` (concept)

  :ref:`Best Practices for Configuring Course Discussions` (concept)

  :ref:`Configure Open edX Discussions` (how-to)

  :ref:`Configure Open edX Discussions Legacy` (how-to)

  :ref:`Best Practices for Moderating Course Discussions` (concept)

  :ref:`Assign discussion roles` (how-to)

  :ref:`Moderate Discussions` (how-to)

  :ref:`Toggle Anonymous Discussion Posts` (how-to)

  :ref:`Learner View of the Discussion` (reference)

  :ref:`Guide to Managing Divided Discussions` (reference)

  :ref:`Set Up Divided Discussions` (how-to)

  :ref:`Set up Discussions in Cohorted Courses` (how-to)

  

**Maintenance chart**

+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
| Review Date  | Working Group Reviewer        |   Release      |Test situation                  |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
|              |                               |                |                                |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+