Enrollment & Cohorts
Overview
Enrollment & Cohorts covers the tools instructors use to manage who is in their course — manual enrollment/unenrollment, cohort group assignment, enrollment reports, and access control. Cohorts allow instructors to segment learners into groups that see different content (cohorted discussions, cohorted content tracks).
Current State (2026)
• Enrollment management: Instructors can enroll/unenroll individual learners or upload CSV lists from the instructor dashboard
• Cohorts: Defined per-course; learners can be manually assigned or auto-assigned to cohorts; cohorted content shows different subsections to different cohorts
• Enrollment modes: Multiple enrollment modes (audit, verified, professional, honor) with different access levels; set at the course run level
• Enterprise enrollment: B2B enterprise learners enrolled via `edx-enterprise`; may use enterprise-specific modes and access policies
• Waiting list / capacity: Not natively supported in standard Open edX; typically handled at the application layer
Architecture
• Enrollment API: `edx-platform` exposes `/api/enrollment/v*`; stores `CourseEnrollment` records in MySQL
• Cohorts: `CohortMembership` model in `edx-platform`; cohort assignment triggers membership updates
• Cohorted content: Course sections/discussions can be marked as cohort-specific; different content served based on `CohortMembership`
• Enterprise enrollment: `edx-enterprise` `EnterpriseCourseEnrollment` model bridges enterprise users to platform enrollments
History
Origin
• Year introduced: 2012 (enrollment launched with edX)
• Initial implementation: Simple `CourseEnrollment` model; open enrollment (no approval required) for most MOOCs
• Context: Massive open enrollment was the defining feature — anyone could enroll in any course
Key Milestones
Open enrollment launched
Cohorts feature introduced
Enrollment modes (audit/verified) introduced
Enterprise enrollment (`edx-enterprise`) developed
Open Questions
- ?When were cohorts first introduced and what was the pedagogical use case?
- ?How do enrollment modes work — what does "verified" vs. "audit" mean historically?
- ?When was enterprise enrollment (`edx-enterprise`) built and what drove the B2B feature investment?
- ?How do instructors typically use cohorts in practice?
- ?What are the known limitations of the current enrollment/cohort system?