A data science study group is not quite a forum and not quite a course. Members are working through the same material at roughly the same time. They hit the same errors, paste fragments of code, share notebooks, and need someone to look at their analysis and say what is weak about it. If you run it as a general forum, the code questions drown in chat. If you run it as a pure course, nobody sees each other’s work.
This guide builds the group from two plugins. Jetonomy handles code questions, accepted answers and the review room. Learnomy holds the learning track: lessons, quizzes and assignments. Both run on the Reign theme. Jetonomy is free, with an optional paid Pro licence. Learnomy is free, with an optional paid Pro licence. Pro features are labelled. For the general picture of a science community site, our earlier science communities post covers the broad feature list. This guide skips the basics of standing up a Q&A site, which we cover in how to build a Q&A site with accepted answers, and goes straight to what is specific to code and notebooks.
Decide what each part of the group does
A study group has four jobs, and each fits a different tool.
| Job | What members do | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Learn the material | Read lessons, take quizzes, finish exercises | Learnomy course |
| Ask code questions | Post a problem, get answers, accept the one that worked | Jetonomy Q&A space |
| Show their work | Share a notebook, get feedback | Jetonomy review space |
| Stay in step | Same pace, same cohort | Learnomy cohort and a gated space (both Pro) |
Keep these separate on the site. The most common failure is a single “General” forum where a stuck beginner and a half-finished analysis fight for the same list.
Code questions that can be answered
Jetonomy’s Q&A space type follows the Stack Overflow model. Every post is a question, replies are answers, and the person who asked, or a space moderator, clicks Accept on the reply that solved it. The accepted answer shows an Accepted tag and its author earns 15 reputation points with the default settings, which you can change under Jetonomy > Settings > Permissions > Reputation Points. Listings show an Answered badge, and an Unanswered filter shows only questions with no accepted answer, which is the list your helpers should work from.
The harder problem in a data group is that most questions are unanswerable as first written. “My dataframe is wrong” tells a helper nothing. Fix that with a template.
A question template that members actually use
Pin a post at the top of the space; each space allows up to three pinned topics by default. Ask members to follow a fixed shape. This is a template to adapt, and the headings are general practice rather than a Jetonomy feature:
Goal: what you expected to get
Data: a tiny sample, or how to build one
Code: the shortest code that shows the problem
Result: the error text or the wrong output
Tried: what you already checked
Versions: language and library versions
Two details help. The composer has an inline code button and a code block button, and the code block keeps spacing and line breaks and scrolls instead of wrapping. Tell members to click Code block first and then paste, so indentation survives. The docs do not describe syntax colouring for code blocks, so do not promise it.
Second, tell members not to paste real data that identifies people, such as customer lists or health records. Ask them to build a small invented sample instead. This is group etiquette, not something the software enforces.
Let the form collect versions (Pro)
Version mismatches are a common cause of “it works on my machine” questions. Jetonomy Pro’s Custom Fields can add structured fields to posts. The docs show a topic form with a Product version select and an Environment text field. Create a required Select field for the language version and a Text field for library versions, and the form will not accept a question without them. Required topic fields are also checked on the server, so the app and API cannot skip them. Drafts are not checked.
Tags that match how people search
Members add tags when they create a topic, separated by commas, for example python, pandas. Each tag has a page at /community/tag/tag-slug/ that lists topics from every space carrying it, with a Latest and Popular sort, and a button to start a discussion with the tag filled in. Seed a short, agreed list, such as the language, the main libraries and a few topics like cleaning or plotting, and write it into your pinned post. Tag drift is the usual way a good archive turns into a mess: a topic split across variants such as pandas, Pandas and pandas-dataframe.
If you want a level label too, use topic prefixes, which are coloured labels shown before the title. A member picks at most one, it is optional, and it cannot be made mandatory, so treat it as a convenience.
Duplicates and wrong accepted answers
A study group tends to produce the same question again and again. Moderators have tools for it. They can merge duplicate topics, move a topic to another space and close a topic so no new replies arrive. They can also accept or unaccept an answer, since anyone who can close topics in the space sees the Accept button. That matters in a learning group, because a beginner will sometimes accept an answer that works but teaches a bad habit. A moderator can unaccept it and add a note.
Votes on answers are separate from acceptance. The Best sort ranks by net votes, so a clearer answer can rise above the accepted one. The two signals are useful together.
Notebooks: share by link, attach by file
Notebooks are the awkward part, and it is better to know the limits before you promise members anything.
- Share a link to a hosted notebook. In Jetonomy, a URL on its own line in a post or reply becomes a preview card built from the page’s Open Graph tags, and the docs list GitHub among the sites covered. Up to three preview cards render per post or reply.
- Attach files (Pro). Jetonomy Pro’s File Attachments extension adds an attach control. The default allowed types are jpg, jpeg, png, gif, webp, pdf, docx, xlsx, pptx, odt, txt and csv. A notebook file itself is not on that list, so if your notebook tool can export a PDF, attach that, and attach small CSVs for sample data. Defaults are a 10 MB limit per file and five files per post, and you can change both under Jetonomy > Settings > Attachments. Every upload is checked on the server by extension and by content.
- Free Jetonomy shows attachments that already exist but cannot add new ones. For a free setup, rely on links.
Learnomy gives you the other direction: starter material for the group. A lesson can have the content type PDF or Download, where Download is a single button for a file such as a zip or worksheet. Files you upload to your own site are protected automatically, so only people entitled to the lesson can open them, and the original uploads address stops working. That is useful for starter notebooks and data that should stay with enrolled learners.
The learning track in Learnomy
Learnomy organises a course into sections and lessons, and the free plugin covers most of what a study group needs.
- Lessons can be text, audio, PDF, download, embed or a scheduled live session that links to Zoom, Meet or Teams. For video, paste the page URL for YouTube, Vimeo or other WordPress oEmbed providers.
- Release dates. Each lesson has an Available date in the free plugin, so you can release one unit per week without Pro.
- Prerequisites. Require learners to finish one course before enrolling in another, which suits a foundations then advanced pattern.
- Quizzes run in three modes: Graded, Practice and Survey. A Practice quiz still auto-scores but never blocks completion, which makes a low-stakes self-check. Free question types include multiple choice, true or false and short answer, which matches case-insensitively against the accepted strings you list. For numeric answers there is a Numeric type, but it requires Learnomy Pro and its advanced quizzes module. Our post on building a quiz that tests understanding goes deeper on question design.
- Certificates are part of the free plugin.
Pace and cohorts (Pro)
If the group moves together, Learnomy Pro adds three tools. Content Drip adds rules beyond a fixed date, such as a countdown after enrolment, or unlocking after a prerequisite lesson. Cohorts run the same course in scheduled batches, each with a fixed start and end date, a seat cap and a status of Draft, Open, In progress, Completed or Archived. Both modules ship switched off, so enable them under LMS Settings > Modules.
Assignments for notebooks (Pro)
Learnomy Pro assignments attach a written task to a lesson. The learner submits text, uploaded files, a pasted link, or any combination. A link is explicitly meant for content that lives elsewhere, which fits a hosted notebook. The instructor enters a numeric score and optional feedback, and can request a resubmission, which reopens the form even after the due date.
That is instructor grading. I found no peer grading in the Learnomy docs. If peer review matters to your group, build it as a separate loop in Jetonomy, described next.
Peer review in a Jetonomy review room
Create a space called Review Room. You have two reasonable setups, and the choice changes the feel.
| Setup | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Q&A type | The author posts a request for review. Reviewers answer. The author accepts the most useful review | Small groups where each author should choose one best review |
| Forum type | The author posts the notebook link. Reviews are replies, threaded three levels deep, sorted Best by votes | Larger groups where several reviews are equally welcome |
Whichever you pick, pin a rubric so reviewers give the same kind of feedback. A rubric is general practice, so adapt it to your syllabus:
| Question | What a reviewer checks |
|---|---|
| Is the question clear? | Can you restate it from the first cell alone |
| Is the data handled honestly? | Missing values, leakage, sampling are stated |
| Does the code run top to bottom? | Fresh run, no hidden state |
| Do the charts support the claim? | Labels, scales, nothing implied that the data cannot show |
| What is one thing to change first? | A single next step, not a rewrite |
Say in the rules that reviews criticise the work and not the person. Reciprocity is a good norm, for example review two before posting one, but Jetonomy cannot enforce it, so it depends on the group and its moderators.
What the software does give you is a way to reward reviewing. An accepted answer earns 15 reputation points with the defaults, an upvoted reply earns 5, and the leaderboard at /community/leaderboard/ ranks members by total reputation, with This week, This month and All time filters. The month and week filters narrow the board to recently active members but still rank by total reputation, not by points earned in that window, so do not describe them as weekly scores.
New accounts start at trust level 0 with daily caps on topics, replies and votes. A cohort of fresh learners can hit those limits in the first week. Check the thresholds under Jetonomy > Settings > Permissions before the group starts, rather than after the first complaint.
Keep the cohort in its own room (Pro)
Jetonomy Pro detects Learnomy automatically and adds a Learnomy Course option to a space’s Access Rules. You can gate a space by a course, a cohort, or a membership plan. The distinction matters here: a course rule admits everyone who is enrolled for as long as they stay enrolled, while a cohort rule admits only that run of the course, so last spring’s learners are not in the same thread as this autumn’s. Cohort and Learnomy Space rules need Learnomy Pro. Each course, cohort or space also has a Community switch that creates its room, and members are kept in step as they join and leave. Turning the switch off hides the room and does not delete it.
A normal arrangement is one permanent space for everyone who ever took the course, plus a private review room for each cohort.
If BuddyNext Pro is installed too, completing a course posts a milestone to the member’s feed and completed courses show as Certifications on the profile. Neither is needed for the study group to work.
Free and Pro at a glance
| Need | Tool | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Q&A space, accepted answers, voting, tags, prefixes | Jetonomy | Free |
| Merge, move, close and pin topics | Jetonomy | Free |
| Required version fields on questions | Jetonomy Custom Fields | Pro |
| Attach PDFs and CSVs to posts | Jetonomy File Attachments | Pro |
| Courses, lessons, release dates, prerequisites, quizzes, certificates | Learnomy | Free |
| Numeric questions, content drip, cohorts, assignments, learning paths | Learnomy | Pro |
| Space gated by course or cohort | Jetonomy Pro with Learnomy | Pro |
The plugins overview lists each tier in full.
A first four weeks
This is a suggested pattern, not a record of any group.
| Week | Learnomy | Jetonomy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unit one opens. Practice quiz | Pin the question template and the tag list. Seed five questions yourself |
| 2 | Unit two opens. Download lesson with starter notebook | Review Room opens with the rubric. First notebook requests |
| 3 | Assignment due (Pro) | Reviews and accepted answers. Moderators merge duplicates |
| 4 | Graded quiz. Certificate on completion | Check the Unanswered list and the leaderboard |
Frequently asked questions
Can members upload Jupyter notebooks directly?
Not as notebook files, based on the documented allowed types. Jetonomy Pro accepts images, PDFs, common office documents, text and CSV. Share a link to a hosted notebook, which renders as a preview card, or attach an exported PDF.
Can I force people to include their package versions?
Yes, with Jetonomy Pro. Add required Custom Fields to the question form, such as a Select for the language version and a Text field for libraries. Free Jetonomy has no required fields, so use your pinned template instead.
Does Learnomy have peer grading?
I found none in its documentation. Pro assignments are graded by the instructor with a numeric score and feedback. Use a Jetonomy review space for peer feedback.
How do I keep each cohort separate?
With Learnomy Pro cohorts and Jetonomy Pro, gate a private space by the cohort. Only members of that run get in, and access follows their membership.
Who can mark an answer as accepted?
The person who asked, and anyone who can close topics in the space, which means space moderators and admins. The same people can unaccept it.
Do I need both plugins?
No. A group that only needs questions and reviews can use Jetonomy alone. Learnomy adds the structured track with lessons, quizzes and certificates, and the cohort features need Pro on both.