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This feels as if it should be a self-evident question, but I've not seen it in the FAQ or in top voted questions...

I'd like students in my University/course to help each other through something like stackoverflow, and my colleagues to start off as moderators on that - but area51 doesn't feel right for that, because it is - rightly - by topic, and it's silly to ask, say, an computer science student to ask in his University's forum when an open forum is available.

Is there a way to make a "personalised Stack Exchange forum" or a "tag for your group" on Stack Exchange?

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2 Answers 2

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The team doesn't sell the system for "public" use any more. SE 1.0 was an attempt at that which failed.

You're right - Area 51 isn't the right solution to this as you won't get enough interest to actually launch the site.

You're best bet is too look for one of the Stack Exchange clones and install that on your servers. It's not ideal as it won't have the backing of the team, but - if you choose a good one - it will have the UI/UX you want.

This question has a list of Stack Exchange clones.

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    This is helpful (sorry, can't vote up!!), though the problem with area51 isn't that I won't get the support - thousands of students - but that it would be wasted effort: I'd rather engineering students ask their questions to the global Q&A, but to be able to spot them as belonging to the university - e.g. if all their questions were tagged automatically as students from here.
    – boisvert
    Commented Apr 14, 2011 at 16:03
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    @boisvert Why does it matter if the question belongs to your university? How would it affect how it is answered, or even the phrasing of the question itself?
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 11, 2012 at 20:54
  • @servy - maybe it doesn't matter, I'm partly thinking aloud in my question. The questions are homework, but in SO there's a tag for that. I'd like to be able to spot my students when they ask things, but maybe I'm needlessly controlling.
    – boisvert
    Commented Sep 20, 2012 at 23:03
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    @boisvert Keep in mind that if your students didn't want you to see their questions they could choose not to use such a tag, or even use a new account. If they do want you to see their questions then they can simply make sure you know their account names and you can monitor their questions through their profiles.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 21, 2012 at 13:29
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Not sure if this should be an answer, or comment, but...

Have you looked in to Piazza? It fits your requirements very well. You can have question and answer boards for each class, broken down by assignment or whatever. Professors are moderators and can add TAs as moderators too.

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