Must I delete old content after publishing a full course update?

LeonPetrou

Hello fellow instructors. I teach a tech course on Udemy. I recently recreated the entire course because the user interface of the tech tool I teach has changed. New content is 20 hours long and the old content is 10 hours long.

Is it better practice to keep the old 10 hours of content archived at the bottom of the course? Or is it better to unpublish it completely?

The old content is still useful and usable but would be hard for students to follow along.

The reason I ask is because the course completion rate might drop because students decide to only watch the first 20 of the 30 hours. I assume this is not good engagement for the Udemy algorithm which may affect my SEO. Plus, less students leave with their certificate of completion (which is good free advertising on LinkedIn when they post it).

My course is also part of UFB so watch time is important in my case.

So should I keep the old 10 hours of content or should I unpublish it?

Any advice is highly appreciated.

AHardin

If the interface has changed, I wouldn't keep the old content because it would be confusing to your students. Also, if you're covering the same material with the new videos, the old lectures become redundant and less people will be inclined to finish the course.

When I overhaul any of my courses, I generally let my students know well ahead of time as well as directly after I switch over the old lectures to the new ones via educational announcements and short video in the 1st section of the course, which has been helpful.