ITIL courses - disappeared?

Hi dear community members,

I've noticed that all ITIL and PRINCE2 (Axelos) courses dissapeared from Udemy and there is only one left from Jason Dion except those with exam tests.

Do you know what happened? Has Jason Dion has a special permisssion from Axelos? I would ask him directly but not sure how :-).

Thank you in advance for information, Ludmila

Comments

  • Abbie
    Abbie Posts: 3,191 traveler rank

    Hi @LudmilaVraz146
    , Axelos, the governing body for IT certification exams like ITIL and PRINCE2, among others, has forbidden instructors from selling courses on these topics unless they sell an expensive exam voucher along with it.


    Late last year, many courses were unpublished as we reached out to instructors to inform them of the change. Some exceptions have been made amongst practice tests and brief informational courses. If you are considering creating a course one of these certifications, you must ensure you are in line with Axelos guidelines in order to avoid any potential legal issues.


    Please reach out to Axelos to learn more about their current Terms, or exceptions they have allowed. Should we receive a complaint regarding infringement of intellectual property owned by PeopleCert or Axelos, that content will have to be removed.

    Feel free to reach out to policy@udemy.com if you have any additional questions.

  • JasonDion
    JasonDion Posts: 258 visionary rank

    @LudmilaVraz146
    , hey it is Jason. I can chime in here and provide some clarity.

    TL/DR:
    You are right, "Jason has special permission from Axelos". (Which I struggled for about 6 months to get from Axelos... the special permission isn't from Udemy, it is from Axelos/PeopleCert under a license.)

    The full story...

    Axelos owns the copyright for all things ITIL and PRINCE2. If you are going to teach one of their courses, you must gain a license to do so. I see from your profile and LinkedIn that you are an ITIL Expert certified professional, and you have been training ITIL and PRINCE2 for a long time.

    So, up until November 1, 2019, there were a lot of courses on Udemy for ITIL and PRINCE2 (mine were the best sellers for the categories, but there was about 50-100 courses on there total). Back then, to teach ITIL or PRINCE2, you had to be an Axelos/PeopleCert certified trainer, pay yor annual fee to them, and be an approved Authorized Training Organization (ATO). That was the only requirements.

    If you didn't meet those requirements, once a month, Axelos would scan Udemy, issued "takedown" letters claiming you are misusing their copyright materials (ITIL/PRINCE2), and Udemy was forced to take down your course. This happened pretty much monthly like clockwork.

    Anyway, then on November 1, 2019, Axelos changed their licensing agreement with ATOs and instructors. They required that EVERY single course sold must include an exam voucher with it.

    So, as you know, those vouchers are NOT free. As instructors, we have a cost of goods sold that ranges from $228 to $488 per voucher. Since Udemy sells courses at $199, and they keep 50%, you would lose money on every course sold if you stayed on Udemy. Plus, Udemy doesn't support the sale of vouchers.

    We worked directly with Axelos, PeopleCert, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning (I also had the only ITIL 4 Foundation course on their platform), and the unfortunately, we all couldn't come to an agreement that would allow us to sell the courses without the vouchers.

    We tried everything, including offering to pay the 50% royalty fee that a traditional publisher would pay (for example if I was selling DVDs), but Axelos even rejected that application. We worked for 6 months leading up to November 1st, and we were unsuccessful.

    So, on November 1, 2019, all ITIL/PRINCE2 courses were removed from Udemy (including practice exams.

    I worked out a deal with Axelos/PeopleCert at their executive level to allow us to bring practice exams back to Udemy without vouchers. They agree to that in mid-November, and my courses were the first back, and now there are about 50 or so practice exam courses on Udemy again. To offer a practice exam course, you must be an ATO, or again, Axelos will issue copyright infringement against you and get you removed from Udemy.

    Now, that answers 99% of the question, but there is this one other area that you asked about (my video course).

    This again was something I was able to negotiate with Axelos/PeopleCert and get approval for my company to offer. (We have "some" leverage with them since we sell thousands of exam vouchers a year for them and are high volume ATO.)

    We were the first (and I believe still only) company to receive permission to sell a video training course without an exam voucher, under the condition is wasn't over 90-ish minutes in length, didn't teach all of the ITIL 4 Foundation exam, and numerous other conditions. Again, we fought for about 2-3 months and had to get the course reviewed by their Executive VPs to even get this approved, which is probably why we are still the only video course on Udemy for ITIL and PRINCE2.

    If you check out the courses, you will see they are "Introduction to Service Management with ITIL 4" and "Introduction to Project Management with PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 Agile". They were designed specifically to introduce new students and business to the world of ITIL and PRINCE2/PRINCE2 Agile, but are NOT certification exam video lessons.

    For those, we sell them on our own website (itil.diontraining.com and prince2.diontraining.com), where we have the full product line of both certifications and include the exam vouchers with the courses. Those courses start at $369 and go up to $699 currently, but our prices change all the time.

    If you have any other questions, I am happy to help out. But basically, you are right, "Jason has special permission from Axelos". (Which we struggled for about 6 months to get.)

    That said, I am constantly pushing the boundaries with both Axelos and PeopleCert to get them to reverse their decision on requiring exam vouchers on Udemy. I have monthly dicussions with them on this topic (and a few others), and you will see more "ITIL" courses by me on Udemy in the coming months, because I secured additional permissions for more short duration ITIL courses without vouchers that I am designing specifically for the Udemy Marketplace, LinkedIn Learning, and Udemy for Business (UFB) if they decide to put them in their catalog.

    Honestly, Axelos/PeopleCert can be a real pain to work with, so unless you are going to do significant volume with them, I don't recommend teaching their courses due to their heavy regulations. Just to get started as an ATO is thousands of $$ in licensing, numerous inspections/quality assurance checks, every course we published we have to wait months for their review/approval, etc.

    For us, we already had such high volume before they made the changes, that it made sense for us to continue to work with them, but if I was just starting out again, I would teach something else that doesn't require working with an "oversight" body like PeopleCert/Axelos.

    Thanks!
    Jason Dion

    diontraining.com

  • Thank you Jason for you fast reply and the full story. I understand the situation now. I don't like it though as you are right I was thinking about creating a course on ITIL topic :-(. But comercially that makes sense if I were Axelos I would do the same probably.