Ermm.. I'm lost

Hello everyone! it's good to see Udemy offers a platform for instructors to gather, glad to be a part of it!

But as y'all can tell I'm here for a reason.. I'm lost. A little bit of background information, I've posted my first course yesterday (7/8) and in less than 24 hours, I've already had more than 200 students enrolled on my free course. But somehow at the course engagement tab, it shows 0 active students and 0 minutes taught. I got a little frustrated so I decided to be a Sherlock myself.

I signed into Udemy with another account and enrolled on my own course as a student. I've watched some of the lectures again just to see if the statistic for course engagement will change. I checked again with my instructor account, the statistic still remains the same. 0 active students and 0 minutes viewed. May I why is this happening? Did I miss some of the important steps? Please let me know. Your help is mucho appreciated🙆🏼‍

Comments

  • Patience. The data is not updated instantaneously. It may take a few days. However, when you publish a free course or issue free coupons you will get thousands of course horders signing up for your course and 98% will never even look at it. They are very unlikely to leave a review and if they do it will be worse than paid students. Unfortnate, but that is how it works.

  • @Nola826

    The first thing you must understand about Udemy is that offering a course for free is almost always a waste of time and almost always discouraging. There is a very little reason to do it.

    You said you had 200 students enroll almost right away. These are not real students. They are bots that roam the Udemy landscape looking for free courses and sign up. I have no idea the point of this or why Udemy allows it but at least 195 or more of these signups are not real students that will actually take your course.

    Secondly, Udemy does not permit you to do promotions to anyone who signs up for a free course. So even if you do have a real student sign up for a free course, you won't be able to promote your other courses (assuming you have more than one course) to them.

    Because of this I would encourage you to reconsider your course being free.

  • Nola826
    Nola826 Posts: 3 researcher rank

    @RandyMinder

    Thank you so much for replying. I know offering a free course on Udemy defeats the whole purpose, but my course is free at the moment because of a few reasons:

    1. I thought it can boost my ratings and make it show up on the first few pages of the search

    2. I do plan to turn it into a paid course in the future once I have solid ratings

    3. I'm teaching a subject that is quite popular. As a newbie, I really need those ratings for my course to be seen. I heard it is hard for Udemy to promote instructors with zero track record.

    Please do correct me if I'm wrong. At the moment, my course engagement still showing 0 active students and 0 minutes view. If giving free courses isn't worth it, please do let me know. Thank you so much!

  • Nola826
    Nola826 Posts: 3 researcher rank

    Ohhh.. I see. Thank you so much! I thought the statistic will show up instantly.

    I know offering a free course on Udemy defeats the whole purpose, but my course is free at the moment because of a few reasons:

    1. I thought it can boost my ratings and make it show up on the first few pages of the search

    2. I do plan to turn it into a paid course in the future once I have solid ratings

    3. I'm teaching a subject that is quite popular. As a newbie, I really need those ratings for my course to be seen. I heard it is hard for Udemy to promote instructors with zero track record.

    Please do correct me if I'm wrong. At the moment, my course engagement still showing 0 active students and 0 minutes view. If giving free courses isn't worth it, please do let me know. Thank you so much!