Learn about our partnership with Emeritus

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Learn about our partnership with Emeritus

Bella
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Instructors!

 

As Udemy grows, we are always looking for new ways to expand our educational offerings and keep learners engaged. With that in mind, we’re excited to share an update with you on our partnership with Emeritus. Check out this Teaching Center article to learn more.

 

 

Teach on,

Udemy Community Team

14 Comments
Muslim Helalee
Storyteller Storyteller
Storyteller

Cool

Human-Science
Trailblazer Trailblazer
Trailblazer

@Bella 

Hi Bella,

 

So, from the Article, it seems that this is not designed to sell students more Udemy courses, but to direct them to Emeritus Courses.

Is that right?

And Udemy will receive some kind of commission from Emeritus, when a student signs up as a result of an Advertisement placed on the Udemy site.

Is that right?

This commission will provide a further revenue stream for Udemy. Basically, click through ad revenue.

But what is not so clear from the Article is where Udemy might go with this.

Are you suggesting that if Students show interest, then Udemy might look to provide courses with University recognition?

Or are you suggesting that Udemy may broaden their advertising to place ads for other organizations on the platform?

I don't understand the 'Partnership' aspect.

What makes this more than simply Udemy opening up its platform to ads for other platforms.

I would like to understand this but the information in the Article seems vague.

Many thanks.

Human-Science
Trailblazer Trailblazer
Trailblazer

@MichaelPog, @LawrenceMMiller @ScottDuffy @SharonRamel @Thor 

Hope you don't mind me tagging you here, based on your interest in and contribution to subjects previously.

 

This post by @Bella about the 'partnership' with Emiritus, outlined here has seemingly either gone unnoticed, or failed to attract responses, and that seems unusual for such a development.

 

 

 

 

ThomasMitchell
Storyteller Storyteller
Storyteller

Not sure what to think about this...

 

What test is Udemy running with Emeritus?

We will run a marketing test that targets Udemy learners whose previous activity indicates that they will be a good match for Emeritus’ learning programs. Between May and August, we will promote Emeritus programs through our website, email, mobile, and social channels once-per-month to these select students in the US, India, and Latin America. 

Human-Science
Trailblazer Trailblazer
Trailblazer

@ThomasMitchell 

 

Do you have any sense regarding why Udemy would choose to advertise programs provided by another Platform, when they have already declined interest in acquiring accreditation for their own Instructors' programs.

It seems bizarre to me.

ThomasMitchell
Storyteller Storyteller
Storyteller

I'll be honest here. I have a real issue with Udemy driving traffic AWAY from the platform for ANY REASON. Saying it won't affect earnings is disingenuous. There's absolutely no way to guarantee that.

Bella
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi @Human-Science and @ThomasMitchell

 

Thank you for asking about this. I'm happy to provide some clarification about this partnership. 

 

Our marketing partnership with Emeritus is intended to provide us with the insight and data to help us make informed decisions around the type of certificates that Emeritus offers. We hope to learn how learners value these certificates, whether they are willing to pay a higher price point, and whether they are interested in taking live courses.  

 

As you can see from the Teaching Center article, we will only conduct this short-term test with students whose previous activities indicate they can be a good match for Emeritus' learning programs. While this group of learners will be redirected away from Udemy in the short-term, the test will help Udemy determine how to proceed with certificate offerings in the future. As this is a targeted test we’re running with a partner, there is no opportunity for instructors to get involved at this time. But we will absolutely let you know if, when, and how that happens. 
 

On-demand instructor courses are the core of our business and why students know and love Udemy. Experiments like these simply help us make the right decisions about how to expand our offering to meet the needs of all our learners. 

 

I hope this helps clear things up. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns!
 

Bella Almeida

Udemy Community 

MichaelPog
Mentor Mentor
Mentor

@Human-Science I don't know what to make of it at the moment.

Actually Udemy probably doesn't either, that's why it's an experiment.:))

 

I think it's great that Udemy invests in experiments like this to learn more about the behavior, appetite for knowledge and financial ability of its students.

Experiments are a good thing.

 

The concern and anticipation is for the conclusions Udemy will draw from the experiment and what Udemy will do next.

 

For example: The Teaching Center describes Emeritus as this :

Emeritus offers live, university-style courses with certificates of completion.

 

However, what I see is they offer Coding Courses and Bootcamps (just like many of us) but run them in cohort and charge $1000, $2000 or even more for them.

 

For example, this Introduction to Algorithms and Data structures course is priced at $2200.

 

 

So If Udemy finds that students go and buy that program, even though there are 100s of courses on Udemy on that topic for $10, the question will be why?

  • Are students buying it for the "liveness" of it?
  • Or they have the money and are willing to pay that much for the best chance to get a job quicker? (which in the case of Software Engineering pays off that investment very fast)

Knowing that Coursesa charges hundreds of dollars and Udacity thousands for on-demand coding courses, I know those students do exist and Udemy will see it too.

The question then will be:

What Udemy will do with it?

Will they figure out how to bundle some of our courses, run them in cohort, give a nice certificate and charge premium price?

Or keep sending those high paying students to another platform permanently and let students see us as the lower class option despite the high quality of our courses?

 

This is where I think what Udemy concludes and does long term is far more important than this experiment itself.

Knowing that Udemy has some smart folks running those experiments I am personally optimistic about it but we'll see how it goes:)

JohnBura
Storyteller Storyteller
Storyteller

I hope it leads to every instructor being able to offer 1-2k bootcamps on Udemy. 

 

Otherwise, it just feels like the marketplace is a loss leader for other products. 

RajGupta
Specialist Specialist
Specialist

@ThomasMitchell  @MichaelPog 

 

This will be fantastic in the long run.

 

As you may know, there is renewed focus on SCNC students. SCNC stands for Some College No Credential/Degree.

 

As you also may know, only one-third of Americans have college degrees or above. And the stats are even more dismal worldwide. 7% have college degrees.

 

The students want a credential that they can complete online at low cost but is respected worldwide. This is where Emeritus comes in.

 

I work at an Insurance Agency where a very talented agent without a college degree spends her days explaining homeowners insurance and the business pursuits endorsement in particular to doctorates.

 

The 67% of the non-college degree holders in the US and the 93% of non-college degree holders in the world are potential students. They are looking for credentials similar to a bachelors degree.

 

They would however need to complete their courses on a time-table and pass examinations, something that is currently not a requirement at Udemy.

 

The students are paying for the examinations, time-table and credential that is recognized.

 

This is an addition.

RogerKayAllen
Trailblazer Trailblazer
Trailblazer

I don't understand this experiment. It seems to be moving away from the Udemy value proposition and business model of making quality content available to a high numbers of students at a low price.

 

A mistake I've watched lots of businesses make, in my consulting career, is not being clear about their business strategy. A market driven strategy is based on making conscious choices about which markets you'll serve and how you'll add value to your customers within these markets. You seek to differentiate yourself from your competitors by identifying benefits you will or will not provide and organizing around the delivery of these benefits. Lacking a clear strategy, a company tries to be all things to all people (JCNordMart), a failing strategy.

 

So, I wonder what this experiment means because it is such a departure from Udemy's core strategy. It leaves me confused and wondering about the future direction of Udemy and how it will impact us as instructors.  

JohnBura
Storyteller Storyteller
Storyteller

I think the business strategy is to set the marketplace up as a loss leader and leverage the students for other more central products. 

 

So if an engaged learner wants to do a 2k coding bootcamp, udemy will get 600 from the commission (or something like that).

 

There have been no developments in the last few years, that enable course creators to make more money other than going through the central channels such as UFB and now the personal subscription. 

RajGupta
Specialist Specialist
Specialist

@RogerKayAllen 

"A market driven strategy is based on making conscious choices about which markets you'll serve and how you'll add value to your customers within these markets. "

 

With Emeritus the value added is a certificate or credential. It is a different product, one that is more expensive but serves the customer by putting it on the resume.

 

A pathway of Udemy/Emeritus courses creates more revenue for Udemy.

 

Lets says you have 8 courses but students need to take 4 to get a certificate. You know students who have taken 1 course will be enrolling in the other 3.

 

You are not starting from 0 every month.

 

 

HofmeyrdeVo128
Specialist Specialist
Specialist

Following with interest. Depending on where Udemy goes with its experiment, it can be either really good or really bad for instructors, depending on if Udemy instructors will be enabled to go the same route with their own accredited courses as is the case with Emeritus. 

Now, if Udemy allows an upsell within the Udemy environment where instructor-led learning can take place and something more than a certificate of completion is earned...that would be beyond awesome for the above average instructor that would be capable of facilitating this .