Engaging with students

[ZolaBrunner]

Hi there, I am a first time course creator.

I'm not sure if this is possible but here goes my question:

How do I receive the email addresses of my students and how can I interact with them on a one-on-one basis?

Thanking you in advance

[FrankKane · Accepted solution]

You can't get the email addresses of your students, unless they offer them to you voluntarily. It's how Udemy respects the privacy of students and ensures they don't end up on hundreds of mailing lists that are outside of their control.

That said, there are many ways to interact with students on Udemy:

• Udemy's private messaging system; you can message any student directly through Udemy's platform
• Udemy's Q&A system, where students can post questions that you can answer publicly
• You're allowed to give students a signup link to your own mailing list where they can do so voluntarily, but only in the final "bonus lecture" of your course.

Some instructors also host their own course materials and communities on their own websites, and direct students there as part of the setup for the course. If students find your mailing list signup there, that's OK. But you're not allowed to require students to sign up to your own mailing list as part of the course.

[FrankKane · Accepted solution]

You can't get the email addresses of your students, unless they offer them to you voluntarily. It's how Udemy respects the privacy of students and ensures they don't end up on hundreds of mailing lists that are outside of their control.

That said, there are many ways to interact with students on Udemy:

• Udemy's private messaging system; you can message any student directly through Udemy's platform
• Udemy's Q&A system, where students can post questions that you can answer publicly
• You're allowed to give students a signup link to your own mailing list where they can do so voluntarily, but only in the final "bonus lecture" of your course.

Some instructors also host their own course materials and communities on their own websites, and direct students there as part of the setup for the course. If students find your mailing list signup there, that's OK. But you're not allowed to require students to sign up to your own mailing list as part of the course.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

@ZolaBrunner,

@FrankKane provided a great answer that I'd like to add one item to:

A couple of years ago I cut over to project based courses.  What does this mean:

1) Try to offer a take-away for the student as early as possible in your course.  Keep offering these take-aways throughout the course.

2) Each section in my course comes with an article leccture based project that students respond to by submitting work for review by me and their peers to the Q&A section of the course.

Since making this change students have responded in waves (in reality, it becomes a lot of work having to monitor and respond to all their section projects).  Students like the projects that actually give them little modules of benefit they can take away from the course.  In fact, quite often by the time they've finished the last project they've achieve the purpose of the course.

If you want plenty of student course involvement and 1-on-1 interaction, project based courses is the way to go (IMHO).

---Brian