Instructor Courtesy and Respect

[RobertBrown028]

Although I recently reduced my presence on the Udemy platform, on the occasion of receiving my first one-star review, I had to make this post. I have followed the anguished posts of other instructors after one-star reviews. First seeing mine was like looking at a pile of dog poop on the kitchen floor.

My opinion has always been that students can rate and review any way they wish, within the bounds of decorum and truth. They are not obliged to improve our teaching.

However, in this case, the student is also a Udemy instructor. I believe we instructors should be held to a higher standard. Not a mandated standard, but one of courtesy and respect.

My rater, “Mr. X” has five times the reviews and students I have, and years of experience. I would value his opinion. What did he see in “Management Skills: Problem Solving, Decision Making and More”? Did he not learn anything? It presents a unique tool I created 40 years ago and not found anywhere else. Or is it? Did I get facts wrong? Was I insulting, boring, irritating? Or was he simply jealous of my brilliant genius and suave good looks?

One of my favorite Udemy rivals is Larry Miller. Early on I noticed a few typos on his landing pages and sent him a note. If I took a course of his and noticed something bad, I’d do the same thing; write him a note, out of courtesy and respect.

The few ratings I have given so far have been at least 4.0. Any lower I don’t rate or review.

I think our standard in instructors giving ratings and reviews should be courtesy and respect—and helpful feedback. What do you think we instructors should do?

For now, I thought I’d take note of my first one-star review as something to dismiss and move on.

[HofmeyrdeVo128]

This is very eloquently put Mr. @RobertBrown028 , and something that needs to be discussed. I've also quite recently had a similar experience, resulting from a mistake that was entirely my responsibility to mitigate, and that I take full responsibility of as an instructor, but I do feel that the whole debacle could have been handled differently perhaps. 

That being said, I wholeheartedly agree with you in the sense that we need to take these on the chin, move on, learn from it, and build our resilience as business owners.