On occasion we see instructors use competitions to engage and motivate learners. Competitions can require thoughtful planning to ensure they are compliant with all relevant Udemy policies. Some of the most frequent issues seen in competitions and giveaways are outlined below.
Entering contests
Collection of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is restricted per Udemy’s Terms. In contests, we will allow for exchange of email addresses to the winner if necessary to dispense with the prize to a limited number of winners.
As reviews cannot be incentivized, they should not be required for participation. Similarly, instructors can’t request that learners follow on social media, or otherwise engage in promotion for the instructor.
Promoting the competition
The Educational Announcements Guidelines restrict against promotional materials to ensure the focus remains on relevant educational content that will help learners engage with the subject matter. If using announcements to publicize a competition, make sure that there is an educational component to the announcement and/or the competition. A raffle, for example, would not be considered educational.
Mass use of direct messages to promote a competition would be considered unsolicited spam.
If the competition is always ongoing, it can be mentioned in course content.
Prizes
Instructors cannot promote or reference other courses. It is, however, permissible to offer a free coupon generally to “a course of the winner’s choosing”.
Take care that the challenge or the prize itself could not be considered a roundabout way of promoting other products or services; for example books published by the instructor. Good prizes we have seen offered in the past:
- Free coupon to any other course offered by the instructor
- Shout-out in a future social media post
- Extra tutoring
- Amazon gift cards
- Exam vouchers
- Books by unrelated third parties
Off-platform competitions
For any competition that violates the guidelines above or other Udemy policies, instructors can instead opt to post it to to their own private mailing lists or social media. The Bonus Lecture can also be an option, but is not ideal for a time-bound challenge.