If you want to compare courses to see which ones fit your current needs best, this article outlines how you can preview a course, and see if it’s the right course for you. In addition, this article explains how you can review key information about a course, the instructor(s), and read student reviews on the course landing page.
For tips on how to find a course on the Udemy marketplace, or courses related to a specific subject, please read How to Search for Courses on Udemy.
How to start a free preview
Every Udemy course has some lectures the instructor has selected for a free preview, so students can sample the course content and their teaching style. To start a free preview, please follow the steps below:
- Click on the course icon or course title to proceed to its Course Landing Page
- Next, click Preview This Course on the right-hand side of the page
- Now you’ll be able to watch a handful of lectures selected by the instructor
Reviewing course information
You can also review key information about the course on the course landing page, which includes the following sections:
What you’ll learn?: this section is a summary of what the course will teach you.
Requirements: these are the prerequisite knowledge or tools, if any, you will need to take the course.
Description: a detailed explanation of what the course covers and why you should enroll.
Featured review: the course landing page may also include a Featured review, which highlights a positive experience a student had with the course.
Course content: you can review a list of each lecture title, and any other curriculum items the course includes (quizzes, assignments, practice tests, etc). The entire course length, including non-video lectures, is also posted at the top of the section.
Instructor: this section is where instructors share information about themselves, as well as their experience and expertise. If you click on the instructor’s name, you will be directed to their profile page, which also includes icons for all the courses they teach.
Student feedback: in the Student Feedback section you can see ratings and reviews students have submitted for the course, which may help you decide whether the course is right for you.
When students take a course they are asked what they would rate the course from one to five stars. In the ratings section, you can see what the rating for the course is, and sort through reviews based on their rating, by clicking on the corresponding number of stars.
Please note that instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a course's average star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the age of ratings, and the likelihood of fraudulent ratings.
Below the ratings are the reviews students have submitted for the course. Reviews include comments from the student about the courses, as well as their rating for it. As a result, student reviews can be very helpful in helping you determine whether the course will meet your educational goals.
In addition, this section may also include a Featured Review, which highlights a positive experience a student had with the course.
To learn more about submitting a review, please read our Leaving and Editing a Course Review article.