We [Udemy] strive to connect students with the right instructors and courses to help them accomplish their learning goals. There are a lot of things we do to make these connections, but one particular area we are investing in is badges. Badges highlight to prospective students when instructors and courses deliver a unique experience. As we identify important signals to call out to students you’ll see us testing new badges.
Below is a list of badges, how they appear on-site, and what they highlight to students. We’ve also shared some of the contributing factors that go into earning each badge and advice and resources to help you earn them. Things to note:
- We will regularly update this guide as we introduce new badges or make significant changes to existing badges. Because all of the existing badges are still being tested, badge contributing factors, how they display, and other aspects will likely evolve. This also means that badges might be applied to courses in some languages and not others. Generally, when testing new badges we first apply them to English courses and then later to other languages if we see positive results for students and instructors.
- Today a course is only eligible to receive one of the following badges in this order of prioritization (Best Seller, Highest Rated, Hot and New, New). For example, a course may qualify for both Best Seller and Highest Rated, but it will only display the Best Seller badge. One exception is that courses can receive Top-Responding Instructor and one of the above badges.
Badges
Best Seller - First launched November 2016. Currently rolled out to users in all languages; however, factors for receiving badge may differ by language of course.
The Best Seller badge calls out to students that this particular course is the most purchased amongst a pool of similar courses.
Contributing factors:
- Course with highest recent sales within a particular combination of category and primary topic (e.g., Python - Development, Python - Business, Yoga - Personal Development, Yoga - Health & Fitness).
- Course has minimum of 4.2 average rating.
Highest Rated - First launched January 2018. Currently rolled out to users in all languages; however, only English, French, German, Japanese, and Portuguese courses are eligible to receive badge at this time.
The Highest Rated badge calls out to students that this particular course has the highest rating amongst a pool of similar courses.
Contributing factors:
- Course with highest course rating within a particular combination of category and primary topic (e.g., Python - Development, Python - Business, Yoga - Personal Development, Yoga - Health & Fitness).
- Course has minimum of 4.5 average rating.
- Course has minimum of 10 ratings.
Note: We do factor in a “rating confidence” metric when determining which course has the highest course rating within a particular Topic-Category combination. In other words, a course with a 4.8 course rating and 1,000 reviews will probably earn the highest rated badge over a course in the same Topic-Category with a 4.9 course rating and only 10 reviews.
Hot & New - First launched January 2018. Currently rolled out to users in all languages and across courses in all languages.
The Hot and New badge calls out to students that this particular course is one of the most purchased amongst a pool of similar new courses.
Contributing factors:
- Course published in last 60 days.
- Course in top percentile of Category’s historical new course revenue.
New - First launched August 2017. Currently rolled out to users in all languages and across courses in all languages.
The New badge calls out to students that this particular course is new to Udemy and should contain the most up to date information on its topic.
Contributing factors:
- Course published in last 60 days.
- Free and Paid courses.
Top-Responding Instructor - First launched September, 2017. Testing currently paused.
The “Top-Responding Instructor” badge calls out to students that this particular course has an extremely responsive instructor.
Contributing factors:
- Respond to 90% of students questions within 24 hours.
- Course needs to have at least 10 questions over last 90 days.
Highly Rated by Beginners - First launched April, 2018. Currently being tested on users with English, German, Portuguese, French, and Japanese language preferences. Courses in all languages are eligible to receive designation.
The Highly Rated by Beginners designation is currently in experimentation, and calls out to students that this particular course is highly rated by students, who identify themselves as beginners.
Contributing factors:
- Course with a high course rating (by students who identify themselves as a beginner) within a particular combination of category and primary topic (e.g., Python - Development, Python - Business, Yoga - Personal Development, Yoga - Health & Fitness).
- Course has minimum of 10 ratings.
- Course is not labeled as Intermediate or Advanced level.