Course Settings

This article outlines how instructors can enter the Basic info section for their course, which includes the course language, level, category, and subcategory.

How to enter your course’s basic info

To enter your course’s basic info, please follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to the course page (Learn how).

2. On the left-hand-side, select Course landing page.

3. Scroll down to the Basic info section.

4. Select the course language, the level (beginner, intermediate, expert, or all levels), and the course’s category and subcategory.

5. Click Save at the top of the page to confirm changes.

Additional resources

• How to add and propose topics for your course.
• Additional advice and tips on how to create an effective course landing page.

For piracy concerns, video lectures are initially set to be unavailable for learners to download on their computers. If they wish, instructors can change this default setting. This article outlines the Downloadable feature, which instructors can enable for learners to download their course videos on a computer.

Please note: 

• Course videos are always available to download for offline viewing on the Udemy mobile app. Learn more below.
• Due to certain platform security measures, the ability to download a lecture video on a computer may not be available for all courses.

Table of contents

• Enable the downloadable feature
• Disable the downloadable feature
• Course videos are available for offline viewing on the Udemy mobile app
• Downloading your own course videos
• Protecting your content

Enable the downloadable feature

To make a course video downloadable for learners on their computers, please follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your course’s Curriculum page (Learn how).

2.  Click on the applicable video lecture.

3. Toggle Downloadable to on.

Disable the downloadable feature

To disable the download feature for a video lecture, follow the steps above and toggle Downloadable to off.

Course videos are available for offline viewing on the Udemy mobile app

For a better mobile learning experience, students can download all course videos in the Udemy app. For piracy concerns, the video content is encrypted and can only be accessed within the app.

Downloading your own course videos

Instructors can download their own course videos, regardless of whether the lecture has Downloadable toggled on (Learn how). 

Protecting your content

We understand how valuable your content is and we are committed to helping you protect it. Learn how Udemy protects your content.

This article outlines adding topics before submitting your course for review and answers frequently asked questions about the feature.

Table of contents

• What are topics?
• How to access your course topics
• How to add or remove course topics
• How to suggest a new topic
• How to choose the representative topic
• How to submit your topics for review
• How do I choose the right topics for my course?
• Do I have to choose four topics for my course?
• Can I add any topic that I want?
• What topics are usually approved?
• Can I change the approved topics for my course?
• Can I select topics for private courses?

What are topics?

Topics are an effective way to help prospective students to locate your course more easily. Instructors provide more specific information than what is presented in categories and subcategories and enable our team to surface your course in recommendations, topic pages, and badges.

If you’re creating a new course, then you will need to select up to four topics before submitting the course for review.  

How to access your course topics

Please note: Topics cannot be updated on the Udemy platform after publishing your course. 

1. Access your Course Management page (Learn how).

2. Click on Course Landing Page on the left.

3. Scroll down to the What is primarily taught in your course? section

How to add or remove course topics

Type your topic in the text box and click from one of the auto-generated options. Then, click Propose another topic… to include up to four topics.

To remove an option, click on the X next to the topic name.

How to suggest a new topic

You can propose a topic that does not exist in our system.

To do so, change your profile language to English. Then, type your topic in the text box and click Propose new topic. 

Please note:

• Only propose a topic that meets the criteria for your course and reflects the majority of what you are teaching in your course curriculum.
• Limit your topic to a short word or phrase rather than a sentence or paragraph. Do not include URLs.

You should see your proposed topic appear in the primary topic section.

How to choose the representative topic

If you have more than one topic listed, you will be asked to choose the most representative topic for your course. Click and select from the dropdown to confirm the option.

If multiple topics are equally representative of your entire course, you can select any option. All listed topics will count as being taught in your course.

How to submit your topics for review

Click Save at the top right or bottom of the page to confirm your topic changes.  Your topic selections will be reviewed, along with the rest of your course content, when submitting the course for review.

While our review team always considers the topics suggested by instructors, they may determine to select different topics as they deem fit.

After your course is published, the topics that were approved by Udemy’s review team are locked and cannot be changed by course instructors. 

How do I choose the right topics for my course?

Each topic chosen should comprehensively describe your course’s content and narrowly defines what the subject of the course is.

• “The Complete Tennis Course” should have “Tennis” selected as a topic, but not “Sports”, since the latter is too broad and not specific enough. 
• If the course includes extensive information about financial modeling, and is specifically focused on this topic, then we would recommend selecting “Financial Modeling” as a topic, rather than just “Finance.”

Do I have to choose four topics for my course?

No. Instructors can select up to four topics for a course, but you’re not required to select four if you don’t feel four are applicable. 

Adding irrelevant or excessive topics may misrepresent your course, leading to a poor learning experience and negative reviews.

Can I add any topic that I want?

As noted above, while you can propose a topic if it’s not currently listed as an option, our Quality Review Team will only approve a topic if it applies to your course.

What topics are usually approved?

We consider several factors before adding topics to our list. Current supply, demand, and mutual exclusivity of the concept, all factor into whether a topic will be approved. 

Topics that could be approved at a later date are stored and re-evaluated periodically.

Can I change the approved topics for my course?

Topics cannot be updated on the Udemy platform after publishing your course. 

If you think that the topics that were approved for your published course are incorrect or other topics are a better fit, please contact Udemy Support by clicking Contact Us to submit the new topic proposals. We can’t guarantee that your suggestion will be implemented, but we’re happy to share them with our review team for another look.

Can I select topics for private courses?

No. Currently, topics are only available for courses that are public (not private). 

Learn how to adjust the privacy settings of a course.

Through the Instructor view, you can easily access your courses, instructor dashboards, course features, and other instructor resources. This article explains how to navigate the Instructor view, instructor pages, and instructor account settings. 

• Learn how to create an instructor account and profile. 

Table of contents

• Access the instructor view
• Courses page: viewing and editing your courses 
• Access instructor dashboards (sidebar menu) 
• Instructor account settings

Access the instructor view

After logging into your Udemy account, click on Instructor at the top of the page to access the instructor view. 

Courses page: viewing and editing your courses 

After accessing the instructor view, you will be directed to the Courses page, where you can access any courses you’ve created or published by scrolling or using the search tool and filters.

Move your cursor over any course card to edit or manage your course. For published courses, move your cursor sideways to view other course settings. 

To create a new course, click on the New Course to the right.

Access instructor dashboards (sidebar menu) 

There are numerous instructor tools and resources available in the instructor dashboards. To access them, access your instructor view and scroll to the sidebar menu icons on the left. 

Then, click on any of the following instructor dashboards, which include several of the following features: 

• Communications: Access your direct messages, assignment feedback, the Q&A dashboard, and announcements for your courses.
• Performance: Access extensive tools and analytics to track your course performance, learn about your students, view feedback, and understand the impact you’re having on Udemy.
• Tools: Access the Test Video, Marketplace Insights, and Bulk coupon creation tools.
• Resources:  Access the Teaching Center, Instructor Community, and Help Center.

Instructor account settings

After accessing instructor view, you can view your account settings by scrolling to your profile icon at the top right of the page. 

Under your profile icon, you can access the following options: 

• Public profile: Preview your instructor bio. (Learn more)
• Account: View your Account security, notifications, and message settings, as well as any API clients.
• Payout settings: Access the payout and tax details available to premium instructors as well as your promotional agreements.

Revenue report: View the instructor revenue report where you can track and review any sales your courses have made.

This article outlines how instructors can set or change the price tier of their course. 

• Learn about the Instructor Revenue Report and Udemy’s revenue share model. 
• Learn more about how Udemy’s revenue sharing plan works.

Please note: If instructors wish to charge a fee for their courses, they will need to apply to become a premium instructor first. (Learn how to become a premium instructor.)

How instructors can select or change the price tier for their course

Setting a price tier: Instructors who are not opted into the Udemy Deals Program, can select a price tier for each of their courses, which is used as the course's list price.  

Setting a backup price tier: For instructors who are opted into the Udemy Deals Program, you will have the option to select the backup price for your course. This is the price learners will see when the course is not currently being optimized through the Udemy Deals Program.

To set the price tier for your course, please follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to the course management page (learn how).

2. Click Pricing on the left-hand side. The minimum and maximum base prices instructors can set for courses are also listed in our global price matrix.

3. Select the price tier or backup price tier you wish and click Save.

Please note: the new price may not be immediately reflected in the Udemy marketplace or on mobile devices, and coupons that were created before the price change may still be applied to your course.

Changing a course from free to paid

While instructors can change the price of their course at any time, a course can only be switched from Free to Paid once. If the course is switched from free to paid and back to free (or vice versa) after the course is published, the promotional announcements for the course will be permanently disabled. 

Courses that you charge for on Udemy cannot be offered for free off of Udemy (e.g. YouTube, your own site, other sites).

This article explains how instructors can change the title of their course. The course title can be changed at any time, and changes will also be applied immediately.

• Learn about quality guidelines for course titles.

How to change the title of a course

1.  Navigate to the Course management page (Learn how).

2.  On the left-hand side, select Course Landing Page.

3. Under Course title, write the new name of your course.

• View our Teaching Center resource with best practices for your course title.

4. Click Save at the top of the page.

This article explains how instructors can access their course ID and URL on the Udemy marketplace to share with their audience or request support.

• Learn how to create a unique course URL when submitting a course for review.

How to access your course URL

1. Access the course landing page through the Preview feature (Learn how).

2. Copy the course URL from the address bar. 

Please note: The actual course URL does not include the characters that follow the final forward slash (/)

How to access your course ID

If you need to provide your course ID to our support team, please follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Curriculum page for the course you need the ID for (Learn how)

2. Copy the course ID listed after “/course/” in the middle of the URL.

Instructors may wish to remove their course from the marketplace and close it to enrollments for various reasons. For example, you may wish to temporarily prevent new students from enrolling in the course as you make updates to it, or, you may wish to permanently close the course to new enrollments since you’re creating a new, more current course.

This article outlines how instructors can unpublish and republish courses, or delete courses. 

• Please note: in order to uphold the lifetime access guarantee Udemy offers students, courses with students enrolled cannot be deleted.

How to unpublish a course

When a course is unpublished, it will no longer be visible in the marketplace and new students cannot enroll. Students who have already enrolled in your course, however, will continue to have access. To unpublish a course, please follow these steps below:

1. Navigate to the course management page.
2. Click on the course settings gear icon at the top right and scroll down to Course Status.
3. Click Unpublish.
4. Click yes​ to confirm your decision to unpublish your course.

How to republish a course

An unpublished course can be republished at any time. To republish your course, head to the course management page and click on Republish Course on the left-hand side.

When you click Republish Course your course will automatically return to our marketplace.

If you are switching between private and public while republishing your course, however, your course will be re-submitted through the Quality Review Process.

How to delete a course

A course can only be deleted if students are not enrolled.  In addition, in order to uphold the lifetime access guarantee with enrolled students, you may not delete or unpublish groups of course lectures in the original course to reduce the amount of content. This would be a violation of our Terms of Use.

• If your course does have students enrolled, you can unpublish it from the marketplace. Unpublishing a course prevents new students from enrolling.

Please note that deleting a course permanently erases all course content including discussions and associated files and deleting a course cannot be undone. If you wish to delete a course please follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to the course management page.
2. Click on the course settings gear icon at the top right and scroll down to Course Status.
3. Click Delete.
4. Click yes​ to confirm your decision to delete your course.

Udemy courses can have more than one instructor, as co-instructors can be added and assigned various permissions, which enable them to access certain information and features related to the course. 

This article outlines how instructors can invite co-instructors to their courses and manage their instructor permissions and settings.

• Note: Before adding co-instructors to your course, please read our Rules and Guidelines for managing co-instructor relationships.

Table of contents

• How to send a co-instructor invitation
• Pending invitations
• Managing instructor permissions
• Assigning revenue share to a co-instructor 
• The course owner 
• Teaching assistants
• Removing a co-instructor

How to send a co-instructor invitation

To invite someone to join a course as a co-instructor, follow the steps below.

1. While accessing Udemy on a browser, navigate to the applicable course management page, and click the course settings gear icon at the top right.

2. Scroll down the page to the Manage instructor permissions section and click Add instructor on the right-hand side. 

3. Enter the email address that is associated with the Udemy account of the person you wish to invite, and select the applicable permissions (see below for more information). 

4. Finally, click Send invitation. 

• The invitee will receive a notification via email, in which they can accept or decline the invitation to join the course as a co-instructor.  The invitee will also be notified of the invitation on their course management page.
• If the person accepts the invitation to join the course as a co-instructor,  the instructor, and any other co-instructors with manage permissions for the course, will be notified by email. 

Pending invitations

Instructors can view pending invitations they have sent by accessing them on the course management page. The pending status will also be reflected in the Manage instructor permissions section for the course.

If you need to revoke a pending invitation you have sent, click Revoke.

Managing instructor permissions

Below is a list of the various permissions you can enable for co-instructors. As outlined above, the instructor permissions for a course can be accessed by navigating to the course settings page. 

Visible: The  instructor will be publicly listed as an instructor for the course to students. Their profile picture and name will appear wherever the course is visible on Udemy and students will be able to send a message to the instructor if direct messaging is enabled. 

• Instructors must be listed as visible in order to respond in the Q&A.
• To send promotional emails and educational announcements for a course, instructors must be listed as visible and have the manage permission enabled (see below).

Manage: A co-instructor with the Manage permission can modify course content, settings and instructor permissions. They have full visibility and editing access to all course management functions, including the ability to upload and delete lectures, make changes to how the course displays in the marketplace, and create coupons for the course. 

• In addition, instructors with the Manage permission enabled can edit the revenue share for the course (more information is below).

Captions: Instructors with this permission enabled can edit, upload and disable closed captions for the course. Please note that instructors with the Manage permission enabled will automatically receive the Captions permission.

Performance: instructors with this permission enabled can access applicable data and information related to that course in their Performance tabs.

Q&A: This permission controls whether visible instructors can view and answer questions from students in the instructor Q&A dashboard.

Reviews: Instructors with the Reviews permission will be able to view and respond to student course reviews in the Reviews section of the instructor dashboard.

• Please note: in order for an instructor to respond to reviews, they must also be enabled as a visible instructor. 

Assignments: Instructors who are enabled with the Assignments permission will receive notifications when students submit assignments, and will be able to provide feedback for them if they wish.

Revenue Report: If co-instructors are assigned a revenue share (above 0%), they will automatically have permission to view the Revenue Report, which details student purchases. This permission cannot be toggled off. The co-instructor will need to earn revenue from the course before they can access the revenue report.

Assigning revenue share to a co-instructor 

For paid courses, the course owner, or instructors with the Manage permission, can assign a revenue share to co-instructors on the instructor permissions page. 

• Once an instructor is designated to receive a revenue share, they will have access to the Revenue Report for all new purchases of the course, and will see their share generated in the “Your Revenue” column on the report.
• Only co-instructors who are approved premium instructors can receive a revenue share greater than 0%. The share you assign will determine the proportion of the total instructor share they receive. The sum of all instructor shares must add up to 100%.

The course owner 

The original course creator is considered the ‘owner’ of the course and their access cannot be removed. 

• Only the course owner can edit their own permissions and they will automatically have the Manage permission enabled (and this cannot be toggled off). 
• Only the course owner is required to complete the instructor verification process and submit a test video in order for the course to be published onto the marketplace.

Teaching assistants

Instructors who are not marked as Visible in the course, but who do have permissions checked for Q&A will display with a Teaching Assistant designation whenever they reply to student questions in the course Q&A.

The Teaching Assistant designation is intended to give students additional context about these co-instructors, since they are not otherwise visible in the course. 

Removing a co-instructor

Co-instructors can be removed from a course by clicking Remove under their respective name.

• If a course instructor has the Manage permission active, they will have the ability to remove co-instructors, including themselves. The course owner, however, cannot be removed from a course.
• Any co-instructor can remove themselves from the course, regardless of whether they have the Manage permission enabled or not.
• When a co-instructor is removed from a course the instructor, and any other co-instructors with the manage course permission enabled, will be notified by email. 

Most world languages are selectable as the home language for your Udemy course, and you are welcome to create a course in any available one you wish. This article outlines how to choose a language for your course.

• Learn how to change your language preferences

Please note: As our keyword search and categories contain language filters, changing your course language will impact how your course is discovered on Udemy, and your course will appear with other courses taught in the same language.

How to select your course language

1. Access the Course Management dashboard (Learn how)

2. Click Course Landing Page on the left side.

3. Under Basic info, select a language for your course. 

4. Click Save. 

Disclaimer on languages different from Udemy account languages

If your course is in a language that's not available as a Udemy account language, certain generic course elements including the course navigation buttons, student review prompts, and section headers will not be localized to match the teaching material. 

All the material that you are prompted to enter for the course, including the lectures themselves, lecture titles, additional resources you provide students, and the elements of the course landing page that you are prompted to enter will be localized.

Instructors can make the enrollment page for their courses private. This article explains how instructors can change the enrollment (privacy) option for their course, and what happens when this page is updated.

Table of Contents

• What happens when the enrollment is made private?
• How to change a course enrollment’s privacy settings
• Types of enrollment privacy
  • Password protected
  • Invitation only
• Important information on instructor coupons and revenue share

What happens when the enrollment is made private?

When a course’s enrollment page is set to private, it cannot be discovered in the Udemy marketplace, so instructors must personally share the course link with potential learners. To gain access to the course, the learner must enter a password or request access to it.

Please note: Courses with private enrollment pages must still abide by Udemy's Terms of Use but are not evaluated by the Udemy Quality Checklist.

How to change a course enrollment’s privacy settings

1. Navigate to the course page (Learn how).

2. Click on the course settings gear icon at the top right.

3. Scroll down to the Enrollment (Privacy) section.

4. Select Public, Private (Invitation Only), or Private (Password Protected).

5. If you select Private (Password Protected) you will need to enter a password in the box below.

6. Click Save.

Types of enrollment privacy

The following options are available for the Enrollment (Privacy) dropdown.

Password protected

If a course's enrollment page is password protected, the course won't show up in search results on Udemy. Instead, instructors should share the course URL and password directly with learners you want to enroll. 

Please note: This provides only a low level of security, as learners could share your course URL with an embedded password.

Invitation only

If a course's enrollment page is invitation only, the course won't show up in search results on Udemy. Instructors can accept new student requests and send invitations from the Students page.

If a student requests an invitation for the course, then a notification will appear on the left-hand side of the page by Students.

Important information on instructor coupons and revenue share

If you are using instructor coupon codes, it is recommended that you protect your course with a password instead to help ensure the coupon code is redeemed before the learner enrolls.

Instructors will not receive the appropriate revenue share if a coupon code is not applied before the student enrolls.

Having your lectures previewed lets potential students sample the course content and your teaching style. A lecture can be enabled for a free preview after publishing the lecture and setting a price for your course.

• Your first video lecture will automatically be available for the free preview to ensure there is always content available for students to view
• Select the additional lectures that you’d like to include in the free preview. You need to select enough lectures totalling 10 minutes of video content, including the first video lecture. On the curriculum page, you can turn on Free Preview for any video lecture.

Turning on Free Preview for a Lecture

To include a lecture in a course's free preview, please follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to the course Curriculum page.
2. Click the arrow to the right of the published lecture to review the lecture details.
3. Toggle Free Preview to on.

Please note: video-PDF mashup lectures are not supported by the preview function, and as a result, we recommend instructors do not select them for a course's Free Preview.