FAQs about Course Creation

# The Question
17 Q: How many Courses can I create?
A:

Currently you can create as many Courses as you like on our platform. We wouldn't encourage you to do so because it would become a mess for you in the first place. 

However, you can only ever have a maximum of 5 Single-session Courses and 5 Multi-session Courses activated at any one time. Whether they are listed or unlisted Courses, doesn't matter. This means that you can have a maximum of 10 Courses in total that are "available" for booking. 

Note i: You can only activate Courses that are moderated and approved by our Team.
Note ii: Your Course does not need to be moderated and approved by our Team when you simply duplicate it and set a different price. If you also update other fields, this Course might need to go back in the moderation queue for our Team to check it.


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Teachers
16 Q: What are the steps to become a 5StarTeacher?
A:

Steps to become an approved 5StarTeacher:

1. Sign up "as a Teacher" and choose either Teacher, Coach, Consultant or Expert. (a LinkedIn profile is required)
2. Verify your account. (via email)
3. Take our Pre-Teacher Training Quiz (easy) and agree to the terms and conditions.
4. Update your profile, (our system will guide you). 
5. Create your first Single-session Course.
6. Create 50 Sessions available for booking (your availability).
7. Create a short Personal Introduction Video. 
8. Create a short Course Introduction Video.

When you are happy with your content, set each of these items to "Ready to go!" and your profile will go in our moderation queue.

9. Allow 48 hours for our team to check and moderate your profile and content. If certain changes are required, we will communicate this with you.
10. If all is good, our CEO will book one of your Available Sessions to have a short interview with you.
11. And if that is all good: CONGRATULATIONS! You have just become an approved 5StarTeacher.

Now start earning money from wherever you are in the world by sharing massive amounts of value via teaching, coaching, or advising 1-to-1 online, via screen sharing and video calls. Yay!

Good to know: Check your profile page to see a comprehensible profile status card. (this is private info)


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Teachers
15 Q: How do you review or moderate my Courses?
A: Good question. We always say: do the right thing, every time. We believe that doing the right thing is to ensure that you don't trick people, that you don't scam them, that you don't write any English mistakes (use an Ai to correct your English if necessary), that you don't create low quality, not in your text, not in your videos, not in your images or thumbnails. And what about knowledge? Who are we to judge you on your knowledge of the subject you want to teach? Do we need an expert on our team for every possible subject or topic who is "more" experienced than you? We don't think so. Besides, that would be simply impossible. And what about degrees? Some teachers who have degrees are terrible teachers. Others who don't have degrees are some of the best. Therefore moderation is not a matter of knowledge or degrees. It is a matter of quality, experience, and commitment. And we agree, that is a subjective matter. But if we can't find that in your Course, it won't be approved. We are 5StarTeachers after all, not "4.9-star Teachers". So live up to it! And if it does happen that your Course can't be approved, our moderator will leave a comment for you on your Course on how to fix it.
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Teachers
14 Q: How many Courses can I activate?
A:

You can activate a maximum of 5 Single-session Courses and 5 Multi-session Courses at any one time. This means that you can have a maximum of 10 Courses in total that are available for booking at any one time. Some or all of these Courses can be set to "Unlisted". If you choose that option, no one will find your Courses in our listing and search pages anymore.

A Strategy
You would choose to set all your Courses to "Unlisted" if you wanted to take 100% control of your own marketing efforts. This means, that you will have to share your Course links with your potential audience, e.g. on your social accounts. It could be a useful strategy to some 5StarTeachers who are, for example famous or have become too popular on the platform.


Note i: You can only activate Courses that are moderated and approved by our Team.
Note ii: If you don't have enough "Available Sessions" for the next 30 days, all your Courses will automatically be deactivated and you will be notified of that. In that case, simply add more available Sessions and activate your Courses again at the click of a button.


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Teachers
13 Q: If I duplicate my Course, will it have to go back into moderation?
A: Duplicating a Course is the easiest way to create a copy of an already approved Course. But you must select a different price. All Courses collect data so it's wise to not modify your Course but duplicate it and modify the duplicate instead. That way, you can easily do A/B testing. When you update certain fields on any approved Course, it will go back into moderation. The updated fields that will send your Course back into moderation are: - the title - the tag line - the subject - the Course type (if not Subject-only Course anymore) - the audience - the skill tags - the topic tags - the category - the English description - the English summary - any external links - any images - your own specific T&C (unless it's now blank) - your Course Intro Video
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Teachers
12 Q: Can I use a book to teach?
A: Of course. For some types of Courses, books are simply indispensable. If you are going to use a book to teach your Student, there are fields on your Course where you can upload a picture that "you" took of the book cover, where you can set the title and the ISBN of the book. Do mention in your description that having the book is a requirement, if you need them to own this book as well. This is a great strategy to attract more Students who are familiar with this book. Note: Uploading a picture you have taken of the a book cover and posting it here on your Course for the purpose of teaching and to encourage your Student to buy the book, is generally considered "fair use" under the copyright law.
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Teachers
11 Q: Can anyone book my Course?
A:

Oure Teachers are the heart of our platform and we want them to be in control as much as possible of who can book their Courses. 

Therefore our Teachers can set their own audience requirements on their Courses as follows:
1. a required minimum English level,
2. a required Student level, and
3. a required gender

Any Student who does not meet any of these requirements, cannot book your Course.

Why is this so?
To avoid disappointment and to keep it fair. 

Minimum English level
By default the minimum English level set on every Course is "Beginner" but you, the Teacher, can change it as you like. If the Student can't speak your native language and can't speak English at a level that you require for this Course, that would be a serious problem if we allowed that. We want to avoid this at all costs.

Student level
By default the Student level is set to "adult". If you want to teach under 18s (kids), you must upload a valid Certificate of Good Conduct (CGC) on your Teacher profile and have it approved by our team. Your CGC is kept private but the Student will see a check mark so they understand that we have approved your CGC. Your CGC must be issued within the last 6 months as of the current date.

Say you wanted to specifically teach Students of a particular Student Level e.g. Primary 6 because you want to teach them English in preparation for their English Secondary School Interview, that should be possible. When you set it to be this level, only Students who have set that level on their profile will be able to book your Course.

Gender
By default the gender for your Course is set to "any" but let's say that you only wanted to teach "female" Students, you'd then set it to "female any". Then Students who are males, cannot access or book your Course. And if you only wanted to teach people from the LGB community, you'd set it to LGB.
Explore all options on our platform.

We strongly believe that no one should be forced to teach people of a particular gender, accept any English level or Student level. And conversely, no one should be forced to learn from a Teacher if they do not agree with them based on gender, language, degrees, expertise, ideologies, skills or abilities. We built this platform for it to be ethical and fair. And that's how it should be if we want you to have the happiest and best possible experience in learning, improving and growing.

 


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Teachers
10 Q: What video call methods can we use?
A:

Since this is an online platform, we refer to the "Classroom Option" as the video call method.

You have to set at least 1 "Classroom Option" on every Course that you activate.
Use a "Classroom Option" that you are familiar with and love using.

Currently you can choose from the following:
- Zoom,
- FaceTime,
- macOS Screen Sharing,
- Google Meet,
- MS Teams, and
- StreamYard.

When a Student books your Course, they can only select 1 Classroom Option from the ones you have set.
You can choose to share your screen sharing but our recommendation for "screen sharing" is Zoom.
Note that you, the Teacher, must have a paid subscription with Zoom in order to teach 1-hour Sessions. You can set multiple "Classroom Options" as a strategy to reach a larger audience if you are willing to use these Classroom Options.

Good to know:
Students can search Courses based on these Classroom Options.


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Teachers
9 Q: Can I offer a Course free of charge?
A:

Yes, you can but only for Single-session Courses.
This can be a strategy to pull more interested parties over the fence.

On the Course edit page, add your own coupon code in the field "Free Course Coupon Code".

Case:
Imagine you've set a coupon code on your Single-session Course, i.e. a string of characters without spaces. You activate this Course and then promote it in your social circles showing the link to the Course and the coupon code. A potential customer sees your social post and decides to click the link. They arrive at your Course page and there they click the "Book now" button which sends them to the Course booking page. There they have to "click the plus icon", at the top right of the page, and enter the coupon code you posted. When they finalise the booking process, as per usual, there will be no payment and their Course becomes immediately "active" which means that they can now book a Session for this Course from one of your Available Sessions.

Note i: The Student can book this Course for free only once. If they've bought this Course before and paid for it, they can still book this Course for free by using the correct coupon code.
Note ii: if you don't want to offer this Course for free any longer, simply remove the "Free Course Coupon Code" from the "My Activated Courses" page.


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Teachers
8 Q: Can I add translations to my Course description?
A:

Yes, you can. Up to 4 translations.

This is a great strategy to target a specific audience. You add the translations in the field "Description Other Languages". When you do, make sure that the first text is the 2-letter code of the translated language. Then select these 2 letters and choose the option "language" from the formatting styles dropdown menu. Hit enter and write your translation in the text field. Example:

FR


Once you save it, it will automatically show up as a clickable language tab above the Course description.
Note that all Courses load in English first.

A Strategy:
To share a link in your social circles or via an influencer for a particular market you are targeting, you can create a language link for that particular Course. Simply copy the link of the Course and add: ?lang=FR at the end so that it looks something like this:

https://5starteachers.net/my-course-link-here?lang=FR 

The Course translation in French will now appear as the primary language upon loading the page and if your users use Safari's Reader, they will see the Reader in French. Cool, huh?

 


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Teachers
7 Q: Can I work with influencers on this platform?
A:

Yes you can and you should!

We built a 100% transparent feature for you to cooperate with Influencers so that you can get exposure in their circles, i.e. a market in which you currently have no connections. You don't need to be the marketing expert. Let others do that for you and focus on what you do best, that's our suggestion.

Here are the steps: 

  1. Find yourself an Influencer and negotiate their reward. 5StarTeachers will not interfere in your negotiations with them or dictate how much they should be paid or what they should get. That is totally up to the both of you.
  2. Edit your Course and find the field "Coupon Codes from Influencers". There are 2 values you have to enter: the first is the agreed upon Coupon Code, the second is the email address of the Influencer, in this order. Both the Coupon Code and the Influencer's email address are never shown on the Course or anywhere on the platform.
  3. Save your Course, it automatically becomes "unlisted" which means that only people with the link can see it. And if they are a registered Student, they can book it IF they book it with the correct coupon code from the Influencer. 
  4. Suppose they booked it correctly, both the Teacher and the Influencer get an email that it was successfully booked. 
  5. And when the Teacher decides to take the Course offline (deactivate), the Influencer gets notified of this as well. And therefore this is 100% transparent to both the Teacher and Influencer.
  6. Explain this to your Influencer and we are sure they'll love it because it's so easy.

 

Good to know about Coupon Codes from Influencers

Courses can have multiple influencer email addresses and coupon codes.

If you had set a Free Course Coupon Code to offer Students a free Single-session Course and you add Coupon Codes from Influencers, your Free Course Coupon Code will be removed automatically.

Case:

You have a "listed" Single-session Course that you offer at the regular price of USD 100. To work together with an influencer, you "duplicate" this Course and set the Course price on the duplicate to USD 50, for example. You add the Influencer's email address and the agreed upon coupon code and save it. This Course duplicate is now exactly the same except that it is now available at USD 50. It is also "unlisted" and only bookable with the coupon code from the Influencer. When the Influencer can successfully influence people in their circles to book and buy your Course via the link and the coupon code, they have now bought the Course at a 50% discount because everyone else is paying USD 100. 

The reason why you should duplicate your Course, is so that you can always compare the data between the two Courses, the one with the coupon code and the one without, or in case you just wanted to try out a different price for a specific Course without coupon code or influencer. We wanted our Teachers to be able to keep their Course data to analyse their marketing efforts at any time so they can adjust based on data.

 


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Teachers
6 Q: What are unlisted Courses and who can see them?
A:

An "unlisted" Course is a Course that will not show up in any of our listings on the platform. This means that no one can search and find them but when you have the correct link to that "unlisted" Course, you can see it and book it. It's very useful for marketing your Course using Influencers or when you only want people in your own social circles to find them.

A Strategy
Suppose you are a famous person or very popular on our platform, you can easily set all your Courses to "unlisted" so that only the ones who have the link to your Course, can book it. It makes you more exclusive and you have more control over your marketing data and efforts.


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Anyone, Teachers
5 Q: What does the Course field "allow repeated bookings" do?
A:

"Allow repeated bookings" is a checkbox on every Course. When you edit your Course and you tick this checkbox, you allow Students to book that Course over and over again. Once you untick it, anyone who has bought that Course with you before, will not be able to book this Course again.

This can be a great strategy to create recurring customers by requiring them to take on a greater commitment e.g. to buy the Multi-session version of this Course.


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Teachers
4 Q: Will Students message me before they buy my Course?
A:

No. Out of the question.

Why not?
When you are an approved 5StarTeacher on our platform, your profile, your Courses, and your videos have been thoroughly screened and checked by our Team. The "5star" part in our name is congruent with our commitment: to always deliver high quality and great value. We don't want anyone to waste your time. And therefore we do things differently.

Your "paid" Single-session Course is the best opportunity to show your Students what value you have to offer and the best opportunity for them to experience you as a teacher, coach, consultant or expert in the field.

So make sure that you have created a 5-star value Course with an attractive title, a concise and clear Course description and a confident Course Introduction Video which will function as your sales pitch. And if that is all 5-star quality, it will be approved by our Team and we're sure Students will take your Courses.

No back-and-forth sales conversations before they buy on our platform.
They either buy, or they don't. Just like on Amazon.


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Teachers
3 Q: How can I attract more Students to buy my Courses on 5StarTeachers?
A:

Good question!

Our platform allows each Teacher to create different marketing strategies for each Course. The first and foremost thing is to create each Course with 5-star content: a great Course Introduction Video, description, title, tag line, tags, images, video thumbnail, etc.

Besides that, you can:

  1. Create a Course Request from your own Course
  2. Create an Added Value article and connect your Course to that so it will show up as an "ad" on the AV article.
  3. Provide a downloadable Course file. Then, once they pay, they can instantly download that file.
  4. In your Course description mention that you create specific tailor-made files for your Students when they buy the Course. Examples are: "audio recordings", "voice recordings", "downloadable files" e.g. code, calculations, spreadsheets, etc.
  5. In your Course description mention that "you" take the notes for your Student. Then, they can just watch, interact with you and review their notes any time after their Session.
  6. Use the default required settings for your audience so that you target the largest audience possible: Student level, English level, gender, etc.
  7. Set your required commitment to all commitments
  8. Set your classroom options to the most popular ones e.g. Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams, etc.
  9. Work together with Influencers: set the Influencer's coupon code and their email on your Course (these are never shown to anyone) They will do the marketing for you in return for an agreed deal you have with them.
  10. Provide a Single-session Course free of charge: set "your own coupon code" in order to do that. Then market this Course with the coupon code in your circles.

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Teachers
2 Q: Can I set my own price per Course?
A:

Yes. You decide what price to set on your Courses based on our provided "price options".

Case:
A math teacher values his time at USD 50/hr.
He should be able to set that price.

Case:
Another math teacher values her time at USD 150/hr.
She should be able to set that price.

Case:
A business consultant values her time at USD 500/hr.
She should be able to set that price.

Wouldn't you agree?

We work with price options to make things easy to set, easy to compare, easy to follow up and easy for the Student to choose from and decide.

Here are our current price options for:

Single-session Courses:
USD 25/hr, USD 35/hr, USD 50/hr, USD 75/hr, USD 100/hr, USD 125/hr, USD 150/hr, USD 200/hr, USD 250/hr, USD 300/hr, USD 350/hr, USD 400/hr, USD 450/hr and USD 500/hr.

Multi-session Courses of 4 Sessions:
USD 43/hr, USD 60/hr, USD 88/hr.

Multi-session Courses of 12 Sessions:
USD 38/hr, USD 55/hr, USD 74/hr.

Multi-session Courses of 24 Sessions:
USD 35/hr, USD 48/hr, USD 63/hr.

Note: All Sessions are set for 1 hour and cannot be changed.

 


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Teachers
1 Q: What subjects am I allowed to teach on 5StarTeachers?
A:

Any. Simple.

Subjects can range from academic subjects for school or university, to business and personal development like coaching, for example.

Say you are experienced in beer brewing and you want to be a consultant for people who want to start out brewing beer, that should be possible.

Say you want to share your knowledge and insights from your career as a salesperson, that should be possible. I'm not aware of any Bachelor's or Master's degree in "sales", are you?

So go find your best talent, gift or skill and start using that to generate an income from wherever you are, online, 1-to-1 via screen sharing and video calls. 

Good to know:
You cannot set an unlimited number of skills on our platform. Only 3. So choose them wisely. Follow your heart, follow your passion.


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Anyone, Teachers