Navigating the world of course marketplaces and elearning can get a bit overwhelming, especially if you are an aspiring instructor looking to publish your first course! There is just so much to do, so here’s a complete guide to finding the right home for your courses.
Before you dive into the course marketplaces, it is important to understand the difference between a learning management system (LMS) and a course marketplace. This is crucial, as it will define your learning strategy and how you would deliver, price, and organize your domain expertise.
What Is the Difference Between an LMS and a Course Marketplace?
An LMS is a platform used by organizations or individuals to create, deliver, and track training programs. It’s best suited for structured learning within an institutional or corporate setting. Most importantly, an LMS does not come with a student base or pre-established audience. Often, you have to do your own marketing and sales, but on the positive, you get to keep almost all profits. That being said, there are a few quite modern and innovative platforms dedicated to SMEs and creators like Maven, Disco, and Teachable.
In contrast, a Course Marketplace is an expansive online platform where individual learners can choose from an array of courses offered by various instructors. These platforms are ideal for self-directed learning and for those seeking to acquire specific skills or knowledge. As an instructor, you can focus on building your content and teaching, the rest is taken care of.
If you’re an expert looking to share and monetize your knowledge with eager learners worldwide, consider applying to be an instructor on one of these top course marketplaces. Each platform provides a unique set of tools and audiences to help you make an impact.
The Top 12 Best Online Course Marketplaces for Instructors
- DataCamp is for instructors enthusiastic about data science and technical content.
- Pluralsight is for experts who can help companies and teams enhance their tech skills and innovate with artificial intelligence.
- Skill Success is for instructors who are looking for a broad audience.
- LinkedIn Learning is the perfect platform for teaching both technical and creative skills and contributing to corporate learning paths.
- Domestika is the perfect home for teaching vibrant creative skills and tools.
- Alison is for courses that come with certificates and diplomas.
- Udemy is great for launching your first course.
- Coursera is for those excited to make courses alongside degrees from universities and other companies.
- edX is the perfect place for teachers with courses comparable to college classes.
- Skillshare is great for creative instructors and microlearning.
- Udacity is for courses about product management, programming, and similar technology and business areas.
- Fiverr Learn is for those passionate about developing courses for freelancers.
1. DataCamp
DataCamp specializes in data science and analytics courses. You can apply to become an instructor by submitting an application and teaching a proposed course outline. Job posts from DataCamp on LinkedIn often appear because they are looking for great instructors. If your course outline is approved, you’ll do a screencast presentation for evaluation before proceeding to a contract and course design phase. More details on how to apply and audition can be found on DataCamp’s Instructor Support page.
2. Pluralsight
For those looking to share their expertise through Pluralsight, the platform offers opportunities to create video courses, assessments, and hands-on labs. As a Pluralsight author, you can educate a global audience, build your brand as a tech expert, supplement your income, and make an impactful contribution to the world of technology. To begin your instructor journey, you can get in touch with their team through the Pluralsight teaching page.
3. Skill Success
Skill Success provides a diverse collection of courses, which means the world is your oyster as an instructor. Take advantage of this website’s broad audience and feel free to launch several different genres of courses on this platform. To apply to start a course, you need to provide a compelling description of your proposed course and outline your course clearly. You also need to submit a link to a website, drive, or folder where a video sample of your course can be reviewed by their team of professionals.
4. LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com)
LinkedIn Learning offers a vast library of high-quality courses in business, technology, and creative skills, all aimed at helping learners achieve their personal and professional goals. This platform is amazing for instructors who want a driven audience with career-driven mindsets. It has a built-in base of college students and professionals who are passionate about learning new skills. To apply as an instructor, you need to include your LinkedIn profile’s URL, as well as the number of LinkedIn followers you currently have. As with the other applications, you will also have to fill out other information as well as answer several questions describing your course and its objectives. You will also have to provide a video sample of your course.
5. Domestika
For creatives looking for a community and a place to teach, Domestika is the go-to platform. It focuses on creative courses across various disciplines such as illustration, photography, and design. If you have an interest in teaching artists both discipline and artistic expression, you should strongly consider hosting your course here. Many artists come to Domestika to learn creative skills for their personal satisfaction and career ambitions. Make sure to include your course specialty, and then talk about your proposed courses. You can also include details about your experience and they can help with your specialty. The application for Domestika is fairly straightforward and can be found at the bottom of the page under “Ready to suggest a course?”. Just click the button “Teach a course” to open up the form.
6. Alison
Alison is a free online education platform that mainly focuses on workplace-based skills. It offers a wide range of free, comprehensive classes on technology, languages, science, financial literacy, personal and soft skills, entrepreneurship, and more. They have two applications for instructors. You can republish a course you’ve already published, or you can become a new course creator with them.
7. Udemy
Udemy is one of the largest global course marketplaces for learning and teaching online. It has an extensive selection of over 150,000 courses in various categories, taught by expert instructors. Udemy is an amazing option for launching your very first course. It’s a pretty easy platform for instructors to understand and it helps its instructors achieve success. If you want to get started with Udemy, you can apply with ease.
8. Coursera
Coursera partners with universities and organizations around the world to offer courses, certifications, and degrees in a variety of subjects, including engineering, data science, machine learning, mathematics, business, computer science, digital marketing, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, and others. If you are a teacher who is ready and excited to work with these institutions, then this is the perfect platform for you. It is recommended that you have a strong professional background if you want to submit your course to Coursera.
9. edX
EdX, a nonprofit organization created by founding partners Harvard and MIT, brings the best of higher education to students around the world. Edx offers MOOCs and interactive online classes in subjects including law, history, science, engineering, business, social sciences, computer science, public health, and artificial intelligence (AI). If you are developing a course that is comparable to college classes, this is an incredible place to publish it and grow an audience. However, high standards are held for these courses and it is not easy to get approved. Make sure you have a compelling application. You can start the process by filling out a form.
10. Skillshare
Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people. Their core topics include illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more. It is probably one of the most popular and well-known sites to the general public, which means there is a strong demand for courses on this platform but also a lot more competition. With that, Skillshare is a great place to start publishing courses and refining your teaching skills.
11. Udacity
Udacity specializes in technology courses with a strong focus on computer science and programming. That makes this platform perfect for courses focused on teaching different coding languages and techniques. It also has a robust business course section for anyone interested in teaching business skills. For example, this is a great place to publish courses about product management and project management. Udacity is a bit trickier than other platforms. Right now, they are not really looking for new courses. However, they have a page dedicated to their course development process. You can also see the positions they are looking for currently.
12. Fiverr Learn
Fiverr Learn offers courses designed to improve the entrepreneurial skills of freelancers, focusing on the creative, digital, and service sectors. This platform is still finding its feet and developing new features, but it is a great place if you want to teach freelancers who are looking to evolve their skills to the next level. However, as of recently they are no longer accepting course suggestions and instructor applications right. Of course, this might change in the future. You can easily find the current online instructors catalog on the Fiverr Learn website.
We hope you found our guide useful and good luck with your first course!