Author Introduction

My name is Jerry Chen and I am a high school teacher in BC, Canada. My background is in business. I’ve primarily taught high school business classes when I started teaching. As I furthered into my teaching career, I noticed a gap and a need for high school computer science teachers. There were job openings for teaching programming classes, game development classes, cyber security classes, etc. I decided to make a leap and learned those subjects on my own and began teaching those classes. Now I’ve been teaching high school computer science classes for the past five years and I enjoy teaching those subjects to my students.

My Opinion on Udemy

I personally have used Udemy in the past and it’s one of the main resources for me when learning the contents of all the new subjects I was teaching. My first impressions of Udemy was that there were an overwhelming amount of courses for any given topic. Udemy did a decent job giving suggestions and recommendations on which courses I should buy. But what ultimately helped me decide was the reviews for the courses. Many of the learners on Udemy leave detailed reviews regarding what they liked about the course and what they thought needed improving. This allowed me to narrow down the courses and find the courses that would fit my needs. I bought four courses on Udemy to learn how to develop video games and how to program using C#.

Learning on Udemy helped me learn the contents on my own schedule at a reasonable cost. The videos were well produced and the learning materials were well constructed. There was a big community of learners who answered each other’s questions in the discussion sections of each “lecture”. There was also a teaching assistant who would chime into the discussion section when people needed help. After owning the course for 2 years, the instructors did a revamp and added more materials to the courses at no cost to the learners who already purchased the courses. This provided me with additional learning opportunities which I used in my teachings.

Overall, I would recommend Udemy to whoever wants to upgrade their skills or to learn new professional skills. The courses are inexpensive and are of greater quality compared to other free online learning platforms. I have taken a programming course at a local college before discovering Udemy. After completing both methods of learning. I can confidently say that I prefer using Udemy courses over a course at a local college. The quality of the course and instructor were comparable, the cost of an Udemy course is significantly less, and the learner can learn at their own pace with an Udemy course.

Suggestion for Investment

In my opinion, I believe that Udemy is a great investment opportunity. My investment suggestion is based on three reasons:

1. Growing number of online learners

2. Quality of courses

3. Ease of consuming and creating a course

There is continued growth in the Massive Open Online Courses market (Chang et al., 2018). The profile of a student who participates in online learning are ever expanding (Chang et al., 2018). There are online learners in the K-12 education system, post secondary students looking for supplemental learning, professionals who want to upgrade their skills, workers who want to change professions, etc. With the broad range of online learners, online learning platforms such as Udemy will continue to be relevant.

Although there are free learning materials on Udemy, most of the courses offered are at a cost. Although this creates a barrier to entry, a great number of courses are offered at a low cost of around $15 dollars throughout the year. By having a cost on the courses, this also ensures that the quality of the courses on Udemy is of high standards. Courses are continuously reviewed by learners after they have purchased the course. This creates an authentic assessment of the quality of the courses. Learners who are interested in purchasing a course will often read the reviews and negatively reviewed courses will automatically be left behind or be removed from Udemy due to lack of engagement.

The format of the courses are in easy to digest videos, usually around ten minutes in length. This feature allows the learners to learn at their own pace. A learner could finish a whole course in the span of a couple weeks, or they can spread it out and learn all the contents in a few months or a year. The model of learning can be attractive to learners who prefer to learn on their own schedule. Udemy also welcomes anyone to publish a course on their platform. This open submission model increases the number of courses available on Udemy. At the same time, it encourages experts to share their expertise with this ease of sharing. However, this could cause the quality of the courses to decline. But as I mentioned earlier, the learner generated reviews will prop up worth while courses while discouraging purchases of poorly planned courses.

Emerging Thinking about Upcoming Opportunity Pitch

After examining Udemy in great details, I think there is a missing piece in Udemy’s online learning platform. Although there is a discussion area for any given course, the instructor support piece is missing from Udemy courses. A common reason why learners stop learning on online learning platforms is the lack of motivation. This motivation often comes from instructors or teachers (Renninger et al., 2011). If students become unmotivated while learning using platforms like Udemy, it’s hard for them to come back. For my venture pitch, I want to explore how to effectively incorporate instructor engagement into Massive Open Online Courses platforms such as Udemy.