YouTube, for better or worse, is the internet’s Library of Alexandria, and now the platform is making it official with the introduction of “Courses”. Rollout will be gradual, but once live, will allow creators to sell and share structured educational content, separate from their regular videos.
First announced in 2022, YouTube initially made Courses available to a small and select group of YouTubers. Two years on, after clearly liking what it saw, YouTube is finally making Courses available for all creators, platform-wide.
A course correction?
Courses are accessible via dedicated tabs on channel pages and even have their own dedicated page on the platform overall. Videos of the learning kind are marked as such with a special badge that lets viewers distinguish them in search results, channel pages, and recommendations.
During the courses, viewers will be able to track their progress. An information panel on the playlist page details the courses’ duration and how much of it is completed. those with a strong enough attention span to complete a Course will earn special badges, too, visible in their “You” tab.
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Would-be creators can currently only create courses through YouTube Studio on desktop by clicking ‘Create‘ then ‘New Course‘, writing up the course’s details and uploading clips just like they would a regular video. Mobile uploads aren’t yet supported, though creators can upload their videos as usual before adding them to a Course via a desktop at a later stage.
Want to take it a step further? A quiz feature will help creators keep viewers engaged by testing their knowledge of the coursework.
In the age of influencers, courses have become a highly lucrative method of engaging and monetising a following. This will be a significant boon for content creators, who can now sell courses for free, or through a one-time fee, and YouTube promises to promote this content by bumping its visibility. However, in many ways, YouTube is late to the party, as mistrust of creator courses has grown. The platform’s place as the internet’s centre of learning likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.