A TTR course may have more than one creator who plays a role in creating and managing the course. This article is intended to guide creators considering this option toward positive use cases (e.g., co-developing a course can be a great way to add expertise and a fresh perspective) while avoiding problematic use cases.

We frequently see three main reasons why creators choose to work together on The Tutor Resource:

  1. They’re looking for support with course creation, development and production
  2. They’re looking for help teaching or managing the course (e.g., responding to discussions etc.)
  3. They’re looking to exploit TTR marketing tools to share each other’s subscriber base

In short, we’re big fans of #1 and #2. TTR’s policy is intended only to address cases where the only motivation is #3.

Policy on Co-Creators

We’re always on the hunt for new ways to leverage our creators’ innovation by providing creators with creative freedom – whether it is to find new ways of creating great content or tapping into each other’s expertise to grow their business. As with all tools and features, the purpose is to use them to benefit both subscribers and other fellow creators.  However at times, these same tools are abused in order to to circumvent marketplace policies on Course Announcements and other tools we provide.

Here are a Few Quick Rules of Thumb to Steer you in the Right Direction:

  • DO be co-creators if each individual is bringing in unique expertise in the form of course creation, development, production, teaching or managing the course.
  • DO make co-creators visible on the course if they’re the ones actually appearing in the course videos and/or engaging with subscribers. At least one of the visible creators on the course should be the person subscribers are learning from and interacting with.
  • DON’T be co-creators with the primary goal of exploiting TTR marketing tools or sharing each other’s subscriber base.
    • For example, if a creator wants to pair up with you after you’ve published your course just to market to one another’s subscribers, this is against TTR policies.
    • If on the other hand, you want to co-develop or co-manage a course together right from the beginning, that’s exactly why we enable courses to have multiple creators and is totally fine.

Remember, the abuse of co-creators relationships impacts everyone. When creators try to augment their marketing capabilities in this way, we’ve seen a negative impact on subscribers- for every 10 subscribers who enroll into their courses, ~20 subscribers unsubscribe from their Course Announcements. Creators also see unsubscribe rates on their emails that are 5X the marketplace average. This hurts all creators in the marketplace, because these subscribers unsubscribe not just from one creator’s announcements, but from all TTR emails.

When we see cases where a creator is clearly going against the spirit of TTR policies in an attempt to game the system or if we see a severe negative impact on the subscriber experience (high unsubscribe rates or refund rates due to co-creator behavior) it will be considered a violation of our policies.

Everyone makes mistakes, so most first violations will result in a warning. Subsequent violations may result in loss of access to product features (e.g., Course Announcements), account suspension, or in rare cases, account termination.

Remember, if you are planning to add a co-creator to your course, we recommend that it be someone whom you know and trust. Please take extra care and consideration if you are splitting revenue with or giving editing rights to a co-creator. Keep in mind that TTR’s contractual relationship is strictly between TTR and each of the creators.  Any co-creator business agreements related to a course remains exclusively between the co-creators.