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Our standards and submitting your course for review

In order to ensure that our students have a great learning experience, we have a created a quality review process for all new courses.

When you start building your course we'll create a course roadmap for you that will detail the specific standards. Once your course is ready to be published, you can submit your course for review.

There are 3 important standards to keep in mind:

Courses should contain at least 30 minutes of video content
Courses should be well structured to deliver on learning objectives.
Audio should be clear and intelligible; Video should be clear and high-definition.

HeatSpring will evaluate your course and provide feedback. Once your course is approved, it will be published and can be discovered in the HeatSpring marketplace.

Short Course Standards

Content

On a topic within one of HeatSpring's top level course subjects (e.g. solar, wind, green building, storage, microgrid, energy etc) or a topic related to an existing HeatSpring course.
Provides participants with accurate, up-to-date, and actionable information, knowledge, and skills
Contains specific, technical, real-world information (as opposed to general or theoretical information)
Should have one specific audience in mind (and specify their pre-existing knowledge, skills, level of experience, etc. on the sales page)
Is primarily original material that is not publicly-available anywhere else

Assignments

Must include 30-minutes of lecture video at a minimum
Must include at least one supporting assignment. Some instructors include lots of these, examples include readings, links to publicly-available resources, or tools (e.g. Excel calculators)
May include a quiz to test participants’ understanding of the material
May include discussion questions (if the instructor would like to encourage interaction on the discussion board)

Presentation

Should be a narrated slideshow that has been recorded using a screen recording software like Camtasia
May contain an introductory portion with video of the instructor speaking to the camera but should not include video of the instructor throughout
Should not contain dates (e.g. September 2016) or references to upcoming course sessions (since the content will likely be used for several years)
Should not contain hyperlinks since they will not be clickable in the video
Related websites can be linked as separate items in the course itself
Must be a minimum of 30 minutes
Though you’re welcome to “break up” or organize the content however you see fit, we recommend that you provide at least 1 hour of content
Should cover a single topic in some depth
Should provide real-world examples and images whenever possible
Slides should not have any branding or logos on them
Should not use slide transitions other than a simple fade in/out
Should only include the instructor’s contact information if s/he is okay with being contacted directly by participants
May mention that certain concepts or topics are covered in more depth in a full, premium course
PDF copy of slides may be included in course as a downloadable resource

Video Quality

Video should be created using Camtasia or a comparable screen recording software
Export file should be an MP4 file with 720p resolution or better.
Details on ideal export settings for HeatSpring videos: https://wistia.com/doc/export-settings

Audio Quality

Should sound like the viewer is in a quiet room listening to the instructor
Should not have background noise (e.g. dog barking, whirring fan, static, other voices, rustling of clothing, traffic sounds, phone or desktop notifications)
Instructor should mute any phone or desktop notifications before recording
Should be recorded using a professional USB-connected microphone. Our top recommendation is the Blue Yeti USB Microphone or if you prefer a more affordable headset style Logitech USB Headset H340