Glossary of online course terms

Did some of that vocab fly by? Here are a few key definitions and terms commonly used in the online course space.

✔️ Teachable course
An online program designed to provide a major transformation with multimedia curriculum content. Courses are hosted in your Teachable school, or website, and are only available to enrolled students.


✔️ Accredited course
Degrees from accredited universities and institutions through online classes. Most likely have a teacher, a cohort of classmates, and graded assignments that culminate in a final project or exam. You’ll often leave these with a degree or certification.


✔️ Email course
Lessons delivered as a sequence of emails. These don’t require any technology but an email service provider, like Convertkit, MailChimp, or Aweber.


✔️ Email service provider (ESP)
Tool that lets you send mass emails to a list of subscribers. Examples include MailChimp or ConvertKit, to name two of many.


✔️ Flagship course
Your magnum opus, your life’s work, your ultimate product offering, the last and best thing you can offer before pivoting in your business. Flagship courses often require months to complete and usually include higher touch points, like one-on-one attention, a mastermind group, a certification, or personalized feedback on student work.


✔️ Mini course
A short online course that a student can work through in less than one hour. It’s easy to create and easy for students to absorb.


✔️ Passive income
Earn money without spending a lot of time or energy working for it. Once you set it up, passive income feels like it runs "in the background" while you spend time on other things.


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