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Courses & Purchases

Course Content Policy

Standards every published course must meet, and the content we do not allow.

Last updated on October 25, 2026.

A course on ACADA has to be a real course: enough content, a landing page that says exactly what it is, and everything a student needs to finish it inside the lessons. It has to be your own teaching, and it has to stay working after people have paid for it. Graphic or distressing material must be flagged before anyone enrolls. We do not review courses before they go live; we act when something is reported.

This summary is for orientation only. The sections below are the operative terms.

1. Who this applies to

This policy applies to every course published on acada.ac and to the instructors and collaborators who make them. Students should read it too: it is what you are entitled to expect from a course you buy. ACADA L.L.C., a Tennessee limited liability company (ACADA, we), sets these standards and enforces them.

2. What we expect

Teach something you know, describe it honestly, and keep it working. The rest of this policy is the detail.

3. What a published course must contain

To be published, a course must have:

  • a title and a description;
  • at least one image or video on its landing page;
  • at least 2 modules and at least 3 lessons;
  • at least 45 minutes of content, by our estimate of what the lessons hold;
  • at least one lesson marked as a free preview, which anyone can read before buying.

The publishing checklist will not let a course go live without these. Lessons are built from ACADA's blocks: text, code, images, files, audio, embedded video, quizzes, assignments, polls, discussions and the rest. Video is embedded from YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia or Loom. Images, files and audio are uploaded within the size limits the editor shows. Every image block has an alt text field, every audio block a transcript field, and every preview video a captions upload; we ask you to use them, as the Accessibility statement explains.

4. The landing page must be accurate

The landing page is a description of the course as it is, not as you hope it will be. The title, description, level, skills, requirements and duration must match the lessons. If the videos or audio are in a different language from the description, say so in the description.

  • No promised results. Do not guarantee an outcome, a grade, a job or an income. "Learn the basics of options trading" is fine. "Make $10,000 a month with this system" is not.
  • No borrowed authority. Do not describe a course as accredited, official, certified or licensed, or as endorsed by ACADA. A certificate you enable is a certificate of completion, is titled that by the software, and must be described as one; you sign it when you enable it, and every student's certificate carries your signature, as the Credential Policy sets out.
  • Credentials must be true. Say what you are and have done; do not claim degrees, jobs or experience you do not have.
  • No clickbait. Titles and descriptions in all capitals, stuffed with search terms, or written to shock rather than describe are not allowed.
  • Advice-type courses say what they are. A course on medical, legal, financial, mental-health or safety topics must say inside it that it is educational and not professional advice for the student's own situation. The Educational Disclaimer sets out what that means.

5. Complete on ACADA, and your own

Complete on ACADA. Everything needed to finish the course lives in its lessons. Linking to your website, your book or a tool you use is fine. Requiring students to buy something elsewhere to finish, or moving the real lessons to Discord, Telegram, a newsletter or a private site, is not. Payment for the course goes through ACADA, as the Community Guidelines set out.

Your own work. A course must be substantially your own teaching. Material you have licensed from others may be included where it is credited and is a minority of the course. A course that is mostly someone else's work, a repackaged free resource, or a near-copy of another course on ACADA, including one of your own, is not allowed. Material generated by AI must be declared in Course Settings and may be a part of a course, not the course, as the AI Content Policy describes. Reports of infringement are handled under the Copyright & DMCA policy. Name the products and companies you teach, but do not brand a course with their logo, call it official, or put ACADA in its title: the Trademark policy says what is allowed.

6. Content warnings

If a course contains graphic or distressing material, such as images of injury or death, descriptions of abuse, or detailed accounts of violence, you must turn on the content warning in Course Settings. The landing page then says so before anyone enrolls, with the note you write about what to expect. Legal subject matter of this kind is allowed; leaving it unflagged is not.

We may place the same warning on a course ourselves, under section 7 of the Community Guidelines, when we judge it necessary. A warning placed by ACADA is marked as such and cannot be removed by the instructor. To appeal one, write to support@acada.ac.

7. What a course may not contain

The limits in section 4 of the Community Guidelines apply to courses, and the Prohibited Content policy is the full list: nothing illegal, nothing sexually explicit, no hateful content, nothing that encourages self-harm, and no instructions for hurting people or for making explosives, illegal weapons, poisons or drugs. Three further rules apply to courses in particular.

  • No harmful links or files. No links to malware, phishing pages or scams, and no files that could damage a student's device.
  • No collecting sensitive data. Questionnaires, assignments, polls and discussions must not ask for health information, government identity numbers, payment details or home addresses. Do not collect students' contact details in order to reach them outside ACADA; the one way to have a student's email is the sharing choice they make themselves, described in the Privacy Policy, and the Instructor Agreement says what you may do with it.
  • Nothing aimed at children under 13. They cannot hold an account, so a course cannot be sold to them. Teaching adults about children is fine.

8. Keeping the course working and current

Accuracy. What a course teaches must be true when it is published. Where it draws on facts, figures or other people's work, the Academic Integrity policy sets out how to source it and what happens when an error is found: a confirmed factual error is fixed within 14 days.

Currency. The landing page shows when a course was published and when its content was last updated, so students can judge how current it is. Material that becomes wrong or unsafe as time passes, such as software versions, tax rules, laws, medical guidance or safety procedures, must be updated or must say in the lesson which date or version it reflects. A course that is simply older is fine; a course that quietly teaches something no longer true is not.

Broken content. If an embedded video, a file or a link in a published course stops working, we tell you when it is reported. You must fix it within 14 days of that notice. If it is not fixed, we hide the course from new enrollments until it is; existing students keep access.

Changes after sale. You may update a course at any time, and students who hold access see the updates. You may not remove or reduce the core content the landing page promised while students hold access. What lifetime buyers are entitled to, and what happens when a course is retired, is section 9 and section 10 of the Purchases, Refunds & Subscriptions policy.

9. How we enforce this

We do not review a course before it is published, and we do not grade courses. Whether a course is good is for students to say, in their reviews and in whether they stay enrolled. We act on whether a course meets this policy: whether it contains what section 3 requires, delivers what its landing page promises, is accurate and current under section 8, and stays within section 7. When a course is reported, or we find a problem ourselves, we follow the steps in the Account Enforcement & Appeals policy: a written warning that says what to fix, then restrictions, then closure of the account. Alongside those steps, the course itself may be:

  • given a content warning, under section 6;
  • unlisted, so it stays published but leaves browsing, search and recommendations;
  • hidden from new enrollments until a problem is fixed, under section 8; or
  • removed, for content in section 7, with students refunded as the Community Guidelines set out.

10. Reporting a course

To report a course, open the menu on its landing page or its card in the marketplace, choose Report, and pick the reason. A person reads every report and tells you when it has been dealt with. You can also write to support@acada.ac.

11. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we change the date shown at the top. If a change adds a requirement or a consequence, we post a notice in the app at least 14 days before it takes effect, and courses already published get those 14 days to comply.

12. Related policies