If you are looking at edX online courses to train your team or educate clients, the question this article answers is narrower: when should you send people to an open course catalogue, and when should you run your own academy on the levelpartner.ai platform? Open catalogues are good at general knowledge. They cannot teach your process, your pricing logic or the way your firm handles a client, and they do not connect to your CRM.
Two different jobs that look alike
University-style course catalogues and a company academy both deliver lessons online. That is where the overlap ends.
An open catalogue teaches subjects: data analysis, project management, leadership. The content is written for anyone, and the learner relationship belongs to the catalogue. A company academy teaches your method: how your agency runs a discovery workshop, how your brokerage gathers documents, how your consultants structure a proposal. The learner is your contact, and what they do in the course can trigger action in your pipeline.
Most firms need both. The mistake is using one for the other's job.
Before you start
Decide three things before you build anything:
- Which knowledge is general and which is specific to your firm. General knowledge can come from an external catalogue. Firm-specific knowledge belongs in your own academy.
- Who the learners are: new staff, existing clients, or prospects you want to educate before a sales call.
- What should happen when someone finishes. If the answer is nothing, a reading list may be enough.
You also need access to Memberships in your account and material for at least one module.
How to set it up
- Go to Memberships > Courses and open Products.
- Click Create Product, then select Start from Scratch.
- Enter the Course Title and Course Description for your method.
- Upload a thumbnail and choose Free, Recurring or One Time.
- Click Create Course.
- Create a module per stage of your method, then add lessons.
- Arrange the content and save your changes.
- Open Offers and click Create Offer.
- Fill in the details, assign the course and set the price.
- Click Create, then change the offer from Draft to Published.
Do the sorting before you open the builder. List every training or education need you now cover with external courses or ad hoc calls, and mark each as general knowledge or firm-specific method. General topics stay on your external reading list, linked from an opening lesson as prerequisites. Only the firm-specific method goes into your own academy. Once the offer is live, a workflow can grant it when a contact joins the learner group, for example when a new client is marked as signed. Enrol a test contact and walk the full path before inviting anyone real.
What your own academy does that a catalogue cannot
The real difference is what happens after a lesson. When a client finishes your onboarding module, the platform knows. It can book the next call, alert the account manager, or start a document request sequence. When someone completes a course on an external catalogue, you find out only if they tell you.
For a firm with flat revenue, that feedback loop is the point. Education that is visible in the pipeline becomes a sales and retention tool rather than a nice extra.
Suppose a firm hires around ten consultants a year. It could send them to external courses for general skills such as presentation and spreadsheet modelling. Its own eight-step method, from scoping to final report, would sit in a private academy of eight short modules. Each completed module would notify the new hire's manager, so ramp-up time could be tracked per person rather than guessed.
The trade-off you are accepting
Running your own academy means you own the content and its upkeep. An open catalogue maintains its own material, has production budgets you will not match, and offers recognised credentials. Your academy will look plainer and will need a review every quarter.
What you get in return is relevance and control. The content describes how your firm actually works, access is removed when someone leaves, and every completion is data in your CRM.
Firms often try to rebuild general courses themselves, recording their own version of a subject that is already taught well elsewhere. It takes weeks and adds nothing. Link to the external course and spend your recording time on what only your firm can teach.
When not to build your own academy
If all your training needs are general skills, do not build anything. A curated list of external courses and a check-in with each learner's manager is cheaper and better. If your method is still changing every month, wait until it settles, or you will spend your time re-recording.
The weekly effort
Once live, a small academy takes about an hour a week: answer learner questions, check completions, and note which lessons people skip. Plan a half-day review each quarter to update anything that has drifted from how the firm now works.
For the build itself, the guide to planning modules, lessons and quizzes goes step by step. For the domain, logins and access rules, see where your academy lives and who can log in. If you want to charge outsiders for your method, read selling courses through a checkout on your own domain.
Troubleshooting
Learners are confused about which courses are yours. Name your academy clearly and say at the top of the first lesson which material is internal and which is external. Keep external links in one place.
Completion triggers are not firing. Check that the workflow trigger refers to the right course product and that the learner finished every required lesson. Skipped lessons often block completion.
Staff who left still have access. Add a removal workflow tied to your leaver process, such as a tag applied by the manager on the last working day.
Nobody starts the course. Enrolment alone does not create motivation. Have the manager or account lead send a personal message on day one, then use the platform to send a reminder after a few days of inactivity.
Frequently asked questions
Can I put external catalogue courses inside my own academy?
You can link to them from a lesson, but you cannot host someone else's course material. Treat external courses as references and keep your academy for content you own.
Should client education be free or paid?
For existing clients, onboarding content is usually free and part of the service. For prospects or smaller buyers who cannot afford one-to-one work, a paid course can be a sensible entry product.
Do learners need to create an account somewhere else?
No. Learners log in to your member area, and their record is the same contact your team already works with in the CRM.