With just a day’s notice, Bluprint has alerted instructors that it’s launching a new instructor dashboard which will combine all student questions into a single queue. The new setup has many legacy instructors questioning whether it’s possible to continue to honor the contract they signed to teach on the platform.
Combined questions
The new dashboard is part of a redesign of the company’s video player. Rather than having two video players (one for customers who are Bluprint subscribers and one for those who have bought classes a la carte), there’s now a single player for everyone. As a result, all questions, including those asked by subscribers and those asked by a la carte customers, are now lumped together with no way for instructors to distinguish between the two.
The majority of legacy instructors, meaning those teachers who taught Craftsy classes before Craftsy was acquired by NBCUniversal in 2017, have stipulations in their contracts requiring them to respond to a la carte customers’ questions in order to continue to receive their current royalty rate. If they don’t respond, they are in violation of their contract and their royalty rate will be reduced.
“I am contractually obligated to answer questions from a la carte subscribers only. I don’t know what happens if I choose not to answer questions. Will I be in violation of my contract? Will my compensation be reduced? Will my class be retired by Bluprint?” asks one instructor we spoke with.
Bluprint is responding to each instructor’s inquiries one at a time via email due to the individuality of contract terms. This instructor reached out to Bluprint for further clarification today, but feels the response she received was generic and inadequate. A portion of the response, which came from Meredith De Souza, Talent Coordinator, said, “Instructor participation in the Bluprint platfrom remains optional for you,” a statement which is puzzling. Another instructor we spoke with received an identical email.
“I feel screwed,” the first instructor says. “The response from the instructor liaison totally avoids the question and doesn’t address any of the concerns that I expressed.”
A hard choice
This isn’t the first snafu Bluprint has created with questions on its instructor dashboard. In May Bluprint revealed to instructors that there was a massive backlog of subscriber questions which had, until that point, been hidden from them. Many legacy instructors were horrified to find that these questions, many of which were addressed to them personally, had been sitting in queue for months, or even a year. A clumsy interface meant in order to respond to the questions the instructor had to click on them one at a time.
Once this new combined dashboard is in place, most legacy instructors will be faced with a mix of unanswered subscriber questions and a la carte customer questions in queue. They’ll have to decide whether to essentially violate their contracts by not responding to any questions, or respond to all of them, taking on extra work for free.
Knock knock
The second legacy instructor we spoke with said, “It reminds me a bit of Etsy in that they seem to have forgotten to have a relationship with the people who make their existence possible.”
It’s important to note that new Bluprint instructors, those who have begun teaching on the platform since the NBCUniversal buyout, have different contract terms and are not obligated to respond to customer questions.
According to Bluprint, subscribers ask far fewer questions than a la carte class buyers. Bluprint lets subscribers know that all conversations on the platform are “maker to maker” and they should expect to get an answer from another student rather than the instructor.
Still, the “Help” section on the Bluprint class discussion page reads: “When you are enrolled in a Bluprint subscription, any of the discussions or questions posted can be answered or responded to by your Bluprint peers. Once a class is in your Own Forever library, you will have access to instructors responding to your inquiry when they are available.” Since the expectation that legacy instructors respond to a la carte customers remains, many instructors are worried about the harm that may come to their reputation if students ask a question expecting a response, but don’t receive one.
The first instructor we spoke with sums it up this way. “It’s totally confusing…and we’re knocking our heads against a really big brick wall.”
Update: Bluprint is now telling the legacy instructors that they verbally released them from having to respond to a la carte customers’ questions in 2017, although the instructors we’ve spoken with don’t recall this release being made.
Just to clarify, Bluprint only verbally released us from answering subscriber questions in 2017. They were very explicit (at least with me, and my recollection is that it was posted in their Facebook group for instructors) that we still needed to answer a la carte questions. Now they’re saying I don’t need to answer any questions.
They say, “Bluprint lets subscribers know that all conversations on the platform are “maker to maker” and they should expect to get an answer from another student rather than the instructor.” That is not the case. Not only do they still have the language in the help section that you cited, there is also the evidence that a lot of the comments are directly addressed – by name – to the instructor. Bluprint may THINK they are letting subscribers know what to expect from “conversations on the platform” – but they are clearly falling short, have been for years, and have no interest in fixing the problem. And why should they? The students have no idea that the problem lies with Bluprint, so Bluprint gets none of the blame. They just think the instructors are ignoring them.
To me, without a written release from this obligation, it’s just unclear. And since it’s tied to compensation, a written release is what’s needed, along with clear written language for a la carte customers that instructors will no longer be answering their questions despite what they were promised when they bought the course.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but it’s spelled out clearly in the email I received – which I’m saving as my documentation of a written release. As for “clear written language for a la carte customers” – that’s never going to happen. It used to be that in the susbcriber player they clicked a link that said “comment” and in the a la carte player it said “ask a question.” That was hardly a clear distinction, but even that’s gone now. Now all students click on the Comment tab and get a box that says, “Join the conversation. Post a comment.” Legacy teachers like me were instructed to include IN THE VIDEO the reassurance that we were there to answer student questions. Without clear information that that’s no longer the case, every single student – no matter how they pay – thinks we are going to answer their questions. We tell them so in the very first video! Instructors pointed this out in our last go-round with Bluprint and they made NO changes. It’s just so frustrating.
My hubby has a business saying “If it ain’t in writing it didn’t happen!”
So the teachers are the only ones that are going to suffer — in lost sales, lost reputation for being a responsible person, and future sales, because why would you buy anything from someone who doesn’t even care enough to answer a question. Blueprint should care enough to explain the situation and apologize…….it will affect their reputation also….
Yes that is correct. No matter who is at fault, the instructors will get (and ARE getting) the blame for seemingly ignoring their students. I recently wrote an open letter to my students (on my public facebook and my blog) apologizing to them for not gettin a response from me since I never received their question in the first place. Once I could see all the subscriber comments (only as of yesterday) I read disheartening things such as “maybe she doesn’t want to answer our questions” and “Is anyone there?” This has hurt me deeply since I have one of the most popular quilting courses on the site, and that is NOT how I treat my students 🙁
I got a lot of classes through the Craftsy platform and it said that the teachers would answer your questions. I think Blueprint should take care of the teacher and customers no matter what. There are a lot of other alternatives to learn since Craftsy days so there’s more competition. I’m pretty sure they understand that. If I’m still a subscriber, it’s because of the great teachers that this platform has.