Good course community guidelines are a short, plain-language document that says what the space is for, how members treat each other, what belongs there, and what happens when something goes wrong. Put them in front of students on day one, inside a welcome sequence, and ask them to agree to them. Then revisit them as the group grows. This guide gives you the structure, a sample you can adapt, and an onboarding plan that gets the rules read.
TL;DR
- Write guidelines that cover purpose, behaviour, what belongs, self-promotion, privacy and safety, how problems are handled, and the right to leave.
- Keep the language plain and the examples concrete. Short rules get read, but each one needs enough detail to be unambiguous.
- Introduce the guidelines in the welcome message and the first activity, not in fine print on a settings page.
- Spell out a simple enforcement ladder and a way for students to raise concerns.
- Treat the document as living: review it after the first cohort and on a regular schedule.
Table of Contents
- What course community guidelines are for
- What to put in the document
- A sample you can adapt
- Write it so students actually read it
- Build the rules with your students
- Student onboarding: where guidelines meet the first week
- Launch the guidelines, then keep using them
- Enforcement: a simple, visible ladder
- When to revise
- Our perspective
- Put your community on a platform built for courses
- FAQ
- Sources
What course community guidelines are for
Guidelines do two jobs. The practical one is to set out what constructive engagement looks like, so nobody has to guess. The relational one is to create a shared agreement that students can hold themselves and each other to. Michele Deramo of Virginia Tech frames them in exactly these two terms in her first-week teaching guide, and the distinction is useful for creators who sell courses rather than teach semesters.
The practical job protects your time. Without written expectations, you answer the same questions in private messages: can I share my own link, is it fine to post a screenshot of a lesson, how long should I wait for a reply? Each answer you give once, in writing, is one you never give again.
The relational job protects your product. A student who feels safe asking a basic question in week one is a student who reaches the final module. People who feel mocked or ignored go quiet, and quiet communities are hard to revive. If you are still deciding what kind of space to build, our guide to building a course community students actually use covers the format choices that come before the rules.
Guidelines, code of conduct, community agreement
The three terms overlap, and readers use them loosely. A useful working split:
- Community guidelines describe the everyday norms: tone, topics, formatting, where to post.
- A code of conduct is the stricter layer: harassment, discrimination, consequences and how to report.
- A community agreement is the same content framed as a shared commitment rather than a rulebook.
Teaching@UW argues that "community agreements" is the more inclusive term compared with classroom norms or standards, because it stresses a commitment people make together. For a paid course you can keep one document with two parts: a friendly guidelines section followed by a short code of conduct. Students then read one page, not two.
What to put in the document
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's toolkit on community agreements lists the sections these documents commonly contain: an introduction, behavioural expectations with penalties, definitions of terms, and a section on accountability and violations. For a course community, that translates into seven blocks.
- Purpose. Say what the space is for in two or three sentences. "This is where students of the course ask questions, share work in progress and support each other. It is not a general marketplace or a place to debate unrelated topics."
- How we treat each other. Respect, patience with beginners, disagreement with ideas and not with people.
- What belongs and what does not. Questions about lessons, feedback requests and wins belong. Off-topic promotion, pirated material and sharing paid lesson content do not.
- Self-promotion and links. Decide whether students may mention their own work, and where. A single designated thread works well.
- Privacy and safety. No sharing of other members' personal details or screenshots of private conversations. Say who can see what.
- How problems are handled. The steps you take, who decides, and how a student can disagree with a decision.
- Freedom to leave. Make clear that students can mute notifications or leave the community at any time without losing access to the lessons they paid for, if that is how your course works.
That seven-part list mirrors the structure of a community guidelines template published in November 2026, though the content of each block should come from your own course and audience.
Name the behaviour, not the value
"Be respectful" is a value. Everyone agrees with it and nobody can tell when it has been broken. Pair each value with two or three concrete examples of what it looks like and what it does not.
The University of Colorado Boulder's ATLAS Institute makes this point in its guide to writing a code of conduct: start with foundational language promising a respectful, harassment-free experience whatever someone's gender, race or religion, then add granular examples such as no explaining things to people who did not ask, no disparaging jokes and no microaggressions. The specifics are what make the foundation enforceable.
For a course, concrete examples might be:
- Respectful: "Thanks for sharing. One thing I would try is a shorter headline."
- Not respectful: "Anyone who still does it that way has no idea what they are doing."
- Helpful: "I got stuck on step 3 of lesson 5. Here is what I tried."
- Unhelpful: "This doesn't work." with no detail.
A sample you can adapt
The wording below is an original draft. Change the details to match your course, your tone and the platform where your community lives.
Welcome to the [Course Name] community.
This is a space for people learning [topic] together. Ask questions, share drafts, celebrate progress and help others when you can.
How we treat each other We assume good intent and we are patient with beginners. We disagree with ideas, never with people. We do not use insults, sarcasm aimed at a person or jokes at someone's expense.
What belongs here Questions about lessons, feedback requests, resources that relate to the course and your own wins. Please use the right channel for each.
What does not belong here Sharing course materials outside the community, unsolicited sales messages, other people's private details, and anything that harasses or demeans someone for who they are.
Sharing your own work You are welcome to share your projects in the Showcase thread. Please do not send private promotional messages to other members.
If something goes wrong Use the report button or message [name] with a link to the post and a short note. We reply within [timeframe]. We start with a private note, then a formal warning, then a temporary pause, and in serious cases removal. If you think we got a decision wrong, reply to the message and we will review it.
Your choice You can mute, step back or leave whenever you like. We review these guidelines each term and your suggestions are welcome.
The whole sample runs to roughly 220 words. That is the right order of magnitude for a first version: long enough to be specific, short enough to read in two minutes.
Write it so students actually read it
The EFF toolkit advises balancing clarity, accessibility and brevity, and is candid about the trade-off: short agreements are more likely to be read but can be too ambiguous, and less common terms may exclude people from different backgrounds. Practical ways to hold that balance:
- Lead with the one-paragraph version. Put a three-line summary at the top and the detail below it.
- Use everyday words. Replace "solicitation" with "unrequested sales messages" and "harassment" with a one-line description of what you mean by it.
- Define anything borderline. If "self-promotion" is allowed in one thread only, say so.
- Write for an international audience. If students join from several countries, avoid idioms and local references that not everyone shares.
- Make it accessible. Use real headings, short paragraphs and descriptive link text, and offer the guidelines as text, not just as an image or a video. Our online course accessibility guide goes through the practical checks.
Writing in communication norms
Trinity College Dublin's sample netiquette guidelines suggest using full names, posting a profile picture and being polite in all communications. They also note that clarifying the code of conduct at the start of a module helps manage expectations such as reasonable response times. That second point is easy to forget and prevents a lot of frustration. State plainly how quickly you or your moderators reply, on which days, and where urgent issues should go.
Western Washington University's community expectations for online students include expressing thoughts clearly, being forgiving and supportive, embracing differences, leading with empathy and respect, engaging fully, and writing with specific subject lines and proofread posts. You do not need all of these, but "give your post a clear title" is a rule that makes a busy forum far easier to search.
Build the rules with your students
Top-down rules work, but rules that students helped shape tend to feel like theirs. Teaching@UW describes community agreements as statements developed at the beginning of a term and treated as a living document to revisit and revise. Examples it gives include showing openness to new ideas, committing to doing your best and assuming best intent. It also advises that agreements should emerge from a process, not be imposed.
For a paid course, a light version of this works well:
- Publish your draft in the welcome thread as a starting point.
- Ask, "What would make this a space where you feel comfortable asking a beginner question?"
- Add the best two or three suggestions and credit the contributors.
- Post the updated version and pin it.
In a cohort format, run this in the kick-off session. If you run live groups, our guide to running a cohort-based course shows where that session fits in the schedule.
Student onboarding: where guidelines meet the first week
Guidelines that sit in a footer are invisible. They need to be part of how a student enters the course. Two university onboarding guides give a useful backbone.
Kent State Online's guidance on preparing for the start of a course recommends introducing yourself by video, giving a course overview that shows where key tools are, creating a "Start Here" module with step-by-step instructions, sending a welcome letter, posting a first-day announcement, and making the first activity a discussion board self-introduction with clear guidelines. NSU Oklahoma's best practices for online teaching, an older document dating from 2008, adds a brief orientation to the platform's terminology and tools, contact information for technical help, welcoming students before the course begins and a personal instructor introduction.
A seven-step onboarding sequence
- Before access opens. Send a welcome email as soon as payment completes, with login details, the start date and a link to the guidelines. Our walkthrough on mapping the first email after payment shows what to include.
- A short welcome video. Introduce yourself, say who the course is for and explain how the community works. Two to three minutes is enough.
- A "Start Here" module. Show where lessons, downloads, the community and support live. Add a screenshot or a short screen recording of each.
- The guidelines, in context. Link them from the Start Here module and quote the three most important lines in your welcome message.
- Technical help. Give one named contact and a reply time for access problems.
- First activity: introduce yourself. Ask for a name, a goal and one question. Include your own introduction as the model. The first post sets the tone for all the others.
- First quick win. Move students to a small, achievable lesson within their first session so they have something to share in the community.
If you collect personal data during sign-up, such as photos or profile fields, check what you must disclose. Our data protection checklist for course sellers covers the GDPR points that apply when students are in Europe.
A short welcome message you can reuse
"Welcome, and thank you for joining. Start with the Start Here module: it takes ten minutes and shows you where everything is. Then introduce yourself in the Welcome thread. Tell us your name, what you hope to achieve and one question you have. Our community guidelines are pinned at the top. The short version: be kind, be specific and help each other. I am here Monday to Friday and will reply within one working day."
Launch the guidelines, then keep using them
Virginia Tech's guidance says guidelines introduced on the first day are an effective practice for fostering belonging. It recommends introducing them aloud, handing out a copy, revisiting them after several sessions, using them at midterm to gather feedback and at the end for self-assessment. Course creators can mirror that rhythm with their own touchpoints:
| Moment | What to do |
|---|---|
| Day one | Pin the guidelines; read the key lines aloud in the welcome video |
| First week | Reference them when you answer the first question that needs a nudge |
| Mid-course | Ask, "What is working in this community and what should we change?" |
| End of course | Invite students to rate how well the group lived up to the agreement |
| Each term or quarter | Review the document and post a short changelog |
Two habits matter more than the document itself. The first is modelling: answer questions the way you want others to answer them, thank people publicly for good feedback and admit when you do not know. The second is consistency: apply the rules to a loud, popular student exactly as you would to a quiet one.
Enforcement: a simple, visible ladder
People follow rules more readily when consequences are predictable. The EFF toolkit recommends making penalties explicit and precise. A four-step ladder is enough for most course communities:
- Private reminder. A friendly message with a link to the relevant line of the guidelines.
- Formal warning. A written note stating what happened and what must change.
- Temporary pause. Posting rights are suspended for a set period, for example seven days.
- Removal from the community. Reserved for serious or repeated breaches, with a clear note on what happens to course access under your terms.
Some conduct, such as threats or targeted harassment, justifies skipping straight to a later step. Say so in the document.
Add two things to the ladder. A named person or address for reports, so students know where to go. And a way to challenge a decision: even a single sentence promising review by a second person builds trust. If you are choosing the tools to flag, hide and review posts, our guide to community moderation tools lays out a stack you can build in 90 days.
When someone reports a problem
- Acknowledge the report within the reply time you promised.
- Ask for a link or screenshot so you act on evidence, not on impressions.
- Keep the reporter's identity private where you can.
- Tell both sides the outcome in general terms, without sharing details about the other person.
- Note the incident privately so you can spot repeat behaviour.
When to revise
A living document needs triggers. Revise when:
- the same question or conflict comes up three times,
- the group doubles in size or you open a new cohort,
- you add a new space, such as live calls, a forum or direct messages,
- students suggest a change you agree with.
Post each revision with a one-line summary of what changed and why. That gives members a visible sign that their feedback is heard.
Our perspective
We built BibliOWLteca for creators who sell knowledge, and in our view the community is part of the product. A course with clear, kind and consistently applied rules gives students a reason to come back after lesson three.
Our approach is to keep the guidelines close to where learning happens. Put them in the welcome sequence, in the Start Here module and in the first activity, so a student meets them while they are still excited and not after a conflict. Our platform is designed around educational content, with course hosting, quizzes, mentorship and community spaces under one storefront, so a creator can keep onboarding, discussion and delivery in one place.
We also believe in short documents with specific examples. Two clear pages that students have read beat ten pages that nobody has opened.
BibliOWLteca
Put your community on a platform built for courses
Once your guidelines are written, you need a place to publish them alongside your lessons. BibliOWLteca lets you sell and deliver e-books, courses, templates and mentorship programmes from your own customisable storefront, with course hosting that includes video and quizzes, community features and instant digital delivery. We claim zero monthly fees: our model charges a transaction fee on each sale, starting from 0.99 EUR, and you can see how it works on our pricing page.
If you want to see the kind of digital products creators list, browse our course, e-book and template categories. Then add your guidelines to your Start Here module before your first student arrives.
FAQ
How long should course community guidelines be?
Aim for one to two pages, or roughly 200 to 500 words for a first version. Add a three-line summary at the top. Short documents are more likely to be read, but the EFF toolkit warns they can become ambiguous, so keep concrete examples for the rules that matter most.
What is the difference between community guidelines and a code of conduct?
Guidelines describe everyday norms such as tone, topics and where to post. A code of conduct covers serious behaviour such as harassment and discrimination, along with reporting and consequences. For a course, one document with both parts is usually easier for students than two separate pages.
When should students see the guidelines?
Before or at the moment they join. Link them in the welcome email, repeat the key lines in the Start Here module and ask students to acknowledge them in their first introduction post. Virginia Tech's teaching guidance also recommends revisiting them after the first few sessions and at the midpoint.
What should I do if a student breaks the rules?
Start with a private reminder that links to the specific guideline, then move through a warning, a temporary pause and removal if needed. Act on evidence, apply the same steps to everyone and offer a route to review the decision. Serious threats or harassment can justify skipping steps.
Sources
- Preparing for the First Week of Class, Virginia Tech
- Developing community agreements, Teaching@UW
- Toolkit: Community Agreements, EFF
- How to Write a Code of Conduct, ATLAS Institute
- Sample Guidelines for Agreeing Netiquette, Trinity College Dublin
- Preparing for the Start of Your Course, Kent State Online
- Best Practices in Online Teaching, NSU Oklahoma
- Community Guidelines Template