A thank-you, not a transaction
Write about what you built, and the certificate is on us
The courses here are free and open, and we would like to keep them that way. Issuing a signed certificate on a free course costs €9; it is already included in the paid courses. If you write a detailed public post about what you actually built here, we issue the certificate at no cost.
Two ways we say thank you
Whichever fits you better. One reward per course.
The certificate, at no cost
Normally €9 on a free course. Write a detailed public post about what you built and the problem the course helped you solve, star our GitHub repository, and we issue the certificate free.
30% off any paid course
Write publicly about the academy and we send you a coupon for 30% off any course of the professional programme. No repository star needed for this one.
How it works
- Finish the course: every task checked against your own work in OpenConstructionERP.
- Write it up in public, where your peers actually read. Say what you built, what was harder than you expected, and what you would do differently. A few substantial paragraphs or a short video; screenshots of your own work help.
- Add one plain sentence saying we gave you something for it. This matters, so it has its own section below.
- Star the repository if you are going for the free certificate: github.com/datadrivenconstruction/OpenConstructionERP ↗
- Send us the link by e-mail. We read every submission by hand, so give us a couple of days before you hear back.
Please say in the post that we gave you something
One plain sentence, in your own words, somewhere a reader will see it. Something like:
“I got my certificate free for writing this.”
“The academy gave me a discount on a course for this post.”
This is not us being careful for its own sake: under the EU Omnibus and unfair-commercial-practices rules, and under the FTC's endorsement guides, an incentivised review that does not say so is treated as misleading. The line protects you as much as it protects us, and it costs your post nothing.
We do check for it. If it is missing we write back and ask you to add it rather than decline you.
Where to post, and where not to
These are all fine
LinkedIn, your own blog, Reddit, YouTube, X, Mastodon, a trade forum, a company newsletter, a conference talk write-up, a university or chamber publication. Anywhere public that you can send us a link to.
Please do not post for a reward on review platforms
Trustpilot, G2, Capterra and other review sites ban incentivised reviews outright, and a post there would put your account at risk, not ours. We will not accept one for a reward. You are of course free to review us there on your own, for nothing, whenever you like.
A private company channel does not work either, only because we cannot open it to read it.
What we will never ask of you
- We never ask anyone to write something they do not mean.
- The reward is for the writing, not for a positive opinion. We approve critical posts on exactly the same terms, and we never ask for edits or deletions.
- A critical, honest review counts the same. If a course wasted your afternoon, write that in public and the reward still stands.
- You can delete the post later. A certificate we issued stays issued, and a coupon we sent stays valid.
- No scripts, no wording we hand you, no required hashtags, and no approval of your text before you publish it.
- One reward per course, per person.
Why we do it this way
Every euro from certificates and courses goes back into keeping the lessons free and open: recording them, translating them, and running the checks that make a certificate mean something. An honest public write-up helps us more than the money does. It is how the next estimator or site engineer finds out this exists, and it is how we learn what to fix.
Questions about the rewards
How long does the post have to be?
Long enough to be useful to someone in your trade. A couple of substantial paragraphs about your own work is plenty; a one-line "great course" is not what we are asking for.
Does it have to be in English?
No. Write in the language the people you work with read. The disclosure sentence should be in the same language as the post.
What if you decline my submission?
We tell you why, and you are welcome to send a revised link. The only posts we decline are ones that say nothing about your own work, or that are missing the disclosure line after we have asked for it.
Do you edit or approve what I write?
No. We read it after you have published it, and we never ask for changes to your opinion. The one thing we may ask you to add is the disclosure sentence.
Can my employer or my team claim this?
Yes, one reward per course and per person, and the post should be about work that person actually did.
Finished a course? Tell people what you built
Send us the link and the certificate is on us. If you have not started one yet, the country courses are free from the first task.