Case Study: Course & Instructor Data Scraping from Udemy
The Challenge
Our client, an edtech analytics company, wanted to extract course, instructor, and pricing data from Udemy to analyze market trends, pricing strategies, and topic popularity. With thousands of courses added or updated daily, manual tracking was unfeasible.
Hurdles We Faced
- Dynamic Pagination: Course listings loaded progressively through API requests and lazy loading.
- Extensive Data Volume: Millions of courses across hundreds of categories and subcategories.
- Rate Limits & Anti-Bot Protections: Continuous requests triggered temporary blocks.
- Complex Data Points: Each course contained details like instructor info, rating, student count, and pricing tiers.
Our Step-by-Step Approach
Requirement Analysis:
Defined key fields – course title, instructor, category, rating, enrollment count, price, and URL.
API Integration & Scraping:
Reverse-engineered Udemy’s internal API endpoints to fetch structured data efficiently without rendering full web pages.
Proxy & Request Management:
Implemented rotating proxies and smart request intervals to avoid detection and handle large-scale extractions.
Data Structuring & Cleaning:
Standardized course and instructor data into a structured relational model linking categories, ratings, and pricing.
Automation & Updates:
Scheduled automated crawlers to update course data daily, ensuring the dataset remained accurate and current.
Results & Impact
- Extracted millions of course listings and instructor profiles with complete metadata.
- Delivered an analytics-ready dataset for tracking trends, pricing changes, and course performance.
- Reduced data collection time drastically and enabled near real-time updates.
Our Services & Expertise
At Ascendance Solutions, we specialize in:
- E-Learning & Education Data Scraping
- API Reverse Engineering & Automation
- Proxy Management for Scalable Crawling
- Real-Time Data Updates for Market Analytics
📧 Connect with us at connect@ascendancesolutions.com to automate course and instructor data extraction from platforms like Udemy and empower your edtech intelligence solutions.
