What we review, why it matters, and how to ensure your content gets approved

Before any content goes live on Edovo, it’s carefully reviewed to ensure it’s safe, appropriate, and aligned with our mission to deliver meaningful education to incarcerated learners. 

Think of it like TSA for digital learning: we’re not here just to slow you down, but to ensure nothing harmful or high-risk makes its way onto the platform and jeopardizes the safety of our learners or the integrity of the system.

This article outlines what we look for during screening—including safety and security risks, copyright considerations, educational alignment, and facility-specific restrictions. Whether you’re submitting a course, video, podcast, or zine, this guide will help you avoid common pitfalls and know what it takes to get your content approved.

What we screen for—and why it matters

Every content item you submit represents not just your message, but our platform. If something slips through—an uncensored drug reference, a facility staff mention, or an emotionally triggering depiction out of context—it could result in a facility removing Edovo entirely. And when that happens, everyone loses access.

That’s why our screening process matters—and why it takes time. Creating content for correctional facilities isn’t just about meaning. It’s about ensuring every resource is safe, secure, and ready for the realities inside.  

1. Appropriateness & security

We screen and restrict content that could compromise the safety, security, or well-being of incarcerated individuals or the facilities in which they reside. Content will not be approved for publishing if it includes:

• Content Safety & Compliance Standards
  All content uploaded through Edovo must be appropriate for consumption by incarcerated audiences. This means content must:
  1. Fit within Edovo’s focus areas of carceral learning:
     
  1. Supports Academic Growth: Providing courses in literacy, GED, HiSET, Secondary education, college level and other foundational subjects to enhance educational attainment.
  2. Prepares for Reentry and Personal Success: Offering vocational skills, durable life skills, and soft skills to equip individuals with the job readiness and resilience needed for a successful transition.
  3. Promotes Healing and Resilience: Including mindfulness, recovery, mental health resources, and self-improvement programs to foster well-being and emotional stability.
  4. Instills Hope and Inspiration: Sharing stories from the justice-impacted community along with spiritual and religious content, to support personal transformation, inner peace, and a sense of purpose.
  2. Deliver quality and clinical integrity: content related to substance use, recovery, trauma, or mental health must be clinically accurate, recovery-oriented, and either developed by or reviewed by a qualified health or mental health professional.
  3. Offer contextual clarity: content referencing crime, violence, social inequality, or identity is permitted only when presented in a factual, educational, historical, or rehabilitative context.
  4. Provide neutral framing: All topics must be presented in a neutral, analytical, trauma-informed, or restorative manner, and must be free of inflammatory, biased, or discriminatory framing.
  5. Be provided by the individual or organization that holds the copyright and distribution rights for the material or offers documentation with written permission from the copyright owner granting authorization for its use and distribution within the platform.
     
  If the content aligns with the above guidelines, the content is then reviewed to ensure it does not include any of the following:
  
  
  Security & Safety Threats:
  1. Instructions for making or using weapons, explosives, chemical agents, or incendiary devices
  2. Escape techniques, facility blueprints, security protocols, or information that could aid escape attempts
  3. Methods to bypass security systems, monitoring, or communication restrictions
  4. Instructions for manufacturing, concealing, or smuggling contraband
  5. Location information that could compromise facilities (full names of incarcerated residents, staff or facilities, GPS coordinates, staff schedules, specific security procedures)
  6. Mentions currently incarcerated people without their consent or contains information that could pose a security risk to an incarcerated person and/or the facility they reside in
  7. Showcase or discuss correctional officers, correctional staff or correctional facilities without their consent
     
     
  Substance-Related Instructions:
  1. Instructions for brewing alcohol, fermenting substances, or manufacturing intoxicants
  2. Instructions for manufacturing, obtaining, or concealing illegal drugs or controlled substances
  3. Instructions for misusing legal substances to achieve intoxication
  
  
  Prohibited Activities:
  1. Instructions for making tattoo equipment, tattoo ink, or tattoo patterns/imagery usable as stencils
  2. Instructions or encouragement for gambling activities
  3. Instructions for committing cybercrimes (hacking, phishing, identity theft, fraud)
  4. Instructions for committing financial crimes or fraudulent schemes
  5. Personal messages or direct communication intended for currently incarcerated individuals from outside persons, or content that may be interpreted as an effort to circumvent established facility communication and monitoring requirements.
  
  
  Violence & Criminal Behavior:
  1. Content that promotes, encourages, or provides instruction on committing criminal acts including drug use, or other themes that create risk for relapse into counter-rehabilitative behavior.
  2. Content that contains reference to, describes or encourages violence against others
  3. Content that advocates or encourages riots, protests, rebellion, facility disruption, or legal violations
  4. Content displaying gang signs, symbols, or promoting gang culture or criminal lifestyle
  5. Threats of physical harm, blackmail, extortion, or intimidation
  
  
  Exploitative or Harmful Content:
  1. Content that contains nudity, is sexually explicit, pornographic, or sexually suggestive in nature
  2. Content that sexualizes or exploits minors in any way
  3. Content containing graphic violence, gore, or injury for shock value
  4. Detailed instructions for self-harm or suicide methods (crisis resources and mental health support content are permitted)
  5. Content that personally identifies or doxxes currently incarcerated individuals, crime victims, witnesses, correctional staff, or others in ways that could cause harm
  
  
  Discriminatory Content:
  1. Content that promotes hate speech, discrimination, or violence against protected groups based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or other protected characteristics
  2. Content promoting extremist ideologies, terrorist organizations, or radicalization
  
  
  Commercial & Privacy Violations:
  1. Advertisements, promotional material, or commercial solicitations intended solely to promote a product, service, or business for financial gain are prohibited. Content that discusses programs or services to serve individuals is permitted for educational purposes only and may not include direct solicitations or calls to action.
  2. Content that violates intellectual property rights or privacy laws
  3. Content providing false or misleading legal or medical advice presented as professional guidance

If you’re unsure whether something qualifies, we encourage you to reach out before submitting. Content that appears to promote, normalize, or dramatize high-risk behaviors will not be approved.

2. Copyright Permissions

You are responsible for ensuring that every file you upload to Edovo is either:

• Your original work, or
  
  

• Used with clear, written permission from the copyright holder.

Because Edovo’s licensing agreement is with you, it’s your responsibility to secure all necessary rights before submission. That includes content you’ve created with collaborators or borrowed from other sources.

What requires permission?

If you're including any material you didn’t create from scratch—get written permission. This applies to:

• A YouTube video you didn’t produce
  
  

• A podcast episode hosted by someone else
  
  

• A meditation script you found online
  
  

• Graphics or worksheets from another organization
  
  

• Music tracks, stock videos, or external voiceovers
  
  

Example:
Your cousin has a great YouTube channel on mindfulness. Even though you know them personally, you still need written permission to upload their video to Edovo. Here’s why:

• You can’t link to YouTube—Edovo is a closed system.

• The video would be downloaded, uploaded, and played natively on our platform.

• That means no views, no ad revenue, and no analytics for the original creator.

In short: even if content is public online, it doesn’t mean you can use it in a secure, closed digital learning environment without permission.

If you're using open-source or Creative Commons materials, make sure they are:

• Clearly labeled for reuse or modification

• Credited appropriately (as required by the license)

• Not restricted to online streaming or view-only conditions

Always double-check the license terms. If you're unsure, reach out to the content creator or publisher for confirmation before using the material on Edovo.

Attribution 101: In most cases, simply crediting the original author or creator by name is enough—especially when using content covered by a Creative Commons license. But keep in mind: attribution doesn’t replace permission. If the material is copyrighted and you don’t have rights to use it, a credit line won’t cut it. When in doubt, check the license or skip it. Here's a helpful resource: Creative Commons License Types.

When in doubt—ask first. Document everything.

If you didn’t make it yourself, don’t upload it unless you’re absolutely sure you have permission in writing. This protects you, Edovo, and the creators whose work deserves proper credit and control.

In short, if someone could reasonably claim ownership, we need to know they’re cool with it being used, distributed, and embedded on Edovo’s platform. Otherwise, we’ll have to hold it until proper licensing is obtained—or not approve it at all.

3. Categorization & educational value
Every item you submit needs to fit within one of Edovo’s content categories—and trust us, we’ve got a wide range. Whether your material is academic, vocational, rehabilitative, inspirational, or practical, it should support growth, healing, skill-building, or self-reflection in some meaningful way.

We currently categorize content into the following areas:

• Academics (Literacy, GED/HiSET, post-secondary)

• Career Readiness (Job search, professional development)

• Career Exploration (Industry overviews, pathways)

• Vocational Skills (Hands-on training and certifications)

• Entrepreneurship (Small business skills, money mindset)

• Recovery (Addiction, mental health, trauma support)

• Reentry (Preparing for life after incarceration)

• Family & Relationships (Parenting, communication, connection)

• Financial (Budgeting, credit, money management)

• Health Information (Medical, fitness, nutrition)

• Emotional Wellness (Mindfulness, resilience, coping)

• Spiritual (Christian, Judaism, Islam, Indigenous beliefs, and more)

• Cultural Expressions (Art, music, storytelling, identity)

• Life Skills (Conflict resolution, self-advocacy, critical thinking)

• Incarcerated Life (Navigating the day-to-day inside)

If your content educates, equips, inspires, or supports personal growth, there’s likely a home for it here. 

What it can’t be is purely entertainment or content that doesn’t align with Edovo’s core mission of providing meaningful, accessible learning for incarcerated adults.

4. FYI: State and facility-specific criteria

Some states and facilities have their own content rules above and beyond Edovo’s screening standards. That means a resource might pass our internal review but still get flagged by a specific facility due to local policies or sensitivities.

If that happens, don’t worry, we’ll be transparent with what we know.Your content can still be published on the rest of the platform; we’ll simply exclude it from the facilities that restrict it.

These guidelines shift often and vary widely, so rather than publish a constantly changing list, we’ll give you the scoop if your content is affected. The goal? Keep your content live and Learners learning while honoring facility guidelines every step of the way.

5. Can I market on Edovo?

Some content partners may be tempted to use Edovo as a marketing platform, but that’s not what we’re here for. Marketing of any kind is not allowed on Edovo. This includes promoting your products or services, asking for donations, or directing learners to purchase your content elsewhere. Our mission is to provide equitable access to free, high-quality educational content, not to advertise or sell.

Why? Edovo is built on a mission of equity and access. Our incarcerated learners are here to grow, heal, and learn, not to be sold to. Many come from under-resourced backgrounds and don’t have access to the internet or disposable income. Our commitment is to keep learning opportunities free, empowering, and trauma-informed, not transactional. Marketing undermines that trust.

That said, we do value authentic connection. If you want learners to learn more about your organizatoin, explore your other work, or reach out through existing communication channels outside of Edovo, you’re welcome to include a website, mailing address, or email so they can take that step if they choose. Just make sure the language stays informational and not promotional. Focus on sharing, not selling.

Note, Edovo is closed off from the external internet, so they will not be able to connect with you through Edovo. Learners must use existing communication channels. 

TL;DR

Every item you submit is a chance to teach, inspire, and empower someone. Following these guidelines helps ensure your content reaches as many learners as possible—without delays or roadblocks.

If you’re ever unsure, don’t guess—ask. Our team is here to support you with pre-review guidance and clear feedback to get your content across the finish line.

Your next read

1. Step 1: Choosing the Right Format for Your Content: Active vs. Passive Learning Experiences
   

2. Step 2: Prepare Your Content for Upload (Edovo Editor vs Edovo Spreadsheet)
   

3. Step 3: Edovo Content Screening (Aka What’s Not Allowed)
   

4. Step 4: What Happens After Screening? Evaluation.
   

5. Step 5: Your Ripple Effect Starts at Publish