Collaborations

Creative Commons Affiliate

Local Coordinator: Dr Sarita Kumar

In 2013, Acharya Narendra Dev College became ‘Creative Commons Affiliate’, the first academic institution in India to get this association and assigning the responsibility making educators aware that ‘Open source knowledge is the key to the future’. Then Principal of the college, Dr Savithri Singh was an integral part of the ‘Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D)’ project.

Acharya Narendra Dev College, is known for being a pioneer in Open Educational Resources (OER) within the University of Delhi. Being a strong believer in open education, the college took an initiative in 2008 to promote ‘Open Education’ among various academicians across University of Delhi and other educational Institutes. Several workshops, seminars and conferences were organized in the area with continuous support from the Commonwealth of Learning in order to spread awareness about ‘Open Access’, ‘Open Paradigm’, ‘Open Licences’, ‘FOSS’, ‘LINUX’ and; techniques of developing and uploading Content in various delivery modes; print, audios, videos; for formal and non-formal education.

Our college, perhaps, was the first one in the traditional University system in India that was committed to OER. Among several initiatives taken in the field, a few initiatives include, organization of more than 25 L4C National and International workshops, an International conference ‘'OPEN 2011 - Open Paradigms in Education' at India International Centre, New Delhi; Seminar on 'Teaching Redefined: Open Access to education' as a part of the "Open Access Week' and preparation of educational content by college faculty. With the continuous efforts by then Principal, the College was accepted as a FTE4WE member of the Open Education Foundation and was awarded highly commended ‘OPAL award for Institutions’ at Berlin, Germany as a recognition of outstanding achievements in the fields of OER policy, promotion and use; through the provision of resources and support for the development of OER, participation in research and development, and a clear strategy for motivating its staff. This was the beginning of a series of events which was followed by faculty participation in several National and International conferences to present their work.

Dr. Sarita Kumar, faculty, Department of Zoology, became Local Coordinator of ROER4D Sub-Project 2; ‘ROER4D in Post-Secondary Education in the Global South’, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Currently, she is representative of the college in the CC Global Network to spread awareness and advocacy of Creative Commons. She has also received ‘Community Activity Fund’ from CC Global Network to conduct a project on ‘OER Awareness and Adoption in Indian Higher Education’.