4.3.5: Access Policy to Educational Activities to All

The open educational resources movement has been receiving continuous attention all over the globe especially in the field of higher education. The movement has positive reflection on the educational process inside and outside of any educational institution. The core thought of education promotes the philosophy of openness in science and knowledge.

King Abdulaziz University's "Open Educational Resource Policy” provides adequate information about the “Open Educational Resources” concept, along with different mechanisms of producing and implementing these resources in the educational process, in a form of open knowledge resources for all.

KAU is committed to avail and share its various educational facilities and resources to serve its faculty and students as well its surrounding community for the sake of a better Quality Education.

A closer look at KAU's vision shows how the university is looking forward to benefiting its students and other people, including its community.

• Vision

  • To ensure that “King Abdulaziz University Open Educational Resources" initiative achieves the highest educational quality that benefits the educational process at the University and its community.

• Mission

  • To encourage the participation of colleges, faculty members, and students at the University by creating open learning resources of outstanding quality and take advantage of the flexibility of the common's creative licenses.

Objective 2 clearly states KAU's Policy in this aspect and how further potential policies, that could be needed, will be established.

• Objectives

  1. Introducing the open learning resources concept and disseminate openness of information to serve the educational process.

  2. Establishing policies to create open learning resources at the University.

  3. Establishing technical and academic standards to the open educational resources produced at the University.

  4. Enriching the open educational resources initiative at King Abdulaziz University through selected open sources produced by the Deanship of E-Learning and Distance Education.

Complimenting and serving this attitude and in alignment with the UNESCO's guiding strategies, the university has been encouraging its faculty and students to generate and share further open educational resources like the Digital Repository SHMS and  OERx .

4.3.1 shows the wide set of open educational resources for all. 4.3.2, 4.3.3 and 4.3.4, show how all ad-hoc and programmed educational activities, events, programmes and outreach projects, that are either hosted on campus or conducted beyond the university campus, are open to the public, without any type of discrimination or limitation.

Furthermore, people with different types of disabilities, are provided the facilities and privileges that they need in order to be able to benefit from these educational resources and attend all events, including those that are related to lifelong learning and quality education.

Hence, KAU established, and still developing, the needed policies that clearly prohibit any type of discrimination, or prevent any person, from accessing the university's open educational resources and attending events being hosted on campus or beyond, i.e. availing access to lifelong learning events and activities to whoever is interested in these events and without any discrimination.

The policy was created in 1971 and has been revised several times since then. The most recent revision was made in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The university has since confirmed that the policy will be reviewed annually. Additionally, King Abdulaziz University is committed to all amendments to the Access to Educational Activities for All policy made by the Ministry of Education. Any violation of this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, as outlined in the university’s Student Handbook.