International Council for Open and Distance Education

The ICDE is a membership-led organization that is working globally in the field of online learning. Promoting open, flexible and technology-based education to make education feasible and accessible to any learner around the world. The ICDE was founded in the year 1938 and it has its secretariat in Oslo, Norway. Furthermore, it is affiliated with more than 200 higher education institutions and organizations which happen to be in more than 84 countries. With all this, the ICDE managed to get into a partnership with UNESCO in the year 1960. Thus the ICDE has to be the best platform to support open and distance learning.

ICDE’s contribution to Distance Education:

The ICDE’s prime focus as we know is to promote distance learning as much as they can and support learners from all over the world to keep learning. Keeping this in mind, the ICDE tries to initiate new projects that can help to achieve this aim. So presenting all our readers ICDE’s project for distance learning which is IDEAL i.e. Impact of Distance Education on Adult Learning.

With this project, the following milestones can be achieved.

• Providing all the policymakers and distance education providers with all the necessary insights on what adult demands in distance learning.
• Enabling adult learners to participate more in higher education through distance education.
• Reinforcing the social dimension of higher education by meeting adult learners’ educational needs more properly.

Besides that, the ICDE has managed to put an impact on the lives of 15 million-plus students.

Furthermore, ICDE is in collaboration with 18 plus organizations that are all working towards a common goal, that is, to promote distance learning.

The ICDE community works to arrange several activities and different projects that only contribute to the global mission of Sustainable Development Goal 4. This will not only promise equitable quality education but also promote forever learning opportunities to anyone interested.

ICDE’s Projects:

• They have issued a set of guidelines regarding ethically-informed practice, which can be of great value to the leaners from all over the world.
• They have set up a task force, The Research and Innovation Task Force that will promote the development of best practices in the distance, flexible and online education. This includes e-learning as well.
• The ICDE’s Global Doctoral Consortium is an initiative that is supporting global doctoral students in the field of research which is related to online, flexible and technology-based learning.
• The ICDE has started another project (BERTA) that is going to bring educational resources for teachers in Africa.
• The Open Education Quality Initiative (OPAL) is in partnership with 7 organizations including the ICDE that focused on the transparency, quality and innovation is adult learning. This was a two-year project from 2010-2011.

And many other projects in the past have been initiated and completed that has led towards implementing efficient reforms in distance learning. Similarly, ICDE aims to initiate more such projects in the future.

The ICDE’s contribution to distance learning during the COVID-19:

Due to the current COVID-19 status quo that has affected the whole world, the demand for online, open and distance learning has increased more than ever. And that is why the ICDE has elicited their efforts to do everything in their power to help learners keep on moving.

In this regard, the ICDE summonses all of you as well to play your part in aiding educators to keep moving. We at takethiscourse.net fully backs the ICDE’s efforts toward open, distance and online learning and are here to help in any possible way. We appreciate the efforts and work that ICDE is doing during the crisis and decided to let our readers know about it as well. So let us take a look at all the efforts that they have made to promote distance learning especially during this epidemic.

• The ICDE has made sure to keep their learners updated by providing all the relevant and up-to-date news that is related to distance and online learning.
• They have carefully gathered and distributed every piece of valuable knowledge and resources so as to support as many educators as they can to cope during this big endeavor.
• Not only that but a separate section of different tips can also be found at the official site of the ICDE.
• The ICDE has launched a task force and a global campaign as well in order to support distance learning during this pandemic. The campaign is known by the name #learningtogether. To support this campaign, online education experts from all around the world are invited to contribute their knowledge and expertise in the global discussion.
• ICDE is offering different resources related to distance learning that will facilitate the learners toward flexible learning during this educational disruption.
• They have hosted webinars up till now regarding how to deal with distance and open learning during this outbreak.

Upcoming Events:

The following is the detail of all the upcoming events that are hosted by the ICDE regarding distance learning.

• Global President’s Summit 2020
  This conference will be held on 25th November 2020 in South Korea.
• 34th Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Open Universities
  This conference will be from 21st October 2020 to 23rd October in Sri Lanka.
• 2020 ICDE Leadership Summit
  This will take place at SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA from 25th till 27th of November, 2020.

With all the hard work that ICDE has and is putting in towards promoting flexible and convenient distance learning from all over the world and especially in times like this, we at takethiscourse.net think that it would be unfair to not acknowledge the efforts of this platform. And that is why we feel it as our duty to offer all the help that we can to the ICDE to contribute towards distance learning. So let us all join forces and contribute towards distance learning so that nobody lags behind. After all, it is our moral responsibility to look out for each other at all times.