Digilocker is an online repository of one’s personal documents.
National Academic Depository is a subset of the Digilocker platform. It allows students to upload their marksheets, degrees, and other academic credentials. This way, their academic credentials can be verified online by future employers or higher education institutions like colleges and universities.
Suppose a student wants to complete a part of their degree in one university and take a few courses from another university, which is perhaps famous for that discipline.
How can we make that happen?
For each course that a student takes and passes successfully, they get certain credits.
To get a degree, a student must have a certain number of credits each year.
For example, in a commerce degree, a course on Financial Accounting gives a student 3 credits. Now, the student must have 24 credits to complete their first year of degree. Which means that the student can flexibly choose courses that lead to these 24 credits. A simple course like Reading Balance Sheets might give 2 credits, while Capital Market Indexing might give 4 credits. The student gets flexibility in their choice of subjects.
The credits system is a fairly well-established system in higher education.
The Academic Bank of Credit allows universities and students to report and track their credits online.
An example of how this works
Suppose Anirudh wants to do Mechanical Engineering from IP University, but loves the course on AI automation that is taught at VIT. He can take the course at VIT, and his 3 credits will be transferred to his overall degree from IP University. Instead of the student having to get the certificate from VIT and submitting it at IP University, then waiting for the credits to be applied, etc., the two institutions can check out the student’s work online and transfer credits.
UGC (University Grants Commission) has asked universities to ensure that they register on the Academic Bank of Credits so that students can get the flexibility that they deserve in their academics.
Mumbai University, Jamia Milia Islamia, etc. have been directed to ensure that they are on the portal.
For students, the signup is using their Digilocker credentials.
You can see the website at www.abc.gov.in