About Us

COLcommons.org is a short-courses platform maintained by the Commonwealth of Learning, which is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1987 to promote the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. For details about COL, visit the Website: https://www.col.org/

The main objective of the “platform” is to provide increased access to quality education and training in the Commonwealth countries. Recognising the need for capacity building to leverage the power of distance education and technology-enabled learning, we offer just-in-time self-paced training on a range of topics, not limited to teaching and learning alone. 

COL believes that learning is key to sustainable development. Therefore, we adopt a lifelong learning continuous professional development approach to offer the courses on this platform. All courses are short (that can be completed in about two to five hours), and can be completed, from anywhere. Users only need access to Internet to benefit form the knowledge resources offered on the platform.

The courses are developed with the support of leading experts on the relevant topics and are also offered in collaboration with partner institutions. On completion of the courses, the learner receives a “Certificate of Completion”, which can be shared online on social media, especially LinkedIn directly through the platform. The certificates are issued as a token of professional development and achievement of specific competences and are not offered as a replacement to any degree or diploma offered by partner institutions or any other degree granting bodies. However, partner institutions may integrate the courses in their formal courses to offer accredited degree or diploma.

Terms of Use

Welcome to the “COLcommons” online platform (“platform”) maintained by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL). The platform offers short courses for just-in-time learning for anyone interested to develop understanding and skills related to the topics covered.

Access to online “platform” is provided as a service by COL and its usage is expected to be on an “as is” basis. While every effort has been made to provide accurate information, the views and opinions expressed in the courses are those of the authors and neither reflect the views of COL or its partners nor provide an endorsement by COL or its partners. All products and services mentioned in the course are owned by their respective copyright holders.  COL accepts no responsibility or liability for your use of the platform or the courses, and your use is entirely at your own risk.

We recommend that you read COL’s “Terms and Conditions of Use”, “Privacy Policy” and “Online Data Protection Policy” which are applicable to the ‘platform”.

Registration and Accounts

• Any Visitor can view the ‘platform”; in order to participate fully in courses, you must register for a personal account on the Website by providing your name and email address and creating a password. All registrations follow a verification process, and to verify you must check your email (Note: sometime the verification email lands up on your spam folder).
• While setting up your account, you may be prompted or required to enter additional information, including but not limited to your gender, age-group and location.
• All information provided by you should be accurate at the time of registration.
• COL reserves the right to suspend or terminate any registered account without assigning any reason.
• Once registered, you can enroll in any of the courses offered to learn anytime as per your convenience.

Use of your data and content for research

• COL and its partner institutions may carry out research from time to time in accordance with the Privacy Policy (referenced above).
• All research carried out via the Website is subject to internationally acceptable Research Ethics.
• Where data is gathered solely for research purposes which are not related to the learning or user experience of the courses or the “platform”, that purpose will be made expressly clear to you at the point of collection. Participation in this type of research will always be voluntary.
• Data shall be gathered on your use of the Website and analysed to develop reports that may be useful for governments and particular educational institutions. However, in all cases no individual learner will be identified.

Code of Honour

As a user of the ‘platform”, you are expected to adhere to the Code of Honour. By accessing and/or using the courses (by whatever means or device and whether as a Visitor or as Learner), you confirm that you have read, agree and comply with these Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and all applicable laws, rules and regulations.

By accessing and using the platform, you agree to the following conditions where failure to comply with any one of these will be treated as breach of the Code of Honour:

• Use the Website and access the course or the “platform” only for your personal development and share the learning resources with others as per the conditions of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC BY-SA);

• Not to attempt to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with any security related features of the Website;
• Not transmit any data or send or submit any content that contains viruses, harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware;
• Not to use the platform to solicit business or share advertisement for products or services offered by you as trade or in connection with a commercial enterprise;
• Not to access or attempt to access any other Visitor or Learner’s account or falsely state, impersonate, or otherwise misrepresent your identity, including but not limited to misrepresenting your affiliations with a person or entity, past or present;
• Not to post, use or transmit unsolicited or unauthorised content, including advertising or promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any other form of unsolicited or unwelcome solicitation or advertising;
• Not to post or transmit content that is harmful, offensive, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy, defamatory, hateful, or otherwise discriminatory, false and misleading, incites an illegal act, or is otherwise in breach of your obligations to any person or contrary to any applicable laws and regulations; and
• Abide by any advice provided by the “administrator”, “manager” and any other “authorised person” on behalf of COL in using and accessing the Website.

Privacy Policy

As an inter-governmental organisation, COL is committed to the highest standards of privacy and protection of user information online. COL has not made use of any software on this website that is able collect personal information from users without their explicit knowledge or share user data with other applications or entities.

Cookies

Cookies refer to data that is stored on a user's computer or mobile device browser to help speed up the browsing experience. COL.org uses cookies for this purpose. No cookie information is collected or stored by COL that could be used to track users at any time. Users can adjust their cookie settings to their preference in their local computer or mobile device browser.

Analytics

Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are referenced for the purpose of establishing the number of unique site visits to monitor site traffic and inform site analytics. No personal information is referenced or stored. Data used for website analytics purposes is in aggregate form only.

Links

The “platform” contains links to external sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, where users may have accounts. COL does not gather profile data from these or other external sites.

Accessibility Statement

Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is committed to promote equitable quality learning opportunities for persons with disabilities (PwD). We strive to ensure that learning experience on the COLcommons.org is accessible for all learners. Every effort is made to appropriately adopt Web Content Accessibility Guidelines while developing the courses for the platform. Courses are tested using NDVA for accessibility.  We recommend, you download NVDA for using the courses, if you need accessibility support. Courses with videos use closed captioning, and also supported by transcript.

Partner Information

While the platform is open to anyone to learn, we encourage educational institutions in the Commonwealth to join us as “Partner” to offer the courses on the platform to their students and teachers. The guidelines for collaboration is available here for download.

Users from the “Partner” institutions will receive a joint certificate. “Partner” institutions may also offer short courses on the “platform” in collaboration with COL.

For expressing interest to join the platform as “partner”, please write to: tel[at]col[dot]org

Already a Partner, login here.