Did you know, What is National Academic Depository and what are its benefits for students and educational institutions?
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Let’s understand what is the National Academic Depository
What is the National Academic Depository?
The National Academic Depository (NAD) is an online storehouse of academic awards, such as certificates, diplomas, degrees, and mark sheets. The NAD is an initiative of the Government of India under the Ministry of Education (MoE).
The NAD is available 24/7 and helps validate the authenticity of academic awards, store them safely, and retrieve them easily. Academic institutions, boards, and eligibility assessment bodies lodge the digitized awards in the NAD.
Key Features of the National Academic Depository (NAD)
- Online operation: NAD operates fully online.
- Digital format: Academic awards are lodged in a digital format.
- Searchable and shareable: Digitized awards are easily searchable and shareable.
- Authenticity: Educational institutions and assessment bodies verify awards before they are lodged in the depository.
- Retrieve awards: Students can retrieve their lodged awards at any time.
- Authorize others: Students can authorize others to view and verify their certificates.
- No risk of losing: Students do not need to carry originals or attested photocopies of their academic records.
- Issued documents: Documents issued in the Digi Locker system are considered equal to original physical documents.
The role of DigiLocker in National Academic Depository
The National Academic Depository (NAD) is a digital repository for academic institutions. DigiLocker has several roles in the implementation of NAD, including:
- Creating the DigiLocker NAD Portal for academic institutions
- Helping students create a DigiLocker ID
- Providing a mechanism for academic institutions to create DigiLocker IDs for students
- Providing technical support to academic institutions for lodging academic awards
- Providing a secure repository service for academic institutions to host their awards data
- Allowing students to get their academic awards in their DigiLocker account
- Allowing employers or anyone with the student’s consent to verify academic awards
The DigiLocker-NAD Portal provides machine-readable data formats for academic awards to verifiers, which makes it easy to validate academic qualifications. This eliminates the need to physically submit academic documents to various organizations when applying for jobs or further studies.
How do you register on NAD?
You can visit www.nad.gov.in or nad.digitallocker.gov.in and then click Student on the nave bar.
The page gets redirected to the student page and then you can register by using your Aadhaar ID or Mobile Number.
If you want more information regarding How to register on NAD and want to learn more about the Academic Bank of Credits, must go through the article “Academic Bank of Credits in Higher Education”
Benefits of National Academic Depository for Institutes
The National Academic Depository (NAD) has several benefits for academic institutions, including:
- Permanent and safe record-keeping
- No need to issue duplicate academic awards
- Effective deterrence of fake and forged paper certificates
- All academic awards verification needs can be addressed by NAD
- Reduces administrative overhead by minimizing the use of paper and curtailing the verification process
- Students can access and transfer their awards easily
- Ensures that all academic awards are duly digitized, making them easily searchable and shareable
- Guarantees the authenticity of these documents
Benefits of National Academic Depository for Students
The National Academic Depository (NAD) has several benefits for students, including:
- Access: Students can access their academic awards anytime, anywhere
- Safety: NAD provides a permanent and safe record of academic awards
- Authenticity: NAD validates and guarantees the authenticity of academic awards
- Convenience: NAD eliminates the risk of losing, spoiling, or damaging academic awards
- Ease of transfer: Students can easily access and transfer their awards
- Reduced risk of forged certificates: NAD avoids the risk of forged certificates
- Reduced administrative overhead: NAD reduces the use of paper and the verification process
- Digital format: Students receive a digital and authenticated copy of their academic awards with prescribed security features
- Equivalence: The issued documents in the DigiLocker system are considered to be at par with the original physical documents
