1 Early Experiences with a Community Driven Open Education Management System Dr. Lalita S Kumar, IGNOU, New Delhi; Dr. Sanjiv Kumar, IGNOU, New Delhi; Prof. K.R.Srivathsan, Chinmaya Institute of Technology, Kannur lalitaskumar@ignou.ac.in, sanjiv_sos@ignou.ac.in, srivathsan.kr@gmail.com ABSTRACT The mainstream Open and Distance learning programmes in Indira Gandhi National Open University are developed and delivered by a community of Programme/Course Coordinators, Academic Counsellors, Regional Centres, Study Centres and the other assisting staff. These programmes are offered across the length and breadth of Indian subcontinent and beyond necessitating an effective delivery mechanism for the successful running of these programmes. Needless to say that information and communication technology can play a significant role. However, despite reasonably good ICT facilities in IGNOU, there is a felt need for a concerted effort involving coordination amongst them. In order to address the same, an inclusive Open Distance Technology Enhanced Learning (ODTEL) framework has been developed at IGNOU with a community driven Open Education Management System. The academic management of this framework is anchored by the Vedyadhara Open e-Learning Environment (VOLE)-a community empowering e-learning environment. VOLE envisages integrating multiple modes of reaching out through ICT and is programme /course centric with assured quality independent of geography. The present work describes the initiatives taken towards the use of the ODTEL framework and its open learning environment (VOLE) for one of the Post Graduate Diploma programmes with an objective to empower the learner with academic and administrative support in her/his endeavour to acquire the desired attributes of an enabled and transformed individual.The feedback from the first cohort of learners, academic counsellors and programme-in-charges at study centres has revealed results that give an insight into the utility of such a framework and motivate the development team to work more in this direction. KEYWORDS: Open Education Management, Technology Enhanced Learning, Information and Communication Technology, Student Support INTRODUCTION Indira Gandhi National Open University has the world’s largest enrolment of learners (more than 3 million) and has more than 400 programmes on offer (IGNOU website). The vast group of learners come across a number of issues related to student support (Fozdar and Kumar 2007; Tait 2003; Baruah, 2011), that can be best tackled by adopting technology. The information and communication technology (ICT) provides flexibility and multiple benefits (UNESCO report, 2009) and has been used both for the course design and learner support (Thorpe 2002, Jamtsho et al 2007). It can motivate learning, empower the learner and promote greater efficiencies in education systems and practices (Mikre, 2011). IGNOU makes use of the ICTs however; these cater to only a very small fraction of IGNOU’s learners (Gaba and Sethy, 2010). A framework was proposed in June 2009 under the ICT support system called ‘Open Distributed Technology Enhanced Learning (ODTEL), more popularly as the ‘Technology Enhanced Open Learning (TEOL)’ system of IGNOU (Srivathsan, 2009). ODTEL is designed to address the challenge of IGNOU to provide e-learning support in a framework that is aligned with its system of schools, program coordinators, regional services, study centres, counsellors and students who are spread out over vast geography. The system makes use of the wiki platform that functions in a self directed manner and empowers the whole community with a do it yourself (DIY) attitude. A major attraction of ODTEL is that in its basic forms it uses license free ‘Free and Open Source Software’ (FOSS) in all its components. ODTEL (Srivathsan , 2010) has