1. Policy Purpose:
Community engagement is one of the strategic plan’s components and a key component of DAU Mission. This policy aims to guide the practice and promotion of community engagement as a core institutional function integrated with teaching, learning, and research.

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This policy has the following objectives:
• Integration of community engagement with teaching-learning and research as a key core function at DAU.

• Showing how DAU supports community engagement.
• Defining measurable performance outcomes for DAU community service.

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2. Policy Scope:
This Policy applies to all DAU academic and administrative staff and students.

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3. Policy Statement
1. Definitions:
Community relationship: A community relationship is a collaboration between the University and its local, regional, national, and global communities for the exchange of knowledge and resources to better serve them.
Community engagement: Refers to ongoing community collaborations between DAU and the society interest groups that DAU interacts with, aimed at building and exchanging knowledge, skills, expertise, and resources required to develop and sustain the society. This type of engagement is primarily focused on benefiting the community through delivering a particular service, but is generally initiated from within the institution, department, or faculty.
Community Partnership: Refers to collaborative agreements between two or more parties sharing a similar vision, aimed at reaching a common goal by devising and implementing mutually agreed activities while maintaining their respective identities and agendas. These activities help to develop and sustain society.
Community Relationship Activities Volunteerism: This refers to altruistic engagement of students and staff in activities benefiting the recipient community, with service provision as the main goal. This includes extracurricular activities for which no academic or other credit is received.

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2- General Principles:
Regarding DAU Strategic plan and DAU Mission, DAU recognizes the importance of community involvement and encourages employees and students to participate in volunteer activities. This policy clarifies the role and responsibility of Community Engagement Unit on the university level with the co-operation with Community Engagement and Industry Linkage Committee (CE&ILC) on the College level in establishing guidelines for the community engagement in DAU according to Community Engagement Strategic Plan.

DAU recognizes community service as a key aspect of its institutional mission and commits itself to encourage a range of community service activities throughout DAU.
All Colleges/Programs in DAU are encouraged to be active players to serve our community and to create advantageous partnerships and relationships while making a significant Impact on our local communities. Community service includes activities are designed to support and help individuals or groups outside the university, as they are offered by DAU’s programmes, teaching staff, employees and students.
DAU assess the Community needs and develop suitable Community Engagement programs to meet these needs.

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To support the community engagement DAU shall:
Create partnerships or other cooperative agreements with external partners to develop or provide services.
• Generate, transmit, apply and preserve knowledge for mutual benefit with external audiences.
• Continue training courses, lectures, seminars, and technology transfer initiatives to meet community needs.
Participate, organize and/or support actively in community events and services.
• Maintain communication channels with alumni and employers.
• Communicate opportunities to faculty members and students for involvement in community activities locally, regionally, and internationally.
• Facilitate the contribution of faculty members and staff in community organizations through their membership of committees and local councils.
• Encourage faculty and staff to keep records of their community activities in their annual professional development plans
• Properly document, benchmark activities/events that contribute to DAU’s community outreach services and disseminate results to relevant stakeholders.
• Make the university’s expertise, resources and facilities available where appropriate, to better engage and Support actively in community service.
• Ensure that ongoing community engagement activities are identified and communicated to staff, students and the wider community.
• Promote the inclusion of service learning in academic courses where appropriate, in order to benefit the community
• Develop relevant tools to track community needs and monitor staff and students’ activities.
• Ensure quality community engagement initiatives through ongoing communication with different organizations aimed at serving the public.
• Create opportunities for alumni to connect intellectually with the college and the community.

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3- DAU Supporting administratively the Community Engagement within the university through the following:
• DAU demonstrates a spirit of collaboration and mutual purpose as it supports the achievement of a shared mission based on the National Development Plan for KSA.
• DAU will actively encourage Faculty Members and staff, administration staff, and students to become more involved in the community by providing flexibility in work schedules and paid leave opportunities.
DAU is committed to implementing Community Engagement plans.

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3-1 Community Engagement and Industry Linkage Committee (CE&ILC) at the college levels roles and responsibilities:
As a part of community engagement, (CE&ILC) assists the College for the following activities:
• Hosting forums in their areas of expertise during the year
• Hosting local conferences on topics of interest to the university and community
• Engaging community leaders in the College Advisory Board members to provide advice on the curriculum, Applied research, and consultancy services.
• Engaging community leaders in the review of the mission, vision, and objectives of the university and colleges.
• If available, inviting reputable Industrial organizations which have an obvious role in the Community engagement to be a guest in the College for one or two sessions in a semester. This meeting can encourage students to engage effectively in community services and will show how the industry can benefit the community.
• Engaging in community orientation activities, such as media programs, press articles, interviews, meetings, and others.
• Monitoring the Community Engagement performance of the College Members and rewarding them by appropriate recognition and credit.
• Ensuring that the status of community engagement grows and aligns with that of teaching and research.

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4-Measuring the performance and the impact of the community engagement in DAU
The impact of community engagement and outreach must be determined and reported annually by the institution in consultation with relevant internal and external stakeholders.
The following are some of the criteria that DAU could use it in the evaluation of the Community Engagement tasks:
• Partner satisfaction with the process and results
Number and nature of projects according to the typology, as well as the number of students/communities
involved and the nature of involvement.
Student satisfaction.
• Community satisfaction.
• Geographic areas impacted.
• Number of employees involved in community outreach programs and the nature of involvement.
• Number of employees involved in community engagement programs according to typology, as well as the nature of involvement
• Number of employees/students voluntarily involved with community engagement.
• Changes to the quality of community’s life.