As part of the OCTRA project (Online Course Catalogues and Databases for Transparency and Recognition) аn online seminar was held on March 30, 2022, on guidelines for facilitating transparency and recognition through online course catalogues and databases. The seminar was organized by the Polish ENIC/NARIC center and the participants were partners of the OCTRA project. A representative of the Centre for Information and Recognition of Foreign Higer Education Qualification of Republic of Srpska also attended the seminar.
Representatives of the Latvian ENIC/NARIC Center, the Polish ENIC/NARIC Centre and a representative of the Center for Information and Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina, among others, shared their experiences regarding the online availability of course catalogues and databases in their countries. The importance of the existence of a national legal framework that would regulate the area of online accessibility of course catalogues, which exists only in some countries, was emphasized. Sylwia Ostrowska, a representative of the National Information Processing Institute (OPI PIB), presented the first Polish integrated system for science and higher education, which includes nine databases and provides access to all data related to higher education.
Dženan Omanović, the representative of the Center for Information and Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education, presented a Bosnia and Herzegovina country report in which five public universities, five private and five colleges participated. He said that most online course catalogues are not in English and stressed the need to hire additional staff at higher education institutions, primarily IT programmers and translators.
