Within the OCTRA (Online Course Catalogues and Databases for Transparency and Recognition) project, the Project progress meeting was held on 21 April 2022 in Riga, Latvia. The meeting was held in a blended format with the representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, and Poland who were in person, while representatives of Croatia attended online. The project was aproved by the Erasmus+ program, the K3 activity “Support for Policy Reform”.
At the beginning of the meeting, the representativ of Latvian Academic Information Centre (AIC) informed about topical issues in Latvia regarding higher education and other projects and initiatives carried out by AIC, what also did other partners, presenting the latest educational reforms and situation during a COVID period.
Brief information on accomplished tasks and tasks that still have to be done were presented, especially concerning finishing a final draft of report and guidelines done by project partners which should be presented in national workshops for HEIs; organising of national workshops; and organising of final conference. Preliminary date for the final conference stays as agreed in web meeting, 30 August 2022 in Riga.
Partners agree that stakeholders from all partner countries should to be involved as speakers in the conference (HEIs that participated in survey, students, labour market representatives etc.). Main topics to be covered during the conference include results of the project and interlinking national databases with Europass platform.
Partners from the Poland and Bulgaria give brief insight on what was the most important aspects learned in peer-learning seminars held in March and April 2022. They both expressed value in having to hear opinion of different stakeholders – HEIs, students and credential evaluators.
Main issues outlined in both peer-learning seminars identified by stakeholders are that existing course catalogues are hard to navigate, both HEI websites and course catalogues are complex and it is hard to find necessary information, and it is crucial to consult with potential end users before developing / improving a course catalogue. Partner from the Bulgaria also underlined the importance of interconnection of course catalogues and national databases. Partners from the Poland noted that at least on the national level there should be clear requirements for course catalogues, as existing regulation does not lead to clear and easy to find provision of information.
At the end of meeting, it was a discussion about the study report and guidelines,
clarifying information on questions still not answered by partners, and about conclusions and guidelines (initial changes made in the draft report).
