On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 International University of Sarajevo hosted a workshop organized by the Centre for Information and Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education (CIP). The workshop was focused on presenting the results of the OCTRA (Online Course Catalogue and Database for Transparency and Recognition) project whose aim is to increase dialogue with higher education institutions (HEIs) by agreeing on a template of course catalogues and improvement of national qualifications databases and registers (NQD) that would guide to structured and transparent learning outcomes of HE qualifications facilitating the automatic recognition.
The key stakeholders of the project in BiH are higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the event brought together representatives of 6 different HEIs and BiH Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance.
The workshop was opened by the CIP Assistant Director Ms. Dragana Dilber who summarized the activities and results of the OCTRA project since its kick-off in January 2021. She also presented the action plan until August 30, 2022 when the project is expected to close.
Mr. Dženan Omanović, the Head of the Sector for Information and Cooperation within CIP presented concrete activities and recommendations adopted in the Country Report for BiH. He stressed that an OCTRA survey was conducted among 8 HEIs in BiH (5 state and 3 private universities) on the availability and use of the online course catalogues. It was concluded that most of the universities have online study catalogues but with significant deficiencies which range from lack of accessibility to lack of harmonization and absence of English (or other foreign language) translations. In view of the dire need for boosting internationalization in BiH HEIs, Mr. Omanović underlined that such deficiencies negatively impact recruitment of foreign students. Moreover, he praised IUS' presentation of the course catalogue through the user-friendly e-campus platform, the harmonized and consistent concept of curriculum and syllabi listing for all faculties and study programs which is available in three languages on IUS website. He advised the attendees from other universities to use IUS as a role model in their design of online course catalogues.
The meeting concluded with the guidelines and recommendations that would serve as an assisting tool for HEIs to improve or create appropriately useful and consistent course catalogues corresponding to the NQDs.
