Russian ENIC participates in the ERASMUS+ project “Online course catalogues and databases for transparency and recognition (OCTRA)” (1st October 2020 – 30th September 2022).

The project addresses priority

on reaching automatic recognition by developing practical support to academic recognition and improving links with other stakeholders. The project also addresses the priority of encouraging the automatic recognition of HE qualifications and upper secondary qualifications by strengthening cooperation among NARICs, EQF NCPs, and National Europass Centres, as well as elaborating recommendations for further development of existing online national qualifications databases and registers (NQD) to promote their use in a fair recognition.

The project provides support

to HEIs and national authorities in developing new and improving existing national guidelines for course catalogues and NQDs, including a flexible and transparent design of study programmes and qualifications based on learning outcomes and ECTS credits, as well as providing relevant recommendations for improvement of these online tools, and improving the effective use of ECTS for automatic recognition.

The project aims

to increase dialogue with HEIs by agreeing on a template of course catalogues and improvement of NQDs that would guide to structured and transparent learning outcomes of HE qualifications facilitating the automatic recognition. Linking course catalogues with the NQDs is important since both include similar information on qualifications.

The project partners

represent NARICs (Latvia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Poland), ENICs (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia), HEIs (Latvia), Rectors’ Conference (Latvia), as well as Students’ Union (Latvia) as an associated partner; thus, involving all the relevant stakeholders.

The project activities

• desk research – exploring situation regarding course catalogues of HEIs and NQDs in the NARIC and ENIC project partner countries;
• guidelines and recommendations for HEI and NARICs, ECTS Users’ guide (2015) about online course catalogues and NQDs – to provide ideas for necessary improvements of the online tools;
• peer-learning seminars – to discuss the guidelines and recommendations with the relevant stakeholders;
• national workshops for HEIs – to present the guidelines and recommendations to the representatives of HEIs in the partner countries;
• international conference.

Target groups

HEIs, credential evaluators, students, employers, policymakers, EQF NPCs, and National Europass Centres.

The guidelines and recommendations elaborated in the project serve as an assisting tool for HEIs to improve or create appropriately useful and consistent course catalogues corresponding to the NQDs (if existing), and for bodies responsible for NQDs to make adaptations in the content useful for credential evaluation. The document is an additional guide to the existing information for transparency of qualifications to ease fair recognition and a valuable instrument to support dialogue with HEIs and policymakers regarding automatic recognition. For students, improved course catalogues and NQDs will provide structured information on study programmes, which will serve for increasing mobility.

The main impact of the project

is foreseen to promote the availability of transparent and structured information about qualifications, study programmes, and study courses, which will lead to the automatic recognition of HE qualifications in the future and effective use of ECTS for automatic recognition.