Technical meeting, 27 february - 3 march 2017 Niš, Serbia

After registration of the participants and welcome address of Prof. Nikolic, the meeting started with the first session titled "Overview of recent project activities" with special attention to the actual version of Letter of Intent. It was discussed in details about the activities, results (deliverables) and conclusion at recently finished meetings (Regional Meeting in Tuzla, October 20-21, 2016; Training Meeting in Ljubljana, November 10-11, 2016; Technical and Workshop Meeting in Belgrade, November 23-25, 2016; Technical Meeting in Niš, December 8-10, 2017).

It was concluded that all our activities and plans in agendas for previous and future meetings in Belgrade and Podgorica (including this one in Niš) must be agreed and coordinated with the LFM.

The second day meeting started with the session titled "Introduction to broader regional Balkan OER network". The starting point was short presentation about the BOER network and so called step-by-step methodology already delivered during the meeting in Matera (April 2016). Special attention was paid to the process of interconnecting and sharing of uploaded OER documents and best practices.

It was also discused the possibility of implementation and development of BOER with other WB countries and their universities, which are within BAEKTEL consortium but also new ones they are not in yet. It was concluded that the success of the implementation of BOER network depends very much of understanding of international BOER network.

It was discused the possible BOER structure (centrality based university network, BAEKTEL partner's based university network, ...) taking into account concept, framework and organization of BOER Network (so called “Conceptual model of BOER Network”).

The third day meeting started with discussion about the defined strategy and action plan for realization of BOER network, especially from the point of sustainability of BAEKTEL project.

All participants agreed that earlier defined and uploaded BOER Letter of Intent together with modification recently made by Dr. Linzalone can be generally accepted as a first step in development of BOER network.

The participants also agreed that initially BOER network will be established with nodes based in partner's institutions. After that the BOER network will be evaluated as a global network across Balkan. The special attention should be paid to BOER network promotion and clear definition of the role of EU partners in this promotion.

During the fourth day BOER Network benefits were considered. In that sense, it was discussed about possibilities to strengthen institution’s strategic perspective through networking and impact of networking for BAEKTEL higher education institutions and for the network itself.

It was interesting to consider interaction and networking taking into account the interaction phenomena between the higher education institutions at partner's universities.

It was also discussed the possible ways to join the BOER Network. The possibilities that were considered were (i) corporate membership (at national and/or regional level), (ii) individual membership, and (iii) international coordination team membership (with BAEKTEL Consortium members).

The last day was devoted to the consideration of basic BOER Network documents necessary for normal functioning.

The possible models of network expansion were also considered.

It was concluded that the BOER network will/must be open for research institutions and universities, for active researchers from all areas, but for Ph.D. students too.

Discussion about future activities was concerned to the next meetings in Belgrade and Podgorica.

In order to secure functioning and further development of the BAEKTEL platform and BOER network upon the completion of the BAEKTEL project, it was concluded that a list of committee members should be defined within (DEV 7.2). Each partner institution will be represented by two members. It has been suggested that one member could be a student representative (e.g. PhD student). Committee members will be devoted to provide training, technical and organizational support and to ensure continuous inflow of adequate OER.

At the end, the main points of the technical meeting were summarized. It was concluded that the meeting was successful for participants, but for the BAEKTEL project too.

Photo gallery is available on official facebook page [link].