Croatian Academic and Research Network – CARNet continued to work on projects and activities in 2015 in line with its vision and mission, promoting the application of advanced information and communication technology within the educational, academic, and research community.
Special emphasis was placed on the planning and implementation of the pilot project titled "e-Schools: Establishing a System for Developing Digitally Mature Schools (pilot project)," on which a team of experts from all departments within CARNet worked throughout the year. e-Schools is a structural project for the development of digitally mature schools, launched by CARNet with the aim of increasing the digital maturity of schools. Its value exceeds 300 million kuna and it is divided into a pilot project (2015-2017) and a large project (2018-2022). The project is mostly financed by structural funds from the European Union and will serve as preparation for the upcoming large national project of computerizing Croatian schools. The project is defined within two Operational Programmes – Competitiveness and Cohesion and Efficient Human Resources and has been accepted by the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the European Commission. Through the programme, CARNet has been defined as the beneficiary of funds and is also implementing the project. The Operational Programme Competitiveness and Cohesion will cover the costs of network infrastructure, equipment, and the development of e-services, while the Operational Programme Efficient Human Resources will provide funds for professional and technical support and the development of digital teaching materials.
In January, the Public Call for participation in the e-Schools project concluded, with over 700 interested schools applying. Following this, 150 schools were selected to participate in the pilot project. From these 150 schools in the pilot phase, 20 were chosen in March to enter the first phase of the project, and a participation agreement for the project was signed with them in April. The Agency for Education and the Agency for Vocational Education and Training were selected as project partners, based on their legal roles within the educational system, along with the Faculty of Organization and Informatics in Varaždin, as an institution with relevant expertise in information sciences and e-learning for the implementation of project components. In September, JASPERS – Joint Assistance in Supporting Projects in European Regions, an instrument of technical assistance from the European Commission, reviewed the project and issued an Action Completion Note on the Feasibility Study, officially confirming the project's readiness. Collaboration was also agreed upon for the development of a Feasibility Study for a large project. In December, within the scope of the project, a “Grant Award Agreement for an operation financed by the European Social Fund in the financial period 2014-2020” was signed for the implementation of this project, amounting to over 78 million Croatian kuna.
e-Dnevnik, a system for keeping electronic class registers, has been implemented in 554 main schools throughout the Republic of Croatia, which have 331 branch schools (a total of 885 schools). The system has been further optimized and upgraded, including upgrades for music schools, schools providing instruction in the language and script of national minorities, and schools providing instruction in healthcare institutions (School in hospital). The National Information System for Secondary School Applications and Admissions has been upgraded and aligned with the new “Ordinance on Elements and Criteria for Selecting Candidates for Admission to the First Grade of Secondary School,” and the “System for Managing Standardized Datasets” (e-Matica) has been upgraded with several new functionalities and aligned with the new “Ordinance on Primary and Secondary Education of Students with Developmental Disabilities.”.
During 2015, numerous tasks were completed regarding the development of new and improvement of existing applications. By actively participating in the e-Citizens project, CARNet upgraded the mToken credential for issuance via proxy, which is used for accessing public electronic services within the e-Citizens project. During the past year, an application for the CARNet User Council's voting and a User Portal (https://moj.carnet.hr/) were created, and several internal applications and web services were redesigned.
Two new services for end-users have been designed and developed independently or in cooperation with partners – Meduza and Libar. Libar is CARNet's new online application and service for creating, publishing, and viewing digital content, accessible through an AAI@Edu.hr user account. It also functions as a mobile app with all the capabilities of an e-reader. Meduza is a service for distributing multimedia content intended for educational and academic institutions, as well as individual users of CARNet member institutions. Meduza is an acronym for M(ultimedia)EDU(cation)ON(demand) and was used during CUC for live streaming of lectures, workshops, and other conference events. During the three-day conference, the service recorded 7,169 content views, 1,217 unique users, and 654 concurrent users, with as many as 300 users registering for the service.
In November, as part of the international project Inspiring Science Education in which CARNet actively participates, a massive open online course (MOOC) on the basics of using educational trends and digital tools in teaching began. The course concluded in December and attracted over 1,100 participants. The third group of CARNet's course “CARNet Moodle MOOC” successfully concluded in April, gathering more than 250 interested participants. Throughout the year, 13 educational workshops were organized in 8 cities in the Republic of Croatia, along with 3 webinars and 5 live broadcasts of expert lectures. Collaboration with the University of Zagreb also took place in the development of the e-Learning Academy as a postgraduate specialist study program. CARNet's online learning system, Loomen, recorded 85,000 users. The Portal for Schools celebrated its 8th anniversary, published over 1,400 articles, and co-organized the "School Laboratory" competition in cooperation with the British Council and the Agency for Education.
The month of April was marked by the holding of the 2nd Student Day "Contemporary Technologies in Education – STO 2015" in Split, which was jointly organized by CARNet and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Split as the host, and the Croatian Pedagogical Literature Association – Split branch. Its aim was to provide students – future teachers, instructors, and professors, as well as other interested participants, with insight into new approaches to teaching supported by technology.
Under the title "New Schools," the 17th CARNet User Conference – CUC 2015 was held in Dubrovnik in November. The conference was organized under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Croatia, Ms. Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, and the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport, with the support of the City of Dubrovnik. More than 820 participants attended the conference, making it the largest CARNet User Conference ever organized. Through video streaming on CARNet's new Meduza portal, conference content was also partially available to those who did not attend. The conference was partially co-financed within the framework of the "e-Schools: Establishment of a System for the Development of Digitally Mature Schools (pilot project)" project.
CARNet members are institutions from the science and education system, and throughout the year connections were maintained to 1,450 member institutions at over 2,530 locations. More than 260 new institutions or institution locations were connected, the operator was changed at 157 locations, and the access connection speed was increased at 88 locations. Cooperation agreements were also signed with the Ministry of Health and the Croatian Pension Insurance Fund, and the active connection of their institutions and locations began. During the year, in addition to maintaining permanent connections to members and connecting new members, the CARNet network continued to be actively built and monitored, and new services were developed. At the beginning of May 2015, a new generation of the international GÉANT project – GÉANT4 was launched, which will be carried out under the auspices of the FPA (Fulfilling Potential Agreement). Framework Partnership Agreement) in multiple phases and will last for seven years. The GÉANT4 project, as part of the GÉANT2020 framework partnership agreement, is funded by the European Union through the Horizon 2020 program, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020). The first phase of the project will have the official name GÉANT4 SGA1 (Specific Grant Agreement and will last for 12 months (from May 1, 2015 to April 30, 2016). CARNet is the official representative of Croatia in the project and continues to contribute actively, where, in addition to a large number of employees participating in the project, it will also have the leader of project activity SA4 (Activity Leader) and several task leaders (Task Leader).
The customer support department successfully responded to nearly 160,000 user inquiries over the course of the year. Of the total number of calls, more than 60% were directed to the educational system support team.
The year concluded with a total of 60,000 free .hr domains and over 28,000 paid domains, while the total number of domains in the .hr Domain Registry was nearly 92,000. The total number of .from.hr domains at the end of the year was almost 2,600. In February, CARNet signed a Cooperation Agreement on National Domain Registries with the "National Internet Domain Registry of Serbia" Foundation (RNIDS), which manages the .rs and .СРБ domains in the Republic of Serbia, and representatives of the .hr Domain Registry participated in the "Regional Internet Forum" organized by the RNIDS Foundation in March 2015. In July, the Rulebook on Amendments and Supplements to the Rulebook on the Structure and Management of the Top-Level National Internet Domain came into effect, which, among other things, equalizes the rights to name free .hr domains for trades and legal entities, allows legal and natural persons to register an unlimited number of paid .hr domains, and permits the registration of numerical domains. In May, CARNet representatives actively participated in the organization and implementation of the Croatian Internet Governance Forum.
The National CERT issued nearly 2,300 security recommendations and a new edition of the brochure "Protect Your Privacy on Facebook," and processed over 760 security incidents on servers within the Republic of Croatia. It actively participated for the third time in the NATO exercise "Cyber Coalition 2015," and participated in the development of the National Cyber Security Strategy, and was the leader in the fight against botnets as part of the European project Advanced Cyber Defence Network, which concluded in July 2015. During the year, 4,300 reports were also processed by CARNet's Abuse service, and 250 vulnerability checks were performed on publicly available network services and services of member institutions. Mass vulnerability scanning software was used to check over 900 more networks of CARNet member institutions.
Throughout the year, most of CARNet's departments were involved in at least one of the 11 European projects being implemented at CARNet. It's worth highlighting that in 2015, six projects were successfully completed (ACDC, GÉANT3plus, ICT Curricula, AMORES, ODS, Empowering CARNet employees in Social Media, Adult Education and Leadership), while five remain active (GÉANT4 SGA1, ATS 2020, Inspiring Science Education (ISE), SCIENTIX, "e-Schools: Establishment of a System for the Development of Digitally Mature Schools (pilot project)"). The Inspiring Science Education (ISE) project also includes 423 schools that are now actively participating in the project.