Never mind: through reading a ton of posts and trying things I figured it out.
For those who are still clueless - in order to render hair from e.g. daz studio or poser, it comes with mesh (an .obj file), color maps and transparency maps.
What you do is this: export the obj file from daz (or poser) and include all the materials. When you import the .obj into octane your mesh has input nodes for the various materials which correspond to the layers of hair strips. Each of the hair strips has an associated color map and transparency map. Go through them one by one, assigning a glossy material to each one. For the color texture set the texture to image and choose the corresponding color map. Additionally in each glossy texture for each layer assign the transparency maps as images to both the bump and the opacity slots. Also set the normal to 0.14.
The settings are by no means perfect but at least they render in something like a semblance of hair instead of solid wood.