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Pursuant to Article 37, Paragraph 2 and 3, of the Statute of the Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska ("Official Gazette of the Republic of Srpska", number: 61/20), the Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska announces a Public Competition for members of the Committee for Appeals and Complaints, which you may find here.

Assistant Director for Accreditation and International Cooperation Duska Radmanovic attended on May 12, 2021 the session of the Executive Board of the Central and Eastern European Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (CEENQA) as a member of the Board.

The Board discussed preparations for the fourth bi-monthly meeting of all CEENQA agencies, scheduled for May 19, 2021, to present topics of virtual visits during the pandemic, as well as the participation of key stakeholders in the work of the agencies.

The Executive Board discussed the topics for the upcoming General Assembly, and decided to hold the assemblies online in October 2021. The Assembly will have two working groups, the first dedicated to the way agencies work during the epidemic, and the second to the way higher education institutions work in the stated conditions.

Board member Olgun Cicek coordinates the work of the first working group, and Radmanovic coordinates the work of the second working group in front of the Executive Board.

Radmanovic has been a member of the CEENQA Executive Board since April 2017, and has also served as vice president of the network.

The Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska held on May 14, 2021, the second seminar for representatives of higher education institutions of the Republic of Srpska. The bibliometric basis of ranking was presented in the seminar, which makes one of the important components of the criteria to be used when evaluating higher education institutions.

The seminar was held through the Zoom application. Prof. Pero Sipka, PhD, from the Center for Evaluation in Education and Science, delivered the presentation on the method of collecting and processing data of the scientific impact of academic staff from institutions that will be the subject of ranking. Prof. Pero Sipka, PhD, is a member of the Expert Team in charge of the ranking project.

During the presentation of the bibliometric basis of ranking, he specifically referred to the principles of evaluation of scientific impact, as well as reference bibliographic citation databases that will be the source of data search. He explained that in addition to the reference international database Web of Science, which includes 24,200 scientific journals, the regional databases of Southeast Europe SEESAmE, the regional database SCI Index, a sample of national journals in the Republic of Srpska will also be taken into account, which is more than 1000 additional scientific journals in which authors from institutions in the Republic of Srpska publish their papers.

Sipka emphasized that scientific productivity will be measured in two dimensions, productivity, and influence and that a modality would be sought to assign different weighting factors to papers and citations depending on the level of excellence of the journal in which they were published.

In addition to scientific research work, the ranking criteria, which are based on the Berlin ranking principles, the other two missions of the university will be evaluated, ie teaching and cooperation with businesses, and society at large.

As a reminder, the expert team consists of:

• Darko Petković, PhD, from the University of Zenica (team leader),
• Mile Dzelalija,PhD, from the University of Split, Croatia
• Pero Shipka,PhD, from the Center for Evaluation in Education and Science, Belgrade, Serbia and
• Tadeja Jere Jakulin,PhD from the University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia. 

The seminar was attended by more than fifty representatives of higher education institutions from Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the expert team, the Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance in BiH, the Center for Information and Recognition, students, media and the Agency for Higher Education of the Republika of Srpska.

The first seminar that presented a general approach to ranking was held on April 27, 2021, and all materials from the seminar are available on the website of the agency https://www.avors.org/index.php/sr/rangiranje-vsu.

Another seminar is planned in the future for representatives of higher education institutions, with the aim of a more detailed explanation of other criteria and weighting factors of the criteria that will be taken into account when ranking institutions.

In order to prepare for the second seminar for representatives of higher education institutions, the Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska organized a meeting of the Expert Ranking Team, which was held on May 11, 2021. via the Zoom app.

As part of the preparations for the ranking of higher education institutions in the Republic of Srpska, a series of seminars for representatives of higher education institutions are being held, and the second seminar "Bibliometric Basis of Ranking" is planned for Friday, May 14, 2021. when a member of the Expert Team prof. Pero Sipka, PhD, from the Center for Evaluation in Education will present the method of collecting and processing bibliometric data.

The meeting discussed the methodology of data collection, relevant scientific journals that will be taken into account, and other issues of importance for the upcoming seminar.

The expert ranking team consists of the following composition:

•  prof. Dr. Darko Petković from the University of Zenica (team leader),
•  prof. Dr. Mile Dzelalija from the University of Split, Croatia
•  prof. Dr. Pero Shipka from the Center for Evaluation and Evaluation, Belgrade, Serbia and
•  prof. Dr. Tadeja Jere Jakulin from the University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia.