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.