Dr Vasja Vehovar is a full professor of statistics at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His main research areas are internet research, information society indicators, statistics, missing data, survey sampling, social science methodology and web survey methodology.
He completed his undergraduate studies in mathematics and economics at the University of Ljubljana. He also obtained undergraduate and master’s degree in data analysis at University of Essex, UK. He finished master's and doctorate studies in statistics at the University of Ljubljana (PhD thesis: Feld substitutions in survey research). He specialized in sampling at the University of Michigan, USA and became a Fullbright fellow at the Institute for Social Research. He got his first job at the Ministry of Science of Republic of Slovenia and continued his career at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana.
From 1995 to 1996, he was the president of the Statistical Society of Slovenia. He received the award of the Statistical Society of Slovenia in 2019 for advancement of statistical profession in Slovenia.
In 1996, he established the Research on Internet in Slovenia (
RIS) project, which he led until 2007.
From 2003 to 2019, he was one of the founding members of the European Survey Research Associations (
ESRA) and a member of the first executive committee.
In the period 2003-2019 he participated in various methodological activities of the European Social Survey (
ESS) and was the member of the initial Methods Group.
He participated in the launching, maintenance and development of the Web Survey Methodology (
WebSM) website and he coordinated the related EU Framework Program project. With his contribution, the
WebSM (
Sage 2015) monograph was written. In relation to his work on WebSM website he also received the
Warren-Mitofski innovation award in 2009 from the American Association for Survey Research (
AAPOR).
From 2007 he has been continuously developing the open source online survey tool
1KA (OneClickSurvey). Within this context, since 2014 he has been organising annual national professional meetings for survey methodologists, called Web Survey Day (
WSD). In cooperation with the
Statistical Office of Republic of Slovenia and the
National Institute of Public Health, he has alao coordinated the annual
conference on mixed-mode surveys since 2015.
After Slovenia gained independence in the early 1990s, he collaborated with the Statistical Office of Republic of Slovenia in the initial establishment of sampling procedures for official statistics surveys. From 2008 to 2016, he was a member of the
Methodological Council of Statistical Office. From 2002 to 2020 he was a member of the
Council for Statistics of the Digital Society, counselling body of
Statistical office.
Since 2006, he has led the project on safer internet usage; this includes the youth awareness component,
SAFE.si, and a website for reporting illegal online content,
Spletno Oko. He has also worked on combating online hate speech and participated in a number of local and international projects in these areas.
In 2014,he started to develop the standardisation and automation of the processes related to the student evaluation of teaching (SET) at the University of Ljubljana (
ul.1ka.si).
Since 2014, he has headed the
Internet Research Program Group, and from 2011 he was the founding head of the
Centre for Social Informatics (CSI).
With respect to the indicators of the Slovenian Research Agency (
ARRS), his outstanding achievements have placed him among the most prestigious Slovenian researchers in the field of social sciences, and more specifically, the area of
sociological research. His international influence is reflected in a Google Scholar profile of over
7000 citations and a h-index of 33.
He supervised the development of more than a hundred diploma and master's theses. He summarised the corresponding experience in extensive guidelines on diploma thesis writing (
Diplomiranje.si).
He was also a supervisor to 12 doctoral students.
Doctoral students:· Anže Sendelbach (co-mentor Prof. Michel Bosnjak). Media multitasking in web surveys (2017),
· Ana Slavec (co-mentor Prof. Jon Krosnick). Improving survey question wording using language resources (2016),
· Katja Prevodnik (co-mentor Prof. Pavle Sicherl). Methodological aspects of the interpretation of absolute and relative difference and S-time distance (2015),
· Brečko Barbara. Methodological approach to measuring the effects of the use of information and communication technology in education (2015),
· Nejc Berzelak (co-mentor Prof. Edith de Leeuve). Mode effects in web surveys (2014),
· Ana Kolar (co-mentor Prof. Don Rubin). Sample size considerations when using propensity score methods to estimate causal effect (2013),
· Andraž Petrovčič (co-mentor Prof. Leopoldina Fortunati). New communication technologies and the transformation of sociality in late modernity (2011),
· Vesna Dolničar (co-mentor Prof. Pavle Sicherl). Measuring the dynamics of the digital divide: doctoral dissertation. Ljubljana (2007),
· Bojana Lobe (co-mentor Prof. David Morgan). Mixing qualitative and quantitative methods in the environment of new information-communication technologies (2006),
· Jaro Berce (co-mentor Prof. Sam Lafranco). The influence of information society technologies on evolution in the public administration (2006),
· Andrej Kveder (co-mentor Prof. Joop Hox). Multilevel item nonresponse modeling (2005),
· Katja Lozar Manfreda (co-mentor Prof. Mick Couper). Web survey errors (2001).
Education:
1995 PhD, Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia PDF
1993 MA in Social Science Data Analysis, University of Essex, UK
1992 Postgraduate Diploma in Social Science Data Analysis, University of Essex, UK
1992 Sampling specialization, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, USA
1991 Master’s degree, Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
1985 Diploma, Faculty of economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
1984 Diploma, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
1976 Matura exam, Veno Pilon High School, Ajdovščina, Slovenia
Occupation:
2006 Full Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
2000-2006 Associate professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
1998 Fullbright’s scholarship holder, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, USA
1994-1999 Assistant professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
1988-1994 Teaching assistant, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
1986-1988 Consultant for statistics of science and technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Slovenia