Awards
Guidelines for Submission and Top Paper Review Process
Guidelines for Submission and
Top Paper Review Process
As part of the process of reviewing conference paper submissions and selecting the NYSCA Top Paper Awards, the Vice President Elect, as per the NYSCA constitution, will lead a transparent and comprehensive review process. This process helps NYSCA to ensure a competitive acceptance process for conference submissions and top paper selections. Generally, top paper awards are given for Top Graduate Paper and Top Undergraduate Paper; however, the Vice President, at their discretion, may opt to additionally offer a Faculty Paper Award or opt not to give any award depending on the competitiveness of the submissions. Only full papers are considered. The review process generally involves the following steps:
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Identifying information (name, affiliation, and contact info) is removed through the submission process to ensure papers are blindly reviewed.
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Each completed paper is sorted into a relevant category as appropriate (graduate/undergraduate/faculty).
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A minimum of two volunteer reviewers are recruited for each award category. Reviewers cannot be from the same institution as the paper submitter.
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Reviewers are given a deadline to submit scores. To score papers, reviewers working independently use a standardized rubric. Papers are evaluated based on three criteria: quality of paper (writing & structure), use of theory/methods, and implications/conclusions derived from analysis. Scores from reviewers are tracked in a spreadsheet.
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All papers are distributed to both reviewers. Reviewers who, despite the blind process, are familiar with the submission will recuse themselves.
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Submissions that receive at least one recommendation to ‘accept’ are guaranteed acceptance to the conference. Some submissions may be recommended to be presented as poster sessions.
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Submissions that score the highest in an award category receive the award. In the case of a tie or very close scores, an alternative reviewer, not from any institution with a student paper, is called on to make the final decision (generally the conference planner).