ASC Best Paper Award

(3/3/03)

1. INTRODUCTION

From the papers included in the Proceedings for each Annual Technical Conference, the Society Awards Committee shall select one or two papers that it judges to be best. The authors of these papers shall be declared winners of the Best Paper Award for that Technical Conference.

2.1 Form of the Awards

2.1.1 Each Best Paper Award shall consist of a plaque with the author’s name declaring him or her to be a winner of the Best Paper Award. The plaque shall include the number of the Technical Conference and the date of the conference. In the case of multiple authors, each co-author will receive a plaque.

2.1.1 Each paper award shall be $500, to be divided evenly among the authors. In the case of multiple authors, each author shall receive at least $100.

2.1.3 The Awards shall be presented at the subsequent Technical Meeting.

2.2 Author qualifications

2.2.1 The authors do not have to be members of ASC.

2.2.2 The authors do not have to be citizens nor residents of the United States.

3.1 Paper selection process

3.1.1 Session Chairs at the Annual Technical Conference shall fill out the Best Paper Nomination forms for their sessions and submit them to the Society Vice President, who is the chair of the Awards Committee (a committee consisting of the Vice President and the two most recent Society Presidents, not including the current President).

3.1.2 Following the Annual Technical Conference, the Vice President shall distribute the Session Chairs’ Best Paper Nomination forms to the appropriate current Technical Division Chairs.

3.1.3 Each current Technical Division Chair shall review the Session Chairs’ Best Paper Nomination Forms and submit to the Vice President up to two selections following the Technical Conference.

3.1.4 The Awards Committee shall review the Technical Division Chairs’ recommendations and select one or two overall ASC Best Papers to be announced at the next Annual Technical Conference.

3.2 Selection schedule

3.2.1 Best Paper Nomination forms shall be distributed to Session Chairs prior to their sessions.

3.2.2 Before the end of the Annual Technical Conference at which the papers were presented, Session Chairs shall submit to the Vice President their respective Best Paper Nomination forms. If the Proceedings are not available at the Technical Conference, the Nomination forms shall be submitted within two weeks following provision of the Proceedings to the Session Chairs.

3.2.3 As soon as possible after selections by the Session Chairs have been submitted to the Vice President, the Vice President shall instruct the Technical Division Chairs to begin the process of evaluating the appropriate papers.

3.2.4 By April 1 of the year following the Technical Conference at which the papers were presented, each Technical Division Chair shall submit to the Vice President the titles, authors and contact information for the one or two papers selected as best papers in the respective division.

3.2.5 By May 1, the Awards Committee shall select one or two overall ASC Best Papers and the Vice President shall inform the Executive Committee of the outcome.

3.2.6 The authors of the Best Paper Awards shall be notified, in writing, as soon as possible after May 1.

3.3 Selection guidelines

3.3.1 The papers should be judged on the clarity and conciseness of the statement of the objectives of the work, and the clarity and conciseness of the statement of the approaches, procedures, and methodologies for achieving these objectives.

3.3.2 A summary of important conclusions should be included, and these should be substantiated. The significance of the findings, how they contribute to the state of the art, and how they relate to the work of other investigators should be easily determined from the writing.

3.3.3 Effective use of tables and figures, and ease of understanding them, including units, dimensions, legends, labels, symbol and line types and colors, etc., should be considered.

3.3.4 Effective use of section and subsection titles can enhance a paper’s organization and should be evaluated.

3.3.5 The technical merit of the work is, of course, very important, and all of the above criteria should be considered in this context. It is possible to have a very neat, effective presentation that talks about nothing.

4.1 Record of the selection process

After the awards have been announced to the Executive Committee, it is the duty of the Chair of the Awards Committee to properly file the selection results so they are available for later consultation, if necessary. The file should include a list of all papers considered for each particular Division, the names of the Session Chairs and Technical Division Chairs involved in the collection of nomination forms and the selection process, and the results of any scheme to rank the papers.