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IEEE AP-S Student Paper Competition Rules and Guidelines

Last Updated: November 30, 2023

1. General Information
   1. Only one SPC submission per student is allowed.
   2. The student does NOT have to be a member of IEEE.
   3. For consideration in the SPC, the student:
      1. must be the first author on the paper,
      2. must be the only student author,
      3. must be a student at the time of the paper submission deadline, and
      4. does not need to be a student at the time of conference presentation. However, the submission must cover work performed while the student author was enrolled at an academic institution.
   4. The student’s primary advisor must respond to an email that will be sent to the advisor’s educational institution address after the paper is submitted. The response will certify that the student meets the conditions in A.3 and that all coauthors’ contributions to the paper are primarily advisory or editorial. Response to the advisor attestation must be received by January 23, 2024 (23h 59m UTC-12 hours). If a response is not received by the attestation deadline, the paper will not be eligible for the SPC but will be eligible for the conference. The student’s primary advisor must be from a degree-granting institution. Students are encouraged to notify their advisors in advance so that replies are received prior to the attestation deadline.
   5. The student’s advisor and coauthors cannot be members of the IEEE AP-S SPC Committee.
   6. All SPC papers will be judged using a double-blind review process. In double-blind reviews, the identities of the authors are withheld from the reviewers in addition to the usual practice of having the identities of the reviewers withheld from the authors. Therefore, a student must submit two versions of the SPC paper to the website — one without any identifying information, including authors' names, affiliations, funding sources, etc., and one intended for publication in the Symposium proceedings that includes authors' names and affiliations, etc. Other than the identifying information, the two versions of the paper should be identical. For more information and guidelines regarding the preparation of an SPC paper, please see the following instructions.
   7. All SPC entries are automatically considered for placement in regular symposium sessions, depending on acceptance or rejection as determined in the review process. In other words, a second submission of the same paper is NOT needed to be considered for regular or special session placement. SPC finalists will, in addition to a regular/special symposium session, present their papers in a special SPC session as described below.
2. Preparation and Submission of Papers for Double Blind Review
   
   Please read the following instructions carefully before preparing a paper for submission. Failure to follow all instructions below will result in the removal of the paper from the competition and its placement in the regular submission paper pool.
   1. The double-blind review process requires that each student competitor upload two versions of their paper:
      1. A PDF version of the paper for double-blind review - no authors, institutions, funding sources, etc., in the text and no identifying attributes in the PDF file information (available by selecting "Properties..." in the File menu in Acrobat Reader). If the paper includes an Acknowledgements section, the text in that section must be removed to satisfy this requirement; the section title may remain to preserve paper formatting. This text must be deleted and removed from the paper; text color changes or other redaction methods to obscure text will not be permitted.
      2. A PDF version of the paper for inclusion for publication in the Symposium proceedings (exactly the same paper as in (a), but with authors, affiliations, funding sources, acknowledgements, etc., included).
   2. Authors must not use more than two (2) self-citations in the reference list. Note that self-citations include any references authored by any of the coauthors. Authors must cite work only available in the open literature with an official publication date at least 15 days prior to the submission deadline. Work in review or on schedule to be published does not qualify as being in the open literature.
   3. Authors must avoid referring to their own work in the first person context in the submission text. As one example, authors should NOT describe their prior work with phrases like:

      "Previously [3], we presented an antenna that..."

      Instead, authors should refer to their work in the third person, for example:

      "Previously, Chen [3] presented an antenna that..."

      In this way, the full citation to Chen [3] can still be given, for example:

      [3] Chen, J., "Analysis of antenna with ...

   4. Regarding reference lists:
      1. Authors must NOT remove the entire reference list;
      2. Authors must NOT leave out any references;
      3. Authors must NOT replace the text of reference listings with anything that could indicate the reference refers to their prior work
      4. All author names must appear for papers in the reference list. Shortening a reference citation with "et al." is not permitted in the reference list, as noted in the AP-S paper template.
   5. Authors must prepare their submissions (both blinded and regular versions of the paper) as required by the Paper Submission Guidelines. Consistent with IEEE and AP-S Policies for conference and journal papers, the submission must be in the standard 2-page, 2-column AP-S Summary format and can only be submitted to AP-S topics (URSI one-page Abstracts or submission to URSI topics are not permitted).
   6. Authors must be careful to avoid self-plagiarism. Consistent with IEEE and AP-S Policies for conference and journal papers the submission must present substantially new work when compared with any other material submitted to, presented at, or published in other conferences or journals by any of the coauthors. Self-plagiarism will result in the removal of the paper from the SPC.
   7. Upon submission authors are required to go through a checklist verifying that the rules and guidelines specified in this section have been followed. Completion of the checklist will be required in order to successfully submit the student paper into the competition. The checklist is as follows:
      1. I verify that none of the coauthors on this paper are students.
      2. I verify that my advisor’s educational institution email address is entered correctly in order to receive the attestation message.
      3. I have notified my advisor in advance that they will be receiving an email once my paper has been submitted. My advisor is aware that they must respond to this email by January 23, 2024 (23h 59m UTC-12 hours).
      4. I verify that I have removed the author listing, author affiliations, and funding acknowledgments and any other author or institution-identifying information from the blind version of the paper.
      5. I verify that all references to all prior work (including my own and that of other coauthors) are made in the third person.
      6. I verify that no more than two self-citations are included in the reference list and understand that self-references include any of my coauthors.
      7. I verify that all references cited have been published officially in the public domain/open literature at least 15 days prior to the submission deadline.
   8. Failure to follow all instructions will result in the removal of the paper from the competition and its placement in the regular submission paper pool. Due to the timeline of the review process, no resubmissions or corrections are permitted
      A sample paper has been provided in its two versions. The first paper shows the paper submitted for the regular program, while the second paper shows the paper submitted for the double blind review evaluation.
      • Regular Paper
      • Double Blind Paper
      Please note that these examples use older templates; the correct templates can be found here Questions regarding the preparation and submission of papers for the competition should be directed to the APS Student Paper Competition Committee at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
3. Evaluation of Written Submissions
   1. A panel of reviewers from the Society’s membership including researchers from industry, laboratories, and universities is assembled to evaluate all qualifying SPC submissions.
   2. Three independent double-blind reviews for each submission are obtained from a selected panel of reviewers who are experts in the student's field of study and who are not associated with the student in any way. A double-blind review process is used as described above. At least two of the reviewers must indicate the submission is acceptable for a paper to be accepted into the competition. Note that faculty advisors and other collaborators with students in the competition are not permitted to serve as reviewers or SPC committee members in the competition. Students and coauthors are permitted to serve as reviewers for non-SPC paper submissions.
   3. The written submission evaluation criteria are:
      1. Quality of written paper (e.g., clarity, organization, figure size, style, etc.)
      2. Sufficient depth and breadth of research work
      3. Innovation and impact of research work
      4. Verification and/or validation of results reported in paper
   4. Upon completion of all of the reviews, the SPC Committee assembles a list of the top papers based solely on the numerical scores obtained in the reviews. Student authors of the top-scoring papers will be invited as Finalists to the presentation phase of the contest. Also designated by this process is a list of student authors recognized as Honorable Mentions. Students designated as Finalists and Honorable Mentions will be provided with a monetary award to help defray expenses associated with Symposium attendance, which is collected at or after the Symposium upon successful completion of their presentation. Finalist and Honorable Mention student competitors who are unable to attend the Symposium for any reason are not eligible to receive this monetary award. Awardees are still eligible to receive the award even if they have graduated since their paper was submitted. The awards are also not awardable to any substitute presenters of the student papers, as the sole purpose of the award is to offset student travel costs. All applicable taxes are the responsibility of the award recipient. All recipients will be required to complete a United States Internal Revenue Service Form W-8 or W-9 before award funds will be disbursed. Instructions for how to complete this step will be provided in the announcement message for Finalist and Honorable Mention award winners.
   5. Each selected Finalist and Honorable Mention awardee must be registered as a student for the Symposium AND must attend and present their paper for award consideration. If the Symposium allows online participation, all awardees must present their work live, to include question and answer periods after the presentation, in person, in order to receive their monetary award. Finalists are required to attend the Finalist session and present their work to the judges as described below.
4. Evaluation of Finalist Presentations
   1. All student finalists will present their papers at a poster session held during the Symposium. Student authors must present their own paper at this poster session; substitute presenters will not be eligible for consideration as finalists in the competition.
   2. The SPC Committee assembles a panel of several individuals from the Society's membership who will judge the presentations during SPC final session. The SPC Committee will determine the exact composition of the judging panel before the presentation session, and will ensure that the expertise of the judging panel reflects the wide range of technical topics across the field of interest of the Society.
   3. Each judge is provided with a score sheet that lists the names of all presenters with paper titles. After reviewing all presentations, the judges score the presentations based on the following criteria. The scores submitted by the judges are final except in case of a tie (see #5 below):
      1. Quality of presentation (e.g., clarity, organization, figure size/arrangements, style, etc.)
      2. Sufficient depth and breadth of research work
      3. Innovation and impact of research work
      4. Verification and/or validation of results reported
      5. Clarity and depth in addressing the judges’ questions
   4. The SPC Committee tallies the scores submitted by the judges and determines the total score for each competitor. The top five scored competitors will be the five winners in the SPC competition.
   5. In the event of a tie for any of the placements, the SPC Committee, in consultation with the final judging panel, will meet and make the tie-breaking decisions.
5. Awards
   1. The SPC Committee Chair or their designate will announce the five winners at the Symposium's Annual Awards Ceremony.
   2. A monetary award and a certificate/plaque will be given to each student paper competition winner. The monetary awards are $1250 for first place, $1000 for second place, $750 for third place, $500 for 4th place, and $250 for the fifth place.
   3. All applicable taxes are the responsibility of the award recipient. All recipients will be required to complete a United States Internal Revenue Service Form W-8 or W-9 before award funds will be disbursed.
   4. The primary distribution method for all monetary awards is intended to be by check, available for pickup at the Symposium. Wire transfers can also be arranged, but awardees should anticipate at least 6 weeks of processing time after the conclusion of the Symposium.