SciTech 2015 SDM Student Paper Competition Update to Structures Technical Committee

1. SciTech 2015 SDM Student Paper Competition Update to Structures Technical Committee Dawn Phillips (Student Paper Chair) September 11, 2014

2. SDM Student Paper Competition • For those who don’t know..... • Five awards: • Jefferson Goblet • Structures - Lockheed • Structures - Hilton • Composites • NDA (new this year!!) • Preceding years procedure: • All accepted student final manuscripts collected, distributed, judged within 7 days (±) after manuscript deadline closed • Finalists required to present papers twice: • Regular technical session • “Judging” session on Sunday night or Tuesday night • Sunday night presented travel difficulties • Tuesday night meant some students had already presented their paper once, some hadn’t • Approximately 6 finalists selected for 4 awards

3. New Procedure For SciTech 2015 • Big task! – make sure presentations are judged in their regular sessions at SciTech! • Solution – have three rounds of judging: • Semi-finalists selected based on extended abstracts (three judges per abstract) • Finalists selected based on final manuscripts • Winners selected based on manuscript scores and at-conference presentations • Big change #1 – semi-final round changed sessioning work load on TC Reps • Solicited feedback from organizing committee, worked with John K. (SDM Technical Chair) to develop schedule • Student manuscripts required to be submitted one month earlier than regular conference deadline (ScholarOne will be locked at 5:01pm EST on November 3, 2014) • Big change #2 – judges have more time and fewer manuscripts to read

4. Student Presentations • Two options – final choice depended on decision about awards presentation • Awards presented at SDM awards lunch on Thursday – judge in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday sessions • Awards presented at special ceremony (or welcome reception) on Tuesday evening – judge all finalists in two special sessions on Monday (still requires students to present twice, but circumstances different) • Big change #3 – more finalists can be selected, bigger pool of papers • Planning to select 15 finalists for 5 awards • Worked with John K. to persuade AIAA to give student awards at SDM awards lunch(decision finally made on July 1) • Big change #4 – student presentations will be judged in their regular technical sessions among their peers • Big change #5 – student winners will be given complimentary tickets to the awards lunch (bonus!)

5. Abstract Statistics • 91 student abstracts submitted – semi-final judging concurrent with abstract reviews • Cut-off score of 75 • Pretty even scoring across TCs • Selectively stretched cut-off to 70 to include SUR and extra papers from STR and NDA • Roughly half from each TC selected as semi-finalists (none that were rejected by normal review process) • Judges’ recommendations for special awards really helped This many instead! This many to session/judge without semi-final round. Pretty Close!

6. Conference Sessions • Sessioning worked beautifully! • ALL 47 student semi-finalists were placed in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday sessions • Entire conference program delivered to me to deconflict student papers • Contacted each TC Rep with individual requests to move papers (the response was awesome!) • Managed to get no more than two student papers overlapping at a time • Not very many occurrences • Used abstract scores as predictor to which abstracts will likely be finalists (NO instances where highest scoring abstracts overlap each other) • Thought is that none of the 15 finalists will overlap. If they do, judges will only need to divide & conquer into two groups

7. Remaining Tasks • Finalist selection: • All dates selected to work around holiday schedules! • Manuscript judging (47 manuscripts) for finalist selection – November 3-14, 2014 • Will use 4-5 judges per paper – opportunity for cross-TC judging • Finalists notified n.l.t. December 8, 2014 • Finalists’ manuscript scores will be combined with presentation scores for winner selection • At-conference presentation judging: • Presentation judges will have to hop rooms! • Will be a big job – need people who can dedicate to the task • Don’t want conflicts with session chairs or presentation of own papers • Likely have two types of judges: • Core group of judges who can hit all 15 papers • Extra judges who can tag-team accompanying the core group for a few papers • Will want special STR and NDA representation since they have special awards So far, so good. Desire is to effect positive and lasting change to the competition.

8. Back-up

9. SciTech 2015 Master Schedule

10. Abstract Judging Criteria

11. Manuscript Judging Criteria Plan to use same as previous years: Option: use 15-pt scale for wider/clearer spread of scores?

12. Presentation Judging Criteria Plan to use same as previous years:

13. Comparison to Previous Years * First year of transition to SciTech † Additional STR finalists identified and judged separately

14. Observations • Some (not much, but some) confusion over new procedure • Casualty of doing semi-final judging at same time as abstract reviews • New ideas take time to catch on... • The “pat on the back”: Structures TC incredibly responsive and cooperative • Proactive about asking questions and getting clarification • Recruited judges when requested • Judges followed instructions