Procedures

    SUMMARY:

    • The contest is open to all high school students in Qatar and requires students to research current-day issues in Qatar and design a relevant and informative website.

      Some examples of issues that the contestants may choose are: raising awareness about the dangers of speeding on the roads, school e-learning, school Intranet, school libraries, environmental conservation, the campaign for national literacy, raising awareness about public health, etc.

    • Participants in the contest may choose any topic for their intended website design, as long as it is relevant and useful to Qatar.

    • Students can work individually or in pairs, under the supervision of a school mentor (from the same school in which the contestant(s) are enrolled).

    • Contestant(s) will be able to submit their achievements on the contest website, starting from 23 November, 2008, and before the submission deadline on 19th March, 2009.

    • Panels of independent jury members will then rate the submitted web designs using the set of contest criteria developed by the department of Computer Science and Engineering. The criteria is available here.

    • The jury panel selects the best (highest scored) three web design projects.

    • The winners of the QU_WSC’09 will be announced and awarded prizes at the final award ceremony, held on the 20th of April, 2009. 

    • Prizes for the winning finalists include cash awards and a scholarship to study at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.




    JUDGING PROCESS:

    A jury panel is composed of independent experts in Web design, mostly drawn from the Computer Science program at QU, high schools, and probably from the industry. They will examine all the submissions, apply the predefined Award Criteria, rate the contestants and select the best three web designs by the mid of April 2009. To ensure fairness and impartiality in treating contestants the judging process is divided into four phases:

    1. Submission phase
    2. Screening phase
    3. Assessment phase
    4. Selection phase



    The responsibilities of each panel and the required deliverables are given below.

    1. Submission Phase
      • Keep track of all submissions details: applicants' details and project file(s).
      • Prepare all submitted projects on the contest database.
      • Prepare a report that contains all information about each submission as received from the submission Website.

    2. Screening Phase
      • The panel involved in this phase is responsible for the following tasks;
      • Scans through each submission, and disqualify any submission that violates the rules of the contest. Disqualification reasons can be either of the following:
        • Page contents are clearly considered offensive to the local community, culture, or religion, or
        • Page contents are copied from existing websites, or
        • Page contents are unauthentic, e.g. outsourcing and/or samples produced by development software.
      • Produce a report that contains information about each submission. The report should be ready by 22/3/2009 and it should contain the screening decision: 
        • Disqualified submissions: A clear justification statement should be provided as an entry with each disqualified submission.
        • Qualified submissions: recommendation if extra technical preparation is required for the project.
      • Randomly assign projects to jury panels, ensuring that no juror evaluates a project from his/her own school

    3. Assessment Phase

      Throughout this phase several jury panels will be involved to assess each project. Each jury panel consists of three faculty members in addition to two school teacher. Contest coordinator will assign qualified projects to different panels equally.

      • Each member in the jury panel should provide his/her own evaluation independently. Scores are offered on a 1-10 scale, based on every rating criterion; Content, Design, Functionality, and Originality.
      • The score of each project is calculated using the following formula:
        Score= 0.4 * Content + 0.3 * Design + 0.2 * Functionality + 0.1 * Originality
      • Produce a report that includes detailed assessment information, the score, and any other comments/actions for consideration by the Selection jury. 

    4. Selection Phase
      • For this phase a Selection Jury panel is formed from the contest coordinator and two members from each jury panel. The selection panel is responsible for the following tasks;
      • Receive reports of the best 3-4 projects (highest scored) from each jury panel.
      • Has the right to invite any contestant for 10-15 minutes presentation and defense. Failure of the invitee to attend will disqualify his/her project from the contest.
      • Propose to university management the list of the top three winners who contributed to the website design projects that achieved the highest score.