GUIDELINES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT POSTER COMPETITION
IV: GUIDELINES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT POSTER COMPETITION
Applicants for the Undergraduate Student Poster Competition must be members of SEDAAG and submit their information via the Online Submission Form with their basic contact information, and a title, by the Friday, September 21, 2018 deadline. Please select as the submission type ‘Undergraduate Poster’ and provide the title of your project. Abstracts DO NOT need to be submitted until Friday, October 12, 2018 to Dr. Jennifer Rahn at jlrahn@samford.edu.
Important Note: In the past, the online system has prevented students from completing their submissions, since no attachment is required by SEDAAG, but the system expects one! We are currently looking into fixing this problem for the undergraduate honors competition. However, if you are experiencing problems completing your submission, please submit your name and title a duplicate time on a .docx file attachment to complete submission.
Eligibility:
To be eligible to participate in the Undergraduate Student Poster Competition, the undergraduate student must have been enrolled in a geography program and be in residence at the sponsoring department at the time his or her research was conducted. The sponsoring department must be located within the SEDAAG region. Master level students who have graduated since completing their research may present their posters at the first SEDAAG meeting following their undergraduate graduation.
Posters should represent original research. Maps, illustrations, and other audiovisual materials should be designed and constructed by the student author. No multiple authored posters will be accepted. Posters should consist of undergraduates as the sole author (supervisors and other students involved in the research can be mentioned on the poster, however only one student can author and present each poster).
All topics broadly related to geography may be entered and will be ensured of a critical and impartial evaluation.
Evaluation Procedures:
All posters must be submitted in the correct format and by the deadlines.
Friday, September 21 — Online Submission Form
with basic contact information (see above for more details).
Friday, October 12 —Abstract Submission email to Dr. Rahn at jlrahn@samford.edu
Each poster submitted to the undergraduate student poster competition will be evaluated by the Education Committee for its quality of original research undertaken by the author and for its oral presentation and defense. Education Committee members will anonymously review and judge the posters during the undergraduate student poster competition.
The posters must be prepared with care and treated as one prepares a manuscript for possible publication. Primary criterion will be background outlining related literature, research objective(s)/question(s), research design/methods, results, conclusions, and bibliography. Failure to provide any of these criteria will result in receiving low marks in the judging competition.
The oral examination will focus on the professional quality of the presentation and the adequacy with which questions are answered. It is important that the oral presentations be lively and well-illustrated. In order to leave adequate time for questions, each oral presentation should aim for a 3-5 minute presentation.
The visual evaluation of the poster will include quality, appropriateness, and visual appeal of maps, figures and illustrations. Materials should be legible from a distance of one to three feet with text confined to brief statements. All visual aids should be intelligible and have subtitles. Maximum poster dimensions are 36’ by 48″.
The weight for each category is 30 percent for the written component, 30 percent for the oral defense and 40 percent for its visual acuity.
Abstract Submission Guidelines:
Email abstracts to Dr. Rahn at jlrahn@samford.edu by October 12, 2018. Submissions received after this deadline will not be accepted for consideration. Additionally, submissions received without SEDAAG registration will not be accepted for consideration.
The subject of your email must read SEDAAG 2018 undergraduate poster competition.
The contents of the email must include all of the following in this order.
- First name
- Last name
- Institutional affiliation
- Supervisor’s name
- Email address of supervisor
- SEDAAG registration confirmation order number (provided after submitting the online submission form by Sept 21)
- Poster title
250-word maximum abstract