The purpose of the Student Paper Competition is to encourage student participation in the 31st DASC as well as to recognize outstanding technical contributions from individual students. The student papers will be integrated into the appropriate technical session to encourage discussion with other academic, industry, and government participants.

Competition Rules

• All students wishing to participate in the competition are required to follow the regular conference submission process for papers. Papers must be identified as Student Paper Competition Submissions during the electronic submission process. Student authors must state whether they are undergraduate or graduate students during paper submission.
• To be considered for an award, students must have full-time student status by the time the final paper is submitted. A full-time student means that a student enrolls for a minimum of nine hours per semester as a graduate or twelve hours per semester for an undergraduate. For example, a student graduating on August 1, 2012 is eligible to participate in the Paper Competition if he or she submits the final paper before the graduation date, although the person may no longer be a student at the time of the conference in October.
• The students are required to submit a school registration confirmation letter that indicates his or her registration or student status. Failure to provide this letter will result in disqualification for the competition.
• Multiple authors are allowed. However, the first author must be a student. The student(s) write the paper and play a major role in the work presented in the paper. Professional co-authors (such as faculty) involved in the research are acceptable provided that they are the last authors. Faculty, please remember that this is a student paper contest.
• Student papers will be evaluated for acceptance by the Technical Paper Review Committee. Only those papers that are accepted for presentation at the conference and have been identified as Student Paper Submissions become eligible for participating in the Student Paper Competition.
• The award selection is based on the same criteria used for judging best papers in the conference as a whole, including technical content, originality, application, and style. The rewards for graduates and undergraduates are separate. Student papers will also be considered for the best paper in the session, the track, and conference awards, and may receive those awards in addition to the Student Paper Award.
• The Student Paper Finalists will receive an email notification before the conference.
• The Student Paper Finalists must present the papers at the assigned session to receive the monetary award. No-show will result in rewards cancelation and other conference rules will be effect as well.  

Rewards

Graduate and undergraduate papers are rewarded separately. In general, three graduate papers will be rewarded. The first, second, and third places will receive $500, $300, and $200 cash reward, respectively. Only the top one undergraduate paper will be rewarded with $500 cash. Those Student Paper Finalists will receive special recognition at the conference. The monetary award is shared among only student authors. Each author listed in the awarded paper will receive a certificate.

For more information, see the conference website at www.dasconline.org or contact the Student Activities Chair, Leihong Li, Georgia Tech at student.activities.chair@dasconline.org