The Darrel Chong Student Activity Award

This award requires interested student groups to submit a description of an organized activity. The activity will be evaluated based on a number of merits and will obtain either a platinum, gold, silver, bronze or “unrated” status. This award is not competitive in nature and does not limit the number of winners to each medal. It allows the same submitted activity to be elevated to the next higher medal based on future improvements made in subsequent years.

Note: The activities that have been organized more than once will be given more consideration. The intent is to encourage consistency; spurring student branches to discover their niche and continually improve on it.

All IEEE Student Branches, Student Branch Chapters, Student Branch Affinity groups of Women in Engineering (WIE) are eligible for this award program. Activities organized by multiple student branches and/or chapters are also eligible. Each student group may enter as many activities as they want.  To enter your activity, simply send your written report (according to the instructions you will find below) by email to ieeegetplatinum@ieee.org with copies to your Regional Student Activities Committee Chair (RSAC) and Regional Student Representative (RSR). Please include:

• The written report summarizing the activity
• Any supporting documentation that will support your activity (i.e. photos, attendance lists, promotional material, etc.)
• Supporting documents from Sections and Branch Counselors are welcome
• The name of your activity and the name of the student branch(es) or student branch chapter(s) if applicable.
• The IEEE Region and Section you are in
• The name and email address from the branch chair if applicable
• The name and email address from the activity leader
• Your name and email address (if different from the above)

Note: The nominator for the award does not have to be an organizer or a member of the group. Anyone, including section officers, student branch counselors, department chairs, etc can nominate an IEEE student group as long as they can provide all supporting materials.

Also, make sure that you follow the specific submission rules.

Judging is based on the criteria outlined below. The sum of the point totals for the categories will be 100 points. If required, tie breaking will be at the discretion of the contest administrator using comments provided by the judges. All appeals and questions should be directed to the contest administrator. The decision of the contest administrator is final.  

Send completed document to Christine Eldridge in IEEE Student Services.  We look forward to seeing how creative your Student Branch can be.   

General Considerations 

This contest is that it does not limit the number of awardees and allows the students to continuously improve on the same activity to gain an improved rating in the following years. The student groups no longer compete against other student groups; the focus now is shifted to how they can further improve. The challenge is steered from external competition to internal cooperation.  There is no restriction on the number of activities submitted by one group. 

I: Branches submit their activity reports all year long, as the activities are finished and the reports are ready.  Judging will occur twice a year, at the Student Activities Committee (SAC) meetings. All activities submitted before 15 November will be judged in December. Activities submitted after that will be judged the following year.

II: SAC results will be announced in December and April.

Knowledge Sharing

The thrust of this award is also to advance idea sharing. Platinum, Gold and Silver medalists should have the descriptions of their activities posted on the Student Concourse. First it serves to recognize the quality of your activities. Second it serves to share ideas that were implemented in your group, so somewhere else in the world another student group can implement the same idea with a high likelihood of successful results. When writing your proposal, keep that in mind. Give as many tips as possible so others can implement the same idea. 

Note: For the sake of copyright issues, SAC will not display the full description on the web site. Instead, parties interested in the details may have to contact the winning student groups. IEEE Student Services should archive all full descriptions to avoid any unnecessary knowledge drain.

Classification

After the evaluation, each entry will be categorized in the classifications:        

• Unranked
• Bronze
• Silver
• Gold
• Platinum

The Bronze Status can be applied to most of today's activities. Higher metal status is progressively harder and harder to obtain. Gold status will be given to extremely good activities. Platinum level is reserved to extremely good projects that go beyond the criteria listed below. Winning activities will receive a trophy for the activity and the main individual organizer(s) will receive a certificate. To present the award, SAC will also make an effort to contact members of the section and/or region so the award can be presented at a major event making it more prestigious.

The goal of an IEEE Student Activity is to meet a specific need of students in your university, to add value for your student members and to foster the IEEE Mission and Vision locally. The activity can be something totally new, or an old concept implemented very well. This new recognition system serves to make the student branches evaluate their activities along the lines of the evaluation criteria. The activities organized by the region such as student congresses and contests are not eligible for an award.

Below you will find an outline of the judging criteria and how many points each are worth.

The Concept (0-20)

• Problem recognition / reason for activity (0-5)
• Relevance to IEEE / value created (0-5)
• Creativity / uniqueness (0-5)
• Quality of the written proposal (0-5)

Implementation (0-20)

• Implementation / Organization(0-15)
• Collaboration (0-5)

Repeatability (0-15)

• Sustainability (0-8)
• Portability (0-7)

Results and Outcomes (0-45)

• Participation (0-5)
• Relevance to IEEE (0-10)
• Positive Impact (0-10)
• Overall Impression (0-10)
• Changing Mindset (0-10)

Criteria 1: The Concept (0-20)

Here we will evaluate the idea behind your activity. The main reason of an activity is to meet the needs of your members and other students of your school or your community. Planning is very important. Many answers are already there for you! You must research (mainly on the IEEE Student Concourse), interact with other student branches and groups, with your section, with your RSAC and RSR and other sources so you can meet the needs of your members. To use your creativity is also very important. Here are the criteria that will be used to judge your activity:

Problem recognition / reason for activity (0-5)

How can you serve the best interests of the students in your community, in your school and your members? First you need to know them! Survey, talk to the members, to faculty/teachers, get to know what environment you are submersed in! Designate one member to be an OMBUDSMAN so he/she can take ideas, complaints and suggestions from your members and other students. Then, clearly state the motivations for your activity. What need / goal is the activity meant to achieve? Here we will be judging how well you can scan the needs of your student population.

Relevance / value created (0-5)

Now that you know the needs of your student population you must find a way (or several) to meet those needs. IEEE has an enormous number of programs and resources that can be used to help you meet those needs. You should navigate the student concourse, get information from other student groups, and consult your own student record files and so on. With all this information on hand, now you are able to come up with a good idea for an activity. Here we will be judging the value created by your activity to your student population. What is the relevance of this activity?

Creativity / uniqueness (0-5)

IEEE has several resources, products and programs available for students, but they are certainly not enough, and not all of them fit perfectly for all students. You can adapt, or even come up with something totally new! Brainstorm! Get ideas from people outside your group/IEEE. Think “out of the box”! Here we will judge the uniqueness and creativity of your activity.

Quality of the written proposal (0-5)

IEEE is all about getting us ready for the future. One of the skills engineers must have is to know how to communicate their ideas. Your ideas will reach the judges through a written document, so it is very important to make it very clear and easy to read with any necessary supporting documentation or illustration.

Criteria 2: Implementation (0-20)

Having a great idea is important, but how you implement it is equally as important. Think the whole process through ahead of time. Try to anticipate possible flaws. Have a Plan. Plan your time wisely. It is very important that your team know the entire plan. It helps if you assign one person to be responsible for each part of the activity. Write everything down! It is essential to have all the major information available to your team during the activity. Make a manual, a guide, even a binder which gathers all of the relevant information in one place will help. Provide as many details as possible. Here we will be judging how effective you were at putting it the activity together. Did everything run smoothly during the activity? If not, how were problems resolved. How well was it implemented?

Implementation / Organization (0-15)

The concept described above will be judged under this category. Try to provide as much information as possible showing how the activity was run. 

Collaboration (0-5)

Get as much help for your activity as possible. Maybe it will be a project developed by your student group with help from other associations. Maybe it will be a project co-led by two or more organizations. Maybe you will be supporting a project from another organization. A lot can be gained from interaction with other organizations. Think about sharing an activity with other nearby IEEE student branches and/or groups, with other student associations at your school, with your local IEEE section, with your local high school or middle school or your community and so on. The more collaborative the project is, the more points it will get.

Criteria 3: Repeatability (0-15)

Knowledge sharing is a key issue to all modern organizations. In IEEE Student Branches, where the officers stay for very short terms this is especially true. When doing an activity, you want to think about it, trying to make it easily repeatable (and better yet, improved) the next time.

Sustainability (0-8)

How easy is it for the upcoming volunteers to repeat this activity in the future? Is it getting easier every-year? Documenting what was done in the past is a great start. How did you overcome particular problems? Who are the key people to talk to in order to get help? Information isn’t the only thing that will make projects easier the next time around. If, for instance, you involve freshmen and sophomores in the organization of an activity this semester, it will be much easier for them to run it again. Also the activity might result in some general changes in the environment that will make it easier next time around (such as: the schools officials now believe that we can do it, so they will support us).

Portability (0-7)

We want to foster knowledge sharing among students from all over the world. Here your activity will be judged on how well it addresses the needs of students in other universities. Also, how easily can it be replicated? Most of the sustainability concepts apply, but now the judges focus will be on how your activity can be replicated somewhere else.

Criteria 4: Results and Outcomes (0-45)

It is not enough to state the idea. You must provide further information showing the actual results of your activities in each of the categories below. Surveys, support letters, newspaper or other press material are more than welcome.

Participation (0-5)

We have to be aware that not all activities meet the needs of all student members. We can address separate needs in different activities. But is very important that the activity reaches the group/target audience for which it was intended.  Does it meet the needs of the audience?  Therefore, it is very important to reach a good number of students, directly or indirectly. To obtain this publicity and communication is very important. Be sure that everyone knows about your activity. Try to deliver the message as clearly as possible so people will be interested. Get help from friends, other associations, and teachers and so on. You might consider having some food or maybe a drawing for a free IEEE membership or souvenir. Be sure to enclose a list of participants to support your numbers. Also list everyone who was involved with the activity (remember: the volunteers gain a lot by running this activity).

Relevance to IEEE (0-10)

As a part of IEEE, it is very important that the students are aligned with the Mission and Vision of the Organization. Try to think if your activity attracts new members, if it helps maintain the members you have, if somehow it will lead participants to become IEEE members in the future. You might also want to read and understand the IEEE Mission and Vision so you can align your activities with the general organizational strategy. Issues such as increasing the public awareness of technology, social development with help from technology, ethics in the engineering profession, etc. are just some examples of points you might consider addressing in your activities.

Positive Impact (0-10)

How much impact did your activity create? Were people satisfied? Were any major changes achieved? Here you can use some numbers to backup your statement. New members? Retention? State the major impact from the activity to members, other students, or society in general.

Overall Impression (0-10)

Here the judges will express their general feeling about your activity. Was value created? Were the goals met? How impressive was the activity as a whole?

Changing Mindset (0-10)

This is the most unique criteria. The primary idea of this new system serves to change the mind set of our student groups from being number-driven to become value-driven. So you are encouraged to focus on the value of your activity much more than on numbers. Here judges will try to see if your activity captures the mind set change concept behind this new system. Improving on past ideas, and promoting good ideas as sustainable changes within your student groups and IEEE as a whole.

Click here to return to award motivation and summary.

V3 28 September 2006