Conditions of Participation

Article 1 All final dissertations on the basis of which the participant obtained a Master’s degree at a Belgian university or university college, written in the field of the Internet, in Dutch, French or English, handed in during one of the three exam periods of the academic year 2017-2018 (January, June or August), qualify for participation.

Article 2 Participants are expected to be aware of and agree to these rules and regulations.

Article 3 The submitted dissertation must have been written as a final dissertation and have achieved a mark of at least 14/20 (i.e. 70%).

Article 4 The participants should submit a comprehensive abstract of their dissertation, of no more than 2500 words, in which they clearly indicate the purpose and findings of their dissertation, together with their full dissertation.

Submission of the abstract and the dissertation

Article 5 The submission must be accompanied by the following annexes in Word or PDF (the annexes must have a clear document name, e.g. Abstract [name] and Dissertation [name]).

  • An abstract of 2500 words in English
  • The dissertation in full

Article 6 Both the abstract and the dissertation should be accompanied by the following details:

  • The name, address, telephone number and email address of the author
  • The name of the Master’s program and the title of the dissertation
  • The mark received for the dissertation
  • The name and title of the dissertation supervisor

Article 7 Dissertations that are not accompanied by all the required annexes will be rejected.

Article 8 The submission should be send in to info@ispa.be .

Article 9 The closing date for submissions is September 30th, 2018 before midnight.

Article 10 Participants will receive an acknowledgement of receipt after sending in their submission.

Article 11 The decision of the jury will be made public during an award ceremony.

Rights

Article 12 The copyright of the dissertation remains with its author, subject to article 13.

Article 13 ISPA obtains the right to use the submitted dissertation and information contained therein, subject to proper citation.

Article 14 The author of the dissertation safeguards ISPA against any claims of third parties such as for the violation of copyright.

Assessment criteria

Article 15 Submissions are evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

  • Innovativeness and originality of the approach
  • Scientific quality
  • Relevance to the constantly changing world of the Internet
  • Appeal and significance of the findings

Evaluation

Article 16 The jury will be appointed by ISPA.

Article 17 In assessing the abstracts and dissertations, the jury reserves the right to consult external experts.

Article 18 The jury reserves the right to refrain from handing out the award in the event that there is an insufficient number of submissions and/or the quality of the abstracts and/or dissertations is unsatisfactory.

 Article 19 The jury’s decision is final and not subject to debate.

Award

Article 20 The winner of the Internet Student Paper Award will be rewarded with 1000 Euro.

Final declaration

Article 21 In all cases not covered by the above rules and regulations, ISPA will decide, in appropriate cases after hearing the jury.