Award Assignment Methodology

The Best Paper Award will be conferred to the author(s) of a paper presented at the Conference, which outstands for relevance, novelty, scientific soundness and clearness.

To be considered for the award, a paper must pass a two-stage revision.

The first stage is the main revision, which determines the acceptance of a paper to the Conference, and which is carried out via a blind peer-review process by at least two expert reviewers, selected by the Scientific Committee. During this stage, each paper receives a score from 1 to 6 for technical quality, presentation and originality, plus an overall assessment. In addition, it can be optionally nominated for an award. Among all the papers presented at the Conference, the best 10% is selected to access the second revision stage. The selection is made by first considering all the papers that have been nominated for an award and ordering them by their score. In the event that an ex aequo among two or more papers results in exceeding the 10% of the total number of papers, this percentage will be increased, in order to include all the papers with the same score into the selection. Instead, in the event that the papers nominated for an award are less than the 10% of all the presented papers, also the papers not nominated for an award will be ranked based on their score and the best ones will be selected for the second revision stage, until filling the 10%. The same strategy described above will be applied in the event of an ex aequo among two or more papers, which results in exceeding the 10%.

The second stage is the final revision, in which a pool of 15 to 20 experts, selected by the Committee of the Conference, revises again the papers that passed the previous stage. Three reviewers per paper are assigned, who will give it a global score from 1 to 10, by considering the relevance of the addressed topic, the level of novelty, the technical quality and the clearness of the presentation. The paper that obtains the highest average score among the three reviewers will be the winner of the Best Paper Award.

Every member of the Committee of the Conference (General Chairs, Technical Program Chairs, Area Chairs, Award Chairs etc.) is excluded from the Best Paper Award assignment.

The Best Poster Award will be conferred to the author(s) of a paper that will be presented at the Conference in the form of a poster.

MetroXRAINE has three Poster Sessions, one per day, which lasts the whole day. During each session, three experts, nominated by the Committee of the Conference, evaluate all the posters and formulate a judgment for each of them, in the form of a score from 1 to 10. The score takes into account the relevance of the addressed topic, the perceived level of novelty, the scientific soundness and the clearness and appeal of the presentation. The posters are finally ranked based on their average score among the three evaluators.

The Conference Committee decided to assign a maximum of an award per paper among the Best Paper, the Best Young Paper and the Best Poster. For this reason, the first three papers of the ranking are considered. If the first one has not received any of the other two award, it is declared as the winner of the Best Poster Award. Conversely, the second one is considered and, if it has not received any of the other two award, it is declared as the winner of the Best Poster Award. If both the first- and the second-ranked poster has won an award, the third one is declared as the winner of the Best Poster Award.

Every member of the Committee of the Conference (General Chairs, Technical Program Chairs, Area Chairs, Award Chairs etc.) is excluded from the Best Poster Award assignment.

The Best Paper by a Young Researcher Award will be conferred to the author(s) of a paper presented at the Conference, which outstands for relevance, novelty, scientific soundness and clearness. The paper must be presented by a researcher By a researcher younger than 35 years of age, which represent the criterium to be considered as “young”.

To be considered for the award, a paper must pass a two-stage revision, at which only the papers presented by young researchers are admitted.

The first stage is the main revision, which determines the acceptance of a paper to the Conference, and which is carried out via a blind peer-review process by at least two expert reviewers, selected by the Scientific Committee. During this stage, each paper receives a score from 1 to 6 for technical quality, presentation and originality, plus an overall assessment. In addition, it can be optionally nominated for the award. Among all the papers presented at the Conference, the best 10% is selected to access the second revision stage. The selection is made by first considering all the papers that have been nominated for the award and ordering them by their score. In the event that an ex aequo among two or more papers results in exceeding the 10% of the total number of papers, this percentage will be increased, in order to include all the papers with the same score into the selection. Instead, in the event that the papers nominated for the award are less than the 10% of all the presented papers, also the papers not nominated for the award will be ranked based on their score and the best ones will be selected for the second revision stage, until filling the 10%. The same strategy described above will be applied in the event of an ex aequo among two or more papers, which results in exceeding the 10%.

The second stage is the final revision, in which a pool of 15 to 20 experts, selected by the Committee of the Conference, revises again the papers that passed the previous stage. Three reviewers per paper are assigned, who will give it a global score from 1 to 10, by considering the relevance of the addressed topic, the level of novelty, the technical quality and the clearness of the presentation. The papers are finally ranked based on their average score among the three evaluators.

The Conference Committee decided to assign a maximum of an award per paper among the Best Paper, the Best Paper by a Young Researcher and the Best Poster. For this reason, the first two papers of the ranking are considered. If the first one has not won the Best Paper Award, it is declared as the winner of the Best Paper by a Young Researcher Award. Conversely, the second one is declared as the winner.

Every member of the Committee of the Conference (General Chairs, Technical Program Chairs, Area Chairs, Award Chairs etc.) is excluded from the Best Paper Award assignment.