AOAC Awards Program Policy Documents 4/2020

III.

Procedures A. Candidate papers are nominated by peer reviewers of that paper on an on-going basis. Reviewers click on a button in the Scholar One site that reads, “I recommend this paper for an award for best manuscript.” Candidate papers are reviewed by the appropriate section editor of that paper’s section, who would submit the nomination for judgment to a Best Manuscript Award to Authors jury comprised of a total of seven members, including the chair of the panel. To obtain a balance of representation on the jury panel from each of the Journal’s sections, each Section Editor would be responsible for nominating a member from their community. The Section Editors will not be panel members; however, they should help in building a jury panel whereby all sections of the Journal are equally represented. B. The jury panel would then evaluate candidate papers using the award evaluation form. During a conference call, the jury panel would decide on the best manuscript in the calendar year. The evaluation form should be used for discussion purposes only. The panel should use flexibility in judging papers and just not rely on “weightings” themselves. Only one award will be presented, but the jury panel should select the top three papers in order of first, second, and third in case the authors of the first manuscript default or decline the award. Or, if the authors are government employees whereby their ethics committee denies the authors’ participation. The chair of the jury panel informs the Editorial Board chair of the top three selections. C. The Editorial Board chair informs the AOAC Awards Committee about the nominations. The awards committee proceeds with the logistics of award presentation. The award recipient shall receive an award bearing an appropriate testimonial to be presented at the annual meeting, complimentary annual meeting registration, and, a travel grant (to be determined) incident to attending the Annual Meeting where the award is to be presented. B. When a best paper is chosen, the title and authors of that paper, with a supporting article, will be published in the next available issue of Inside Laboratory Management and the Journal of AOAC INTERNATIONAL and otherwise appropriately publicized.

IV. Award A.

08 /2018