The Review Process

Fifty-four people from a wide range of disciplines volunteered to be reviewers. They included academics, learning support personnel and PhD students from 24 Australian and New Zealand universities and five from overseas.

Reviewers scored submissions on five main criteria. The submissions had to:

• be clear, coherent and well organized
• demonstrate knowledge of current thinking, research, policy, and/or practice
• demonstrate awareness of an audience who are not necessarily experts in the field
• stimulate interest and discussion
• communicate the relevance/importance of the ideas presented.

In addition, the submission needed to be accessible to a general audience and formatted in a manner appropriate to the topic. Contestants were encouraged to keep their submission factual, but interpretable. The layout was freely up to their interpretation, but contestants were advised  to provide background to the concept or idea before discussing implications.

Two reviewers from cognate disciplines, but different universities were chosen to review each submission blind.  After the closing date, the two reviewer scores for each submission were added up and the full list was sorted from highest to lowest scores. This resulted in 14 submissions with scores from 81-92 (maximum score = 100). These were shortlisted for further consideration by the Review Panel. The Review Panel read and independently rank-ordered the 14 shortlisted submissions. They then discussed divergent rankings and considered, in the light of the overall rankings and their discussion, submissions that were eligible for each prize in turn. In this way, agreement was reached as to the prize-winners. This whole process was carried out blind and neither reviewers nor members of the Review Panel were aware of competitors’ identities.

Reviewers

The Executive of ACUR expresses thanks to the following who reviewed submissions in the Great ACUR Undergraduate Research Writing Project.

Mr. Andrew Allan,                The University of Sydney

Ms. Anandita Anandita,       Deakin University

Dr. Nic Badcock,                    The University of Western Australia

Prof. Dawn Bennett,            Curtin University

Ms. Alison Campbell,           The University of Sydney

Dr. Kennedy Chan,                The University of Hong Kong

Miss Vivian Chau,                  Australian Catholic University

Mr. Jake Crisp,                       University of Tasmania

Ms. Bonnie Eklom,                James Cook University

Dr. Cath Ferguson,                Edith Cowan University

Mr. Geoffry Holland,            University of Technology Sydney

Dr. Judi Homewood,             Macquarie University

Ms. Thea House,                   Macquarie University

Ms. Kristina Kopychynski,    Macquarie University

Mrs. Crystal La Rue,              The University of Queensland

Dr. Sung-Ae Lee,                   Macquarie University

Prof. Scott Levick,                 The University of Sydney

Dr. Justine Lloyd,                  Macquarie University

Dr. Dawn Lo,                          The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Dr. Chi Yhun Lo,                    Macquarie University

Miss Seak Lin Ly,                   The University of Newcastle

Dr. Francois Malherbe,        Swinburne University of Technology

Ms. Amanda Mckie,             University of Canberra

Dr. Kirra Minton,                   Monash University

Dr. Ali Mirjalili,                      The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Mrs. Lauren Moxey,             James Cook University

Dr. Mark Nelson,                   University of Wollongong

Prof. Eric Pawson,                 University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Miss Brooke Peel,                 Monash University

Prof. Pamela Rowntree,       Queensland University of Technology

Dr. Diana Sandars,                The University of Melbourne

Prof. Peter Sherlock,            University of Divinity

Dr. Asheem Shrestha,          Deakin University

Dr. Kwong Nui Sim,              Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Miss Ankita Singh                 University of New South Wales, Sydney

Dr. Naomi Sweller,                Macquarie University

Dr. Anne Swinbourne,          James Cook University

Ms. Stephanie Triefus,         Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Miss Anya Vorster,               The University of Western Australia

Dr. John Willison,                  The University of Adelaide

Dr. Leigh Wilson,                   The University of Sydney

Prof. Denise Wood,              University of the Sunshine Coast

Dr. Lynn Woodward,            James Cook University

 

The Review Panel

The Review panel consisted of members of the ACUR Executive, specifically:

Emeritus Professor Angela Brew (Macquarie University, Chair of ACUR & Panel Chair,)

Dr Lilia Mantai (The University of Sydney, ACUR Treasurer,)

Emeritus Professor Eric Pawson (University of Canterbury, NZ, ACUR Newsletter Editor)

Lachlan Deimel (University of Oxford, Former Head ACUR Student Committee)

Olivia Jessop (University of Queensland, Head of ACUR Student Committee, Project Leader)