TDK Conference jury regulations

TDK Conference jury regulations at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged

Presentations are scored by a jury of 10 members who are experts in their respective fields and are appointed by the TDK Council. The jury will be briefed about the presentations and abstracts in each section before the conference.

Eight of the 10 jury members are teachers or researchers delegated by the departments, and have at least a Ph.D. degree. Two members are selected separately from the TDK Council. Jury members can also be delegated from other institutions (e.g. the Biological Research Centre, SZBK) or faculties (e.g. the Faculty of Science and Informatics, TTIK).

The chairman of the section will be selected from among the jury members. The chairman is in charge of the given section, monitors the presentation and the subsequent discussion, and announces deducted points. If there are no questions from the audience or jury, the chairman will ask at least two questions so that the speaker´s discussion skills can be assessed.

Evaluation is based exclusively on the author´s own work. To avoid conflicts of interest, a jury member is not allowed to give points or participate in the debate if the speaker is from his/her workgroup. If the speaker is from a jury member’s department, but not from his/her workgroup there is no conflict of interest.

A jury member can award a maximum of 50 points for each presentation. To differentiate between presentations, it is recommended that the points are allocated in a wide range:

• Abstract: up to 5 pts.
• Formal evaluation of the presentation, e.g. illustration, style and grammar: up to 10 pts.
• Professional content of the presentation: up to 20 pts.
• Discussion skills, professional competence: up to 15 pts.

Deduction of points
The chairman informs the jury of point deductions made on the following criteria:

1. Disregarding formal requirements: a deduction of 2 points.
2. The duration of the presentation is at most 10 minutes; the elapsed time is shown continuously on a screen. If the time limit is exceeded by 30-60 seconds, 5 points will be deducted; overlapping by 60 seconds or more results in a deduction of 10 points. If the presentation exceeds 15 minutes, a debate cannot be held and therefore no points can be awarded for discussion skills.
3. Jury members should pay particular attention to the extent to which the results can be regarded as the speaker´s own work. In accordance with the evaluation criteria of the OTDK Council, the speaker must summarize and verify his/her contribution to the results in a supplementary slide at the end of the presentation. 10 points will be deducted if this slide is not included. If the extent of the student´s contribution cannot be determined during the presentation or the debate, the professional content cannot be evaluated.

Ranking and qualification for the national TDK Conference (OTDK)

1. The points awarded by the jury members are ranked on the basis of z-scores. The highest and lowest scores will be neglected, lowering the impact of extreme evaluation in both directions. In the case of equal scores, the presentation with higher points for Discussion skills will be ranked higher.
2. The final rank and prizes are based on the z-score values in each respective section. Qualification for the OTDK is determined on the basis of the rankings in each section.
3. Only students from the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Health Sciences and Social Studies can qualify for advancing to the OTDK (the student or the supervisor must be active at one or other of the listed 4 faculties). Students not enrolled or performing their TDK activities at one of these faculties can be granted only a separate prize and cannot qualify for the OTDK.

TDK Conference jury regulations (before 5/15/2017) >>