AzSEF Judges Code Conduct
The Judge’s Code of Conduct is intended to ensure fairness, transparency, and professionalism during AzSEF.
- Equal Opportunity and Objective Evaluation: All projects should be judged based on merit, without bias or favoritism. Evaluation should be impartial and use the criteria provided by the organization to assess the projects.
- Constructive Feedback: Constructive, positive feedback reinforces the strengths of the projects and helps the students in the long term. Avoid Negative or discouraging comments while interacting with a student/project.
- Confidentiality: Judges are to practice confidentiality before, during, and after judging at AzSEF. Judges are not to talk with participants, parents, or individuals who are not involved in the judging of a project about the process and/or deliberations. Discussion of results or anything other than constructive feedback with an individual student about their project is prohibited.
- Adherence to Rules: Adhere to all rules and guidelines set by the event organizers. Ensure that your actions and decisions align with the established protocols. Report any issues, concerns, or irregularities to the organizers promptly.
- Conflict of Interest: A conflict of interest occurs when a judge knows a participant in the category they are assigned to judge. If the judge discovers a potential conflict of interest due to knowing a student in the category they have been assigned to judge before AzSEF, it is the responsibility of the judge to notify the Judge Chair so that they can be assigned to a different category. If the judge becomes aware of a conflict of interest situation once arriving at AzSEF, it is their responsibility to immediately report that to the Judge Chair so they can be reassigned.
- Judging Responsibilities:
- The awarding of category and special awards is the decision of the judging team assigned to that category. The judging team will caucus, taking into consideration all judge's input. One individual will not determine category or special awards.
- The determination of Senior Division Best in Fair awards will be made by a committee consisting of the Lead Judge from each category. The committee of Lead Judges will view and review all top projects and each category Lead judge is responsible for defending why that project should be named as one of the Best in Fair projects.
Failure to adhere to the Judge’s Code of Conduct may result in removal as a Lead Judge, removal as a category judge, or being banned from judging AzSEF in future years.
CONSEQUENCES of NON-COMPLIANCE
- Violation of the AzSEF Judges Code of Conduct may result in immediate dismissal from judging duties and may be disqualified from serving as a judge in the future.