The OpenWater Blog

Learning Series: Rules & Regulations Development

Your awards program’s rules and regulations will naturally fall under the judging process and winner selection. However, there are other areas of your program you may want to add to the rules and regulations section of your website as well.

In this article, we’ll discuss 6 key areas that often require rules and regulations, including:

1. Judge qualifications and selection
2. The judging process
3. Scoring
4. Determining winners
5. Special prizes
6. Finality of decisions and disputes

1. Judge Qualifications and Selection

You want to take your time to select judges with widely recognized qualifications and ample experience in the target domain, not to mention a proven track record. Relatedly, you want to choose professionals who are less likely to allow their personal biases to affect the decisions they make.

To increase judge confidence in remaining unbiased, you may want them to sign a conflict of interest agreement. This will formally eliminate any biases. You may also want to add provisions so judges can’t score entries that come from their organization.

2. The Judging Process

You should create rules and regulations for each of the major steps of the judging process. Some of the key internal components to consider include:

• Confidentiality
• The number of judges assigned to each submission
• Split of workload (i.e. choosing an appropriate number of judges per category)
• Training (if needed)
• Timeline and judging window

3. Scoring

Scoring is a critical area for rules and regulations. If scoring regulations aren’t perfect, entrants are unlikely to be satisfied with your program and are even less likely to return in upcoming years.

You should create a scoring form and scoring scale to standardize practices well before judging begins. You should even publish these forms and scales so entrants understand how they are to be judged.

4. Determining Winners

When determining winners, it’s important you think of the threshold values for finalists and what it takes to win. You should also create rules for ties and rules for entries that might win in additional categories.

5. Special Prizes

If you include special prizes or public choice awards in your program, you should create a separate set of rules so nothing is left to chance. These rules should account for judging procedures, scoring, the number of possible winners, timing, and any other considerations you make in your general program.

6. Finality of Decisions and Disputes

Avoid personal offense or complaints by creating rules about the finality of judge decisions. If anyone raises a concern, it’s important that you create rules as to how they’re directed to the awards administrator.

Take Time to Develop Rules and Regulations

The rules and regulations that govern your awards program are critical to ensure fairness and to guarantee entrants know what to expect as your program progresses.

Use the categories above to determine which rules and regulations you should focus on and where you have room for improvement next year. And, for even more assistance, download our free worksheet to build out or review your rules!

Ashley Surinak

Ashley Surinak is the resident OpenWater expert on all things content. From the blog to guides and beyond, you'll find her at every turn in your OpenWater journey.

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