There are two stages of selection for the NJRSF when these limits are exceeded. The first stage is a selection of up to 15 projects per advisor. The second stage is a selection of 20 projects per school. The second stage is implemented by having a coordinator defined for a school.
In order to avoid last-minute coordinator assignments, we are going to require any school with 20 or more projects in the fair to name a coordinator for their students. This person will serve as a main point of contact for the school, and will also be charged with notifying the fair of the final selection of up to 20 projects to participate in the NJRSF. Although schools may perform this selection in any manner they choose, we do encourage the holding of local science fairs.
The deadline for both advisor and coordinator project removals is one week prior to the entry deadline.
Each advisor (if they have more than 15 projects in the fair) may use their selection screen to select 15 of their projects to participate in the fair. Again, this selection process is up to the advisor or the school as to how the selection is made. Each advisor (teacher, coordinator, or mentor role) will find a link on the teacher menu labeled "Select Projects to Enter."
It should be pointed out that this screen is also the entry point for the registration of local SRC approvals, for schools that have a local SRC. The link will appear here if your school is authorized to have an SRC. (If you wish to start one, please contact src@njrsf.org.)
When you display the selection screen, you will see a list of all the projects for which you are the advisor. Each project will have a checkbox you can select to indicate that the project is selected to participate. You can select up to 15 projects on this screen.
Any projects you do not check will be marked as "removed by advisor action" and that is where they will appear the next time you load this screen. Projects so removed will not appear on the list of current projects. Until one week prior to the entry deadline you can revise your selections by displaying this screen again, selecting any 15 projects, and clicking on "Submit Selections." Changes of this nature will be reflected immediately on the current project list.
The school selection works in a similar fashion. This screen, again accessible from the teacher menu, works in a similar fashion, to select up to 20 projects from the ones selected by the advisors at the school. This list must also be finalized by one week prior to the entry deadline. Also, once the school selection is performed, the advisor selection is frozen. Therefore, this represents the last step for the school prior to the deadline.
In both of these steps, if the selection is not performed by the deadline, the NJRSF reserves the right to reduce the number of projects to the required limit by removing projects by any criterion we choose, including random selection.
After the entry deadline, the projects entered at that point will be regarded as official entries in the fair. All projects remaining as entries, and approved by the SRC, will be reviewed in the pre-screening, which is the first step of the judging for the fair. This pre-screening will be based on the research plan and submitted abstract.
The projects remaining after the pre-screening will be invited to exhibit at the fair in New Brunswick. We anticipate a total participation at that point of about 100-120 projects. It should be emphasized that the projects that are entered but do not pass the pre-screening will still be regarded as entries in the fair, and will be included in the official list of projects posted after the fair.
Any questions about this process should be directed to either