Graduate Research Achievement Day

Who can apply?

All graduate students, full time or part time, from all disciplines and all colleges are encouraged to apply. This can include students engaged in research, scholarship or creative works through theses, dissertations, non-thesis projects and independent studies or who have conducted substantial research as part of coursework are encouraged to present their work at GRAD, no matter what point they are at in their graduate program. This includes students who are on campus as well as those who are pursuing their studies online.

Submit an Abstract

If you would like to participate in GRAD 2021, you will first submit an abstract of your proposed work.

• Abstracts should be a concise (150 words or less) description of work to be presented. The submission will contain:
  • Student name
  • Department or Program
  • Ph.D., Masters, Non-Thesis Project, Independent Study, or Course Based Research
  • Year of study in program
• All abstracts are submitted online. Only one abstract submission per student is accepted - additional submissions will not be reviewed.
• When submitting the abstract, you will be asked to identify your availability by time block (morning or afternoon) for when you will be able to present to the judges. Once the registration deadline has passed, the School of Graduate Studies will notify you of your specific assigned time slot for the judging session.
• Students who do not show up during their assigned time for the judging session will be disqualified from the program.

Submit Your Abstract 

Proposal Deadline

Submit your abstract by 11:59 p.m. (CST) on Sunday, February 21, to participate in the program. All students who register and participate in the program will receive a free School of Graduate Studies Baseball T-Shirt after the program is over. The first 100 students to sign up with also receive a Grad School journal in addition to the T-Shirt.

GRAD Presentation Zoom Format

All GRAD presentations will be held live online in Zoom. Students must arrive to the virtual meeting on time and stay for the duration of the one-hour meeting.

Each student must have a computer/laptop, microphone, camera, and internet connection bandwidth necessary to support presenting in the online format. Students who experience technical difficulties due to their own internet or technology capabilities will be excluded from the judging session if they are not able to fix the issue before their scheduled time to present. In the event that the technology fails for all members of the judging session, participants must be prepared to attend a make-up session following their assigned time slot, or they will be excluded from the program.

A staff member from the School of Graduate Studies will moderate the judging session. The judging process and instructions will be shared by the moderator at the start of the hour and the students assigned to that time slot will present their work in alphabetical order. Students are required to stay in attendance for the entire hour of the judging session or they will be disqualified.

Led by the Graduate School moderator, the agenda for the judging session will be as follows:

• Judging Instructions
• Each student will have 10 minutes which will include a 3-5 minute presentation with the remaining time for Q&A with judges
• Q&A with general audience will occur at the end of the one-hour session if time allows

The judging sessions will not be recorded.

Zoom Presentation Details

The live chat feature in Zoom will not be used during the judging sessions to prevent student participants from having to monitor the feature while giving their presentation. The moderator will provide each student with a one-minute warning when their time is almost up and will notify each presenter when the presentation must conclude.

Graduate students (not participating in the program) and graduate faculty will be invited by the Graduate School to watch the judging sessions. During the session, general audience members in attendance will be invited to ask questions after the judges have completed their Q&A and evaluation of each student if time allows. Students are welcome to share the Zoom link with their family and friends to invite them to the judging session.

The zoom link and assigned time slots for the judging sessions will be sent to students and judges approximately one week prior to the program.

Make-Up Sessions

The make-up sessions are scheduled for:

• March 3, 12:00-1:00 p.m.
• March 3, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
• March 4, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

Student Presentation

Graduate students will present their work virtually to a panel of three judges using up to three PowerPoint slides. Students whose studies focus on the creation of art are encouraged to present this work in the most appropriate format with an accompanying PowerPoint. Music graduate students are encouraged to present a short performance either live or by recording.

An integral component of the presentation will be an explanation of their work understandable to a non-specialist attending GRAD, including fellow graduate students, faculty, and other members of the campus community.

Up to Five graduate students will be assigned to a one-hour time slot. The total presentation time for each student is 10 minutes. Students should strive to keep their presentation to 3-5 minutes or less and allow the remaining time for question and answer.

PowerPoint Guidelines

As mentioned above, students will present their work in up to a maximum of three PowerPoint slides and should be prepared to do a “screenshare” in Zoom. Participants must have an Internet connection that supports the bandwidth needed for their presentations. Students who present more than three PowerPoint slides will be disqualified from the competition. As mentioned above, Music graduate students (only) are allowed to use videos or short live online performances in addition to the three PowerPoint slides.

Students can decide how best to design their PowerPoint slides but they should keep in mind that the content should be large enough for judges to see and read during the screenshare. Adding a UND logo to the presentation is strongly encouraged. If you would like to, you can use a UND Branded PowerPoint.

Optional: To save space on the PowerPoint, students may choose to send the judges a PDF of their citations/references through the live chat feature in Zoom.

Co-Authors

There can only be one presenter per presentation. However, if your co-author(s) would like to present your research, each presenter can submit a separate abstract. Each author must present separately on their contribution. Co-Authors presenting separately may create their slides together or on own.

Student Time Commitment 

The judging session will last for one hour and the awards ceremony will last for up to one hour.  In addition to attending the assigned one-hour judging session, all students are asked to attend the awards ceremony to be present in the event of winning a prize and to support their peers and colleagues.

Student participants are required to attend the assigned judging session to participate in the program.  If a student does not attend the assigned judging session, this will result in 0 points from each of the judges and they will not be able to judge your work without your presentation. A no-show to the assigned time slots results in automatic disqualification from the program. No make-up sessions will be allowed/scheduled due to being absent from the assigned time slot.

Judging Guidelines

All submissions will be sorted according to discipline in one of three categories:

• Engineering
• Natural Sciences
• Professional, Social Sciences, and Humanities & Arts

They will be judged accordingly, with cash prizes awarded to those students whose work and presentation are deemed best.

During the judging session, three judges will attend your Zoom session to judge your work and presentation. You will have three minutes to present your research and seven minutes for Q&A.

Students will be disqualified if any of the following occur:

1. Student does not attend their scheduled time slot.
2. Student has technical difficulties that cannot be resolved during their 10-minute slot.
3. Student either has no slides or uses more than 3 slides.
4. Student does not stay for the entire one-hour judging session

 GRAD Judging Rubric

This year, there will be multiple one-hour judging sessions in the morning and afternoon on March 3-4. During the judging sessions, up to five graduate students will present their work to a panel of three judges. Each student will be provided 10 minutes total, with three minutes for presentation and seven minutes for Q&A. The judging session will be facilitated by a staff member from the School of Graduate Studies. Students will be given a one-minute warning and informed when their ten minutes are up and will be asked to end their presentation to ensure the next student will have enough time to present.

The total time commitment for each judge is 75 minutes. Fifteen minutes to prepare for the judging session and one hour to judge the students work during a Zoom meeting. Judging instructions and criteria, the Zoom link for the judging session, and electronic scoring sheets will be provided via email to the judges one week prior to the judging session.

Judges are not required to be present during the award ceremony and reception on March 4 at 3:00 p.m., but we highly encourage you to be there. This is an event where we will be able to acknowledge and celebrate the research activities of our graduate students from across campus.