The IEEE Power & Energy Society Chapters Web Site Contest (CWSC) is conducted by the Chapters Activities.

1. Rules and Eligibility

All PES Chapters are eligible for the Web site contest. To enter the Chapter Chair simply sends an email message to the Awards Committee Chair with copy to Membership and Chapters Activities Vice President and their corresponding Regional and Chapter Representatives with the subject "PES Chapters Web Site Contest – Chapter's Name." The Email shall include:

• The URL of the Chapter Web site
• The name of the Chapter
• The IEEE Region the Chapter is in
• The email address of the Web site contact or administrator
• Chapter Chair name and email address

Judging is based on the six judging criteria outlined below. The sum of the point totals for the six categories will be 100 points. If required, tie-breaking will be at the discretion of the Awards Committee Chair using comments provided by the judges. All appeals and questions should be directed to the Awards Committee Chair. The decision of the Awards Committee Chair is final.

Based on the judging criteria, PES will give the following awards:

First place - US $1,000.00
Second place - US $500.00
Third place - US $250.00

A customized award certificate will also be provided.

2. Contest Deadlines

 I: Chapters shall submit their URL's no later than March 15th to the Awards Committee Chair.

II: Winners will be announced on March 31st.

III: During the period of judging, March 15th through to March 31st no changes in the design or content of the participating pages will be permitted.

 3. Judging Criteria

The goal of a Web page is to convey information in a manner useful to the reader, similar to the goal in writing a paper. How you convey the information can increase the reader's interest as well as their knowledge. For example, a page of text provides useful information but is not visually attractive. The same text with the appropriate colored figures, Java scripts, etc., can deliver significantly more information while motivating the reader to read further.

Poorly designed Web sites either provide no useful content or are hard to use (takes too long, user cannot find the desired information, etc.). Thus, the hallmark of a good Web site is solid content, presentation, and navigability with a healthy dose of originality thrown in. Further, the Web site should be portable, as Web browsers and computers are not created equal, and load in a reasonable about of time, as network bandwidth is also not equal. Thus, the criteria of content, presentation, navigability, originality, portability, and load time are the judging categories.

The jury for the contest will be conformed by the Awards Committee Chair, Communications Committee Chair and the M/C Activities Vice President .

a. Category 1. Content (0 to 30 points)

The Web was created as an efficient mechanism to deliver information. Thus, the content of your Web site is very important. The rating of how the content is presented is judged as a separate category. Note that you should make a significant effort to ensure that your site is free of copyright violations.

The Chapter web site is a PES-IEEE Web site and PES-IEEE should be the focus. At a minimum, Chapters Web sites should have, somewhere, local contact information for the Chapters officers and the site administrator. Each page in the site should have contact and date information. A good Chapter Web site may have current, past, and future Chapters activities, information on other IEEE units of the section the chapter belongs to, application information, and other information relevant to a chapter member. Remember also that the audience may include prospective chapter members, employers, and others.

Your Web site is your professional showing to the rest of the world. Thus, accurate, up-to-date information should be present. Proper grammar, spelling, and composition are important. As English is the common language used within the IEEE, the content will be judged solely using English. For those web pages using only local language other than English, it is recommended a mirror page written in English. If your chapter is planning to enter the contest, please make sure your site is written, at least, in English. To encourage international support of Web sites, the use of multiple languages may be awarded up to 2 bonus points in this category. Multilingual support means equivalent or near equivalent presentation of all material in different languages. Sites in English speaking countries are encouraged to support other languages, perhaps by contacting and working with a Chapter in another country.

 b. Category 2. Navigability (0 to 25 points)

All links should be up-to-date and working. No "under construction" links should be present. Off-site links will not be evaluated, though a large number of broken off-site links may be a judging consideration (this is not to discourage you from linking off-site, just to encourage you to link to stable sites).

One large page is generally not easy to read and may also take a significant amount of time to load. Breaking the page into a multitude of smaller pages may require significant effort to retrieve the desired information. Thus, the logical structure of the Web site can result in a pleasant experience or a frustrating experience using your Web site.

Keywords used for hyperlinks should be logical and tasteful. For example, using an entire paragraph as a hyperlink is a poor design. A good Web site will have useful hyperlinks for material that should be logically hyper linked. Excessive use of hyperlinks can be annoying for the reader.

While many large sites have site maps, navigation bars, search engines, etc. to help the user find the appropriate information, it is by no means required. In fact, the use of these elements can backfire and create a Web site that is not visually pleasing or highly complex to use. Many Web sites do well enough without these aids.

Remember to use relative links as much as possible, to ensure easy site portability and mirroring. As an exception, use absolute links when dealing with CGI script calls and the like.

c. Category 3. Originality (0 to 15 points)

Originality is somewhat subjective but it is an important quality of a superior Web site. There are two types of originality, the first type is the content presented and the second type is the presentation of the content. Some Chapters Web sites typically include information on their officers, IEEE itself, and so forth. This information could be enhanced by adding interesting information about your Chapter and so forth. The presentation of "boring" information, such as Chapter´s officers, in innovative ways can significantly spice up a Web site and will receive significant consideration in judging. Clearly, you do not want your Chapter page to look like every other Chapter page – your Chapter is unique and you should make your page reflect that!

 d. Category 4. Overall Presentation (0 to 15 points)

Presentation will be judged not on its originality but on how well it "works" with the content to provide the user with a pleasant viewing experience. Use of good presentation elements, such as color, fonts, tables, etc., can enhance raw information on a Web site. Overuse of these elements (or improper use of elements, such as blink) can result in a Web site being an eyesore. Presentation reflects your style!

Graphics should be relative to the page and text. Header, footer, and other navigation images should be small. Typically, high quality images (large files) for icons are not required. Unless the image (video, script, etc.) is an important part of the page, you may wish to keep the image (video, script, etc.) at a small size and allow the user to select it as they desire.

Backgrounds should be small (using the lowest possible resolution that looks nice) and should be neat and readable. Uniqueness is always a plus. Backgrounds should be used intelligently. They can either demonstrate the author’s savvy or bad taste. Make sure the backgrounds do not fall into the "bad taste" category. Backgrounds that are "loud" make it extremely difficult to read the text on top of them. The same ideas apply to scripts, video, audio, and other multimedia elements. They should all be the smallest possible size and, most importantly, useful. Like backgrounds, then can make your site positively outstanding or a site to avoid. When possible, the user should be given the option to load multimedia elements and not be forced to view or hear something they do not want to.

e. Category 5. Portability (0 to 10 points)

Unfortunately, there is no "standard" Web browser. Even the same Web browser on the different computers may result in significantly differing renderings of the same page. You should attempt to make your Web pages relatively portable across different browsers, including both text and graphical browsers, and different screen sizes. Thus, the use of "ALT" elements is encouraged as this provides some amount of portability for images. One of the browser types of Netscape Navigator , Microsoft Internet Explorer , and Lynx (text only browser) may be used by the judges to evaluate your Web site.

Keep the graphics within a small window width. Designing for the lowest common-denominator is a must when it comes to Web site design. Creating graphics that fit onto all users’ default screen widths is therefore a good idea. A good common denominator is the VGA screen (640x480 pixels). Fixed image locations, fixed tables, etc. are not portable and defeat the goal of HTML. These should be avoided if at all possible.

Portability will be primarily tested by resizing the screen and probably using different browsers to access the site.

f. Category 6. Load time (0 to 5 points)

You site should take account of the fact that Internet connectivity ranges from slow dialup modems to fast, dedicated network connections. You are not responsible for your provider network performance, but you should try to ensure that your page loads within a reasonable amount of time. Your server should be up and reachable during the evaluation period. Server load can affect load time and you should make an effort to use a reasonably fast server that has a reasonable load. Judges will be instructed not to consider server load.

As load time is typically a function of file size, using smaller images and pages results in faster loading. Remember that the use of Javascript and other multimedia elements can also affect load time. A large amount of images, scripts, etc. on a page can also increase the load time. Load time is part of the experience of viewing your page, however, content, presentation, and navigability are generally more important factors. Thus, load time is only worth 5 points. Note that Judges may consider script execution time.

Using Height and Width elements can significantly enhance the way the pages load. If you use Height and Width elements, graphical browsers will know exactly how big of a "hole" to leave for the graphic before it loads and will continue displaying the text down the screen. This gives the appearance of the page loading faster, when in reality it still takes just as much time to load the entire page.

This is not to discourage larger pictures and high-intensity graphics; however, if you choose to use them, separate Web sites with the same content could be a consideration.

4. Contact Information

Edwin Carlsen
PES Chapter Activities Awards Committee Chair
e.carlsen@ieee.org

Meliha Selak
PES Vice President, Chapters Activities
melihas@ieee.org