[R] Announcement: 2008 John Chambers Statistical Software Award

[J.R. Lockwood]

John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award - 2008

Statistical Computing Section

American Statistical Association


The Statistical Computing Section of the American Statistical
Association announces the competition for the John M.  Chambers
Statistical Software Award. In 1998 the Association for Computing
Machinery presented its Software System Award to John Chambers for the
design and development of S. Dr. Chambers generously donated his award
to the Statistical Computing Section to endow an annual prize for
statistical software written by an undergraduate or graduate student.
The prize carries with it a cash award of $1000, plus a substantial
allowance for travel to the annual Joint Statistical Meetings where
the award will be presented.

Teams of up to 3 people can participate in the competition, with the
cash award being split among team members. The travel allowance will
be given to just one individual in the team, who will be presented the
award at JSM.  To be eligible, the team must have designed and
implemented a piece of statistical software.  The individual within
the team indicated to receive the travel allowance must have begun the
development while a student, and must either currently be a student,
or have completed all requirements for her/his last degree after
January 1, 2006.  To apply for the award, teams must provide the
following materials:

   Current CV's of all team members.

   A letter from a faculty mentor at the academic institution of the
   individual indicated to receive the travel award.  The letter
   should confirm that the individual had substantial participation in
   the development of the software, certify her/his student status
   when the software began to be developed (and either the current
   student status or the date of degree completion), and briefly
   discuss the importance of the software to statistical practice.

   A brief, one to two page description of the software, summarizing
   what it does, how it does it, and why it is an important
   contribution.  If the team member competing for the travel
   allowance has continued developing the software after finishing
   her/his studies, the description should indicate what was developed
   when the individual was a student and what has been added since.

   Access to the software by the award committee for their use on
   inputs of their choosing.  Access to the software can consist of an
   executable file, Web-based access, macro code, or other appropriate
   form.  Access should be accompanied by enough information to allow
   the judges to effectively use and evaluate the software (including
   its design considerations.)  This information can be provided in a
   variety of ways, including but not limited to a user manual (paper
   or electronic), a paper, a URL, online help to the system, and
   source code.  In particular, the entrant must be prepared to
   provide complete source code for inspection by the committee if
   requested.

All materials must be in English.  We prefer that electronic text be
submitted in Postscript or PDF.  The entries will be judged on a
variety of dimensions, including the importance and relevance for
statistical practice of the tasks performed by the software, ease of
use, clarity of description, elegance and availability for use by the
statistical community. Preference will be given to those entries that
are grounded in software design rather than calculation.  The decision
of the award committee is final.

All application materials must be received by 5:00pm EST, Monday,
February 25, 2008 at the address below.  The winner will be announced
in May and the award will be given at the 2008 Joint Statistical
Meetings.

Information on the competition can also be accessed on the website of
the Statistical Computing Section (www.statcomputing.org or see the
ASA website, www.amstat.org for a pointer), including the names and
contributions of previous winners.  Inquiries and application
materials should be emailed or mailed to:

Chambers Software Award
c/o J.R. Lockwood
The RAND Corporation
4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
lockwood at rand.org

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