AFFILIATE WEBSITE AWARD

Who Can Participate: Any affiliate of NCTE, with the exception of the previous year's winner, that maintains a website.

Frequency/Number of Awards: One website will be selected and recognized at the Affiliate Breakfast at each year's NCTE Annual Convention. In addition to the top award, up to two honorable mentions may be awarded.

Award Specifics: The top award will be a plaque presented to the winning affiliate. Honorable mentions will be certificates presented to each winning affiliate.

Award Criteria: The previous year's award winner is ineligible to participate. Affiliates nominate themselves for this award by submitting an Affiliate Website Award Submission Form that includes the website URL. Completed entries should be mailed to the participating SCOA Representative (Claire Lamonica, Illinois State University, Campus Box 6370CTLT, Normal, IL  61790-6370; for Federal Express or U.P.S.:  603 Normal Ave., Normal 61761-1527), and postmarked no later than May 1 in the year of the award. Submissions are judged by the following seven criteria, each of which is worth up to 10 points (a perfect score equals 70 points).

• Navigation: Users should be able to get from the home page to where they want to be easily and with a minimum of clicking. Users should be able to get back home and to other pages from the pages they've gotten to. Users should be able to tell quickly from the first page what types of information are available.
• Content: Site should do more than simply talk about the organization as little more than a calendar of events. Site should also provide original source material about the teaching of English language arts. The information available on the site should be current (e.g., no old information such as a conference already passed, no pages dated years ago).
• Speed: Content is more important than flashy graphics, nifty Java applets, etc. The homepage of the site should load very quickly even for slow modem users. There are various design techniques that ensure that even in graphics-heavy pages the basic idea and text of the page should be visible almost instantly. The flashy stuff can come in over the next minute or so if the user decides to stick around.
• Privacy: Any site that collects personal information through forms or other methods should include a privacy policy which explains exactly what will be done with the information the user enters.
• Size: Sites designed on oversized monitors will have most of their screen wasted. A site can be designed so it scales gracefully to whatever monitor size is available.
• Beyond the website: Are there networking features available to allow site visitors to communicate? Options such as message boards, live chats, mailing lists, etc. are nice touches.
• Links: Dead links are bad…the site Webmaster should ensure that any off-site links are kept up to date and that the links are removed from the site when they become invalid. Some method of reporting dead links should be available to visitors. This can be as simple as "Click here to email us about a dead link."

Deadlines: Completed Affiliate Website Award Submission Form must be mailed to the participating SCOA Representative (Claire Lamonica, Illinois State University, Campus Box 6370CTLT, Normal, IL  61790-6370; for Federal Express or U.P.S.:  603 Normal Ave., Normal 61761-1527), and must be postmarked no later than May 1 of year of the award. The award winning affiliate(s) will be notified in late summer so that they may have a representative present to receive the award at the NCTE Annual Convention Affiliate Breakfast. This representative is expected to purchase a breakfast ticket with conference preregistration.

Administration: The Standing Committee on Affiliates will administer the award. The Standing Committee on Affiliates will appoint a member to handle the judging and the awards specifics. The committee will also provide annual feedback on ways to improve the program so that it runs smoothly. The Division Director of Communications & Affiliate Services at NCTE will handle the initial publicity and notification to affiliates of the program.

Judging: Each submission form and a tour of the website will be independently evaluated by three judges. An average of the three judges' scores will constitute the score for the submission.