The Schubmehl-Prein Prize for
Best Essay on Social Impact of Computing
See below for the
announcement of the winning entries to the 2008 competition!
The Competition.
The Schubmehl-Prein Prize for best analysis of
the social impact of a particular aspect of computing technology will be
awarded to a student who is a high school junior in academic year 2007-2008. The first-place award is $1,000, the
second-place award is $500, and the third-place award is $250. Winning entries are traditionally
published in the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computers
and Society online magazine.
Topic for the 2009 Competition. The topic for the 2009 competition is – What are the potential social
and ethical implications of the “$100 laptop”?
Eligibility.
Students who are in their junior year of high school in the 2008-2009
academic year and in the top one-fifth of their class are eligible to
enter. A letter from the school
principal or other appropriate administrator certifying the junior standing and
academic rank should be submitted with the essay.
Entry Guidelines.
An essay should be organized as a title page, main body, and list of
references. The maximum length of
length of the main body of an essay should be limited to approximately 2,500
words, or ten pages. Submissions
that are substantially shorter, in the range of four pages or less, generally
are not competitive against longer submissions. A figure or table taking one
page should be counted as 250 words.
The essay must be the original work of the entrant. All sources and quotations must be
appropriately documented. The
language for the competition is English.
Judging.
The essays will be judged for accuracy of technical concepts, quality
and clarity of expression, logic of argument, originality of ideas, and
conformance to the entry guidelines.
The decision of the judges is final.
Timeline.
Essays should be submitted by midnight, Eastern Standard Time, 31 May
2009. Submit your entry as an
attachment to an email to essay@cse.nd.edu. Your email should contain contact information for a school administrator
who can verify eligibility. If the
attachment is not in standard word or pdf format,
then the email should identify the format. Within a few days after the deadline, you should receive an
acknowledgement that the essay was received. The target date for
announcement of the judging results is 1 August 2009. The competition web page is www.cse.nd.edu/EssayContest and updated details
are announced there.
The Review Panel. The members of the review panel are:
Professor Kevin W. Bowyer, Schubmehl-Prein Professor
and Department Chair, Computer Science and Engineering, The University of Notre
Dame; and Professor C. Dianne Martin, Computer Science and Engineering, The
George Washington University.
TheAward. The
prize for this essay competition is made possible by the endowment for the Schubmehl-Prein Chair at the University of Notre Dame.
Suggested Background Reading List. A starter reading list for this topic
is given below. However, authors
will almost certainly want to use additional sources as well.
Winners
of the 2008 competition.
The winners of the 2008 Schubmehl-Prein Competition for the Best Essay on Social
Impact of Computing are:
First place: Sean Hernandez,
Damien High School, California
Second place: Greg Rodarte, Damien High School, California
Third place: Albert Albani, De La Salle Collegiate High School, Michigan
This
year’s competition had a most unusual result in relation to last year’s
competition. The first- and
second-place winners again came from Damien High School in California, and the
third-place winner again came from a Michigan high school, although a different
one than last year. The essays
this year expressed a strong theme of personal responsibility in the use of
social networking sites. Thanks to
all of the students who worked to prepare an entry to the competition, and
thanks as well to all of the teachers who worked with them.
Winners
of the 2007 competition.
The winners of the 2007 Schubmehl-Prein Competition for the Best Essay on Social
Impact of Computing are:
First place: David Martinez,
Damien High School, California (link to
published essay in Computers and Society)
Second place: Tunlewa Soyinka, Damien High School, California (link to
published essay in Computers and Society)
Third place: Maria Lee, Hillsdale
Academy, Michigan (link to
published essay in Computers and Society))
Entries
to this year’s competition again came from throughout the United States,
including schools in Indiana, California, Michigan, New York, and Florida. As happened in the first year, the top
two prizes went to students at the same school. This year it is Damien High School in California, whereas in
2005 it was Greenwood High School in Indiana. As is the case each year, there were a number of good
entries and a broad variety approaches taken by the authors. We thank all of the students who
entered, and all of the teachers who worked with them, for their time and
effort.
Winners of the 2006 competition.
The winners of the 2006 Schubmehl-Prein Competition for the Best Essay on Social
Impact of Computing, appearing in the December 2006 issue
of ACM
SIGCAS Computers and Society, are:
First place: David Amurao, Damien High School, California (link
to published essay in Computers and Society)
Second place: Joshua
Gaines, West Branch High School, Ohio (link
to published essay in Computers and Society)
Third place: Alexa Linton, Central Bucks High School, Pennsylvania (link
to published essay in Computers and Society)
Entries
to this 2006 competition came from throughout the United States, including high
schools in Arizona, California, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New
York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. The judging was quite difficult, due to the number of good
entries and the diverse approaches taken by the authors. We thank all of the students who
entered, and all of the teachers who worked with them, for their time and
effort.
Winners of the 2005 competition.
The winners of the 2005 Schubmehl-Prein Competition for the Best Essay on Social
Impact of Computing, appearing in the March 2005 issue
of ACM
SIGCAS Computers and Society, are:
First
Place – Jennifer Fujawa, Greenwood High School,
Indiana (link
to published essay in Computers and Society
)
Second
Place – Amanda Woodcock, Greenwood High School, Indiana (link to
published essay in Computers and Society)
Third
Place – Patrick
Kosciuk, Lakeshore High School, Michigan (link to
published essay in Computers and Society)
Congratulations to each of
Jennifer, Amanda, and Patrick! And
thanks to all those who submitted entries to this year’s competition. Revised versions of the winning essays
have appeared in ACM SIGCAS Computers and
Society, a publication of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computers and
Society. Links to essays appear
above. Information about the
Computers and Society magazine can be found here.