The Contributors Competition aims to reward the members who contribute the most to the Data Science Foundation website by helping to raise their profile.

The competition is based on Contributor Points, which are a combination of points awarded for publishing material and points received from other members though post ratings. The winner is the person who has accrued the most points during the competition period.

The winner of the monthly competition will have a 'Winners Badge' added to their Personal Profile page and will receive a cash prize of £100 paid by TransferWise or PayPal. Two runners-up will receive prizes for second and third place of £50 and £25 respectively. Note that only Individual and Associate members who have created a Profile page and added a photo to their profile are eligible to receive cash prizes, and only after the minimum point threshold has been reached. Cash prizes are not paid to organisational members.

How Contributor Points are Calculated

When a member posts an item to the Data Science Foundation website, they receive the following points:

• 1500 Points: Whitepaper
• 750 Points: Use Case
• 500 Points: DataTalk Post
• 5 Points: Create a new Forum Thread
• 2 Points: Answer a question or comment on a Forum Thread
• 2 Points: Submit News Item
• 1 Point: Rate another member's Paper
• 1 Point: Like a Use Case or Article of another member
• 1 Point: Use the 'Email' feature to send a Whitepaper, Use Case or DataTalk article to a friend
• 1 Point: Use the 'Social' buttons to share a whitepaper, use case or DataTalk article with your network

The review process can take up to three days and sometimes longer for white papers. Items will be dated as the day submitted, not the day published.

Article and Use Case Likes

Contributor Points are awarded when members Like Articles and Use Cases. Liking an item will add 3 Contributor Points to the author’s total and 1 point to the reviewing member. Members can like each item just once.

Whitepaper Rating Points

When a member rates a Whitepaper, the total value of the rating selected is added to the contributor’s points total. The member can choose to award a rating of between 1 – 10 with an addition1 point being awarded to the reviewing member.. Members can rate each item just once.

Discretionary Points

Each month the Editorial Board can, at its discretion, award one set of additional points in each publishing group. These points are awarded for excellence in research, presentation, originality or for the quality of writing. This is being done to recognise outstanding work and to improve the overall quality of content published on the site. The points which can be awarded are as follows:

• Whitepaper 750 points
• Use Case 500 points
• Article 250 points

Spam and Junk Postings

Members posting off-topic comments to the Discussion Forum, or posting poor quality comments, will be penalised

Submission and Editorial Review

Note that submitting an item does not guarantee that it will be published. We pay attention to the quality of the writing as well as the quality of the content. If an item is rejected, you will receive an explanation as to why it has been rejected.

Whitepapers should be at least 2500 words in length and be authoritative documents based on your expertise and research. They should be formatted to include an abstract, keywords, an introduction to your argument or topic and conclusions or recommendations.

All items submitted for publication must be your original work or be produced by your organisation and you must have copyright permission to publish them on the Data Science Foundation website. If you include any writing or research produced by others, it must clearly referenced.

Note 

Editors may make minor corrections to work, where the correction does not have any material impact. These might include spelling corrections, grammatical changes or inserting missing words.