Frequently
Asked Questions
| What
is Faculty/ Mentor Endorsement? |
. |
All students must have
a faculty mentor
to guide their research. Mentors are responsible for guiding and advising the student throughout the research project. Mentors must invest a significant amount of efort to ensure that the student has satisfactorily completed all requirements of an academic research paper to the best of the mentor's advisory capacity.
Mentors need not be Howard University faculty. If research is conducted external to Howard University, the site and director of the work as well as the Howard University faculty member who directed the project or research report, if any, must be identified at the time of submission of an abstract. For external research projects, students must have endorsement of site director as well as a Howard University faculty member. The Symposium Committee will verify this information.
Students
must submit the Mentor
Endorsement Form to the College of Arts and Sciences, Office
of the Dean, Suite 101, Locke Hall, after submitting
an abstract. (Groups need only submit one form.) Keep a copy of the form for your records. It is the student's responsibility to ensure that the form is completely filled in. All fields, including those in the Mentor section, are mandatory. Graduating Honors students are not required to submit mentor forms.
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| I
am not in the College of Arts and Sciences. Can I still participate? |
. |
Absolutely!
All undergraduate Howard University students are welcome
to participate as long as your research falls within
one (or more) of the four
divisions of the College: Fine Arts, Humanities, Natural
Sciences and Social Sciences. Interdisciplinary projects are encouraged.
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| Do I need to submit my entire, completed research paper? |
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No. Only upload your abstract. Complete research papers are not to be submitted with an entry. We do not need to receive your entire paper at any point during the research Symposium.
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| How will I know if my research/ abstract has been accepted for presentation? |
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Finalists whose research/ abstracts are accepted for presentation will be listed on the Finalists page on the date indicated under Acceptances. Finalists will not be notified by email or phone.
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| I am a College of Arts and Sciences Honors Student. Am I required to participate? |
. |
| . |
No. Graduating seniors in the Honors Program are required to present their Honors Theses at the Symposium as part of the fulfilment of the Honors Program. Graduating Honors students are not required to submit mentor forms.
Honors students who are not graduating seniors may participate if desired, and will be considered regular participants. All regular participants are required to submit mentor forms.
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| I
am a College of Arts and Sciences Honors Student. Am I required to submit my abstract to www.coassymposium.com? |
. |
| . |
Yes. ALL Honors students, including graduating seniors, entering the Symposium must submit their abstracts like all other regular participants. Graduating Honors students (graduating this semester) do not need to submit Mentor Forms.
Graduating Honors seniors must identify themselves as such at the time of submission. This is so that names, research titles and abstracts can be included on the website Finalists list and Program booklet. Failure to submit abstracts to www.coassymposium.com will result in exclusion from the Finalists list, exclusion from the Program booklet and you will not be given a time slot for presentation.
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| Can I submit my personal/ reflective essays? |
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No. Personal / reflective essays will not be accepted. Please see Abstract Guidelines for information on what constitutes a research paper.
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| Can I submit my entire research paper? |
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No. Submit your abstract alone with this table containing your contact information at the end. Uploaded files containing entire research papers will not be considered entries.
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Students have reported being unable to upload abstracts from the HU I-Lab computers.
If you are having any issues uploading abstracts or submitting applications, please try a different computer or lab.
We apologize that at this time, our website is not setup to accept Word 2007 documents with file extension .docx. Please change your file to .doc and your file should upload properly. There are two simple ways to do this:
1. In MS Word, go to File >> Save As. In "Save as Type" select "Word 97-2003 Document (.doc)" or
2. Click once on the file name (as if renaming the file) and change .docx to .doc
We are working on updating the site to accept .docx files.
If you are still unable to upload your abstract please send the details
of the issue to mahmed@howard.edu
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| Can I enter more than once? |
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Yes, but only if you have different research projects. If you are entering as part of a group, you may also enter your different individual research project.
You may not present the same research project in multiple categories (ie. multiple divisions or oral and poster categories).
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| What is considered a group? |
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Group entries for the Symposium are a group of presenters entering the Symposium as a team. All members of the presentation group should have had some responsibility in conducting the actual research. Groups share any monetary Symposium prizes, but each individual participant will receive a certificate.
Please note that if research was originally conducted in a group, the entire group does not need to participate in the Symposium - an individual can enter and present the research, but all original research team members must be identified at the time of submission.
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| Can multiple members of a research group enter separately with the same research project? |
. |
| . |
No. The research project must be different. If you conducted research within a team, each member of the team must be identified when submitting the abstract, even if you are presenting the project as an individual. Another member of the research group may not enter the same project. If, however, the research project has multiple, distinct aspects to it, another member of the research group may present a different aspect. Abstracts are read carefully and duplicate abstracts, or abstracts referring to the same research problem will be automatically disqualified.
Please note that research group refers to a group conducting a research project and NOT necessarily to a group of presenters entering the Symposium as a team.
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