Judging the Peer Awards works in much the same way as does judging most other awards; a judge first selects an award category of interest, then reviews all the entries shortlisted for that category (which includes rating them against each of the judging criteria), and finally votes for the one that they would most like to see win that category. They then ideally do the same for some/all of the other categories in that award. The key difference here is that many of the judges also have entries of their own shortlisted.

The judging process has been designed for use on a computer screen rather than on a mobile.

The process

The Judging process is in just three steps

1. Select a category of interest and click  to read an entry and ‘review’ it

CATEGORY: a grouping of nominated entries; each category will have a winner determined by the votes cast by the judges

REVIEW: where a judge gives their feedback on an entry and rates it out of 10 for Impact and for Innovation

2. On reviewing all the entries for that category a judge is invited to  vote for the one they want to see win 

3. Revert to step 1 to work through at least two categories, but ideally all of them

How we use the data

The entry with the most votes is deemed the winner in its category.

Ratings for Impact and Innovation also play a part. Not only do they determine our overall winners, but they also  pinpoint entries deserving of recognition at the Awards Ceremony, despite their having lost-out to a stronger entry in their category.

Confidentiality

We all appreciate the finalists sharing their ideas with us candidly and generously, and ask judges to respect their confidentiality.

Selecting Award Categories

The entries have been grouped into categories purely so that when it comes to voting judges can compare like with like. The category titles themselves should not influence how judges rate entries or vote.

To start simply click    next to an entry of interest. This will display a page that has the entry in the upper section and the form for the review in the lower section.

Judges are requested to work their way through all the entries in a category, so that they may then vote on that category and thereby influence the results of the Peer Awards.

Judges are able to edit their reviews, adjust their ratings and switch their votes throughout the judging period.

The additional spacing ahead of each category is so the system can return to the current category on submitting reviews.

Reviewing Entries

Judges are requested to allow sufficient time to read through an entry and view at least some of its video material (where provided). Some entries are in text, some in PDF and some feature a combination of the two. It can be better to click the link to the PDF than to read it in its embedded form. Some entries have illustrations and some have one or two videos. 

Questions

Judges are welcome to post questions to the finalist who are requested to respond promptly and fully. This is ideally to seek clarification where further information would be helpful, rather than to provide feedback to the finalist.

Please keep questions and answers to the point.

Questions and answers will be displayed alongside each entry so that judges that review later will benefit from the added information.

Judges should be able to see the questions and answers that relate to their own entries by clicking on their entry.

This process takes place anonymously, because judges are also finalists.

Reviewing an entry means providing feedback and rating the entry against the judging criteria.

The feedback could be something helpful/complimentary to share with the finalist, and may be something that we would wish to feature subsequently – for instance during the awards ceremony or in the Book we plan to publish.
Last year we acknowledged at the awards ceremony judges that provided extensive feedback…

Each entry is rated out of 10 for Impact and for Innovation. This is of course very subjective. Ideally judges should aim to use the full range of ratings (from 1 to 10) across reviews to actually influence the outcome. Where this is not done we might standardise the ratings in order to obtain a balanced evaluation of each entry’s strength.

Language & the quality of the ideas

We request that judges try to not be negatively influenced by poor grammar or misuse of language – many international entries in particular are from candidates whose first language may well not be English – it would be great if they can focus exclusively on the quality of the ideas, the degree of innovation and creativity, and the success of the initiatives.

Ignore the category

Judges should rate each entry without reference to its category. It is best to consider its impact, how innovative it is and how inspirational they find it in terms of the award as a whole. The category an entry is featured in may not even be the one it was originally submitted for.

Ratings

The ratings work by assigning a number of stars. If for some reason the review form does not offer the opportunity to use the stars provided then please email us (judging@thepeerawards.com) with a screenshot and tell us what browser/version is being used.

Casting votes

How many votes

Judges may vote for all the categories listed within the award. The more the better. Each vote can impact the eventual winners of category awards.

Judges wanting to review and vote in our other awards (we cover Corporate Responsibility, Customer Engagement and People & Performance) should just email us.

Judges that are also finalists

We have tried to arrange things so that judges are not reviewing or rating entries with which they are directly connected. These are listed as . If a judge finds that an entry with which they are directly connected is nevertheless available to them to review they should please email us about this so we can rectify the situation. 

So that candidates are not disadvantaged in their own categories by fielding many judges, we adjust for this when analysing the votes.