INFORMS Open Forum

Deadline for Submission: July 14th (Extended two more weeks from the previous deadline June 30 th , 2022)

Submission portal: https://rutgers.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eEiIsO0yRI553Su

The INFORMS Service Science Section announces the following two best paper award competitions to recognize excellence among its members and bring prestige to the Service Science Section as well as to the recipients honored.

• Best Cluster Paper Award

• IBM Best Student Paper Award

The INFORMS Service Science Section promotes and disseminates research and applications among professionals interested in theory, methodologies, and applications in Service Science. The Section provides a forum to exchange new ideas and disseminate new findings in Service Science.

Awards
• Best Cluster Paper Award will select a first-place, a second-place, and a third-place winner.

• IBM Best Student Paper Award will select a first-place, a second-place, and a third-place
winner.
• All winners and finalists will receive a plaque or award certificate.

Selection Process:
Each of the two awards will form its award committee. For each award, its award committee will choose a pool of finalists from the submitted papers for this award, based on:
1. Academic significance (originality, depth, completeness, and work's potential impact on future service science research).
2. Business relevance (importance of the problem and its impact on service engineering or business practice).
3. Fit with the INFORMS Service Science Section.

The finalists will be invited to present in an award competition session judged by the award committee at the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, IN, October 16-19, 2022. Each award committee will then decide the order of winners, which will be announced during the business meeting of the Service Science Section.

Eligibility Criteria
Each submitting author
• can only submit one paper, but can be a co-author on other submitted papers.
• must be the presenting author if the paper is shortlisted to present.
• must be the first author and major contributor of the submitted paper.
• must be a member of the INFORMS Service Science Section at the time of submission.


Each submitted paper
• must represent original work in Service Science subject areas (a summary of multiple papers
is not eligible).
• cannot be accepted for publication nor published already at any journal or conference at the
time of submission, but can be under review.
• can only be submitted to one award category sponsored by the Service Science Section.
• must not have been selected as a finalist in a previous paper competition sponsored by the
Service Science Section.

Additional requirements to qualify for the IBM Best Student Paper Award:
• The submitting author must be a student at the time of submission.
• The paper should not have any IBM employees or current officers/board members of the

Service Science Section as a co-author. Members of each award committee are ineligible to participate in the competition that he/she serves.

Submission Guidelines
To be considered for this year's competitions, please submit one pdf file to the submission link below by July 14 th , 2022.

https://rutgers.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eEiIsO0yRI553Su

The submitted pdf file consists of a paper and a one-page cover letter certifying eligibility.
• The paper should be no more than 32 pages, double-spaced, 11-point Times Roman font or
similar. Paper format should follow typical INFORMS journal layout conventions. Appendices
are excluded from the page limit. Authors must remove explicit indications of the authors'
names and institutions and all acknowledgments must be removed.
• A separate cover letter should be submitted. The cover letter should specify the submitting
author, and list every author' name, affiliation, and email address. If the paper is under review
by any publisher, please state in the cover letter where and when it is submitted, and at what
stage of the review process it is.
o For the Best Cluster Paper Award, the cover letter should be provided by the submitting
author and attest that all eligibility criteria are satisfied.
o For the IBM Best Student Paper Award, one faculty co-author of the paper should sign the
cover letter and attest that all eligibility criteria are satisfied. The letter should also confirm
the submitting author's student status at the time of submission and the student's major role
in writing this paper.
• The paper should be named "Paper-INFORMS Member ID.pdf" and the cover letter should be
named "Cover Letter-INFORMS Member ID.pdf".

Contact Information
Any questions regarding the paper award competitions can be directed to
• Dr. Guiping Hu (ghgis@rit.edu), Rochester Institute of Technology, Vice-Chair of Service
Science Section, Committee Chair of the Best Cluster Paper Award
• Dr. Meng Li (mli@bauer.uh.edu), University of Houston, Secretary/Treasurer of Service
Science Section, Committee Chair of the IBM Best Student Paper Award

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Xianghua Wu
Post Doctoral Fellow
C. T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston
Houston TX
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