All UM faculty, staff, retirees, postdocs, and graduate students are invited to be judges. Community members who feel confident in judging interdisciplinary, undergraduate-level research presentations in the areas of life and physical sciences, humanities, social sciences, and visual and performing arts are also welcome to participate. 

UMCUR presentations are judged during the in-person sessions - judges need to plan to participate during their session and submit their evaluations and rankings no later than 5:30 PM on April 19, 2024, so the OUR staff can prepare for the award ceremony. 

Judges are asked to participate for at least one hour during UMCUR - depending on your availability, you may judge either an oral presentation session (1.5 hours) or a poster session (visiting 3 posters during the 1-hour session). 

During the session, we ask judges to ask questions about the presenters' research and scholarship in addition to evaluating the presentations. Students will not see their rankings, so you may also choose to offer constructive feedback. At least one judge in each room will serve as a session moderator (introducing presenters, keeping track of time, and moderating the discussion). 

A core spirit of UMCUR is communicating scholarship to a general audience. With that in mind, we encourage judges to be open to assessing presentations and posters outside their own areas of expertise.

Presentations will be judged using the criteria listed below.  A four-point scale is used to judge each criterion: 1 = novice (fair/poor); 2 = apprentice (acceptable); 3 = practitioner (good); and 4 = expert (great/exceptional).  

• Introduction/context
• Research question/objective
• Methodology/strategy
• Results and conclusions
• Delivery

Judging rubric

The UMCUR Steering Committee will provide judges with a guide and other materials with instructions and expectations to prepare you for the event - the guide will be shared roughly a week before UMCUR. Additionally, judges can choose to come to a brief in-person orientation on the morning of UMCUR. 

Interested judges can sign up here.

Anyone in the UM community (including students) is welcome to volunteer at UMCUR. We are happy to provide documentation if your professor is offering extra credit!

Interested volunteers can register using this form. 

Volunteers play a vital role in helping us facilitate a successful UMCUR experience for our presenters and visitors. 

Volunteer roles and responsibilities include: 

• Session moderator: introduce presenters, keep track of time, assist students with uploading their presentation (if needed)
• Registration desk: Greet students and guests, give presenters their name tag, answer questions (finding rooms, timing for events, etc.)
• Judges room: greet judges, locate judging packet (if needed), collect forms and enter judging forms, thank judges
• Poster session assistant: Help hang or take down posters, help judges find poster location. Please only choose this option if you can be at UMCUR from 8:30 - 10:00 AM. 

We ask volunteers to commit to at least a 1.5 hour block. 

The Office of Undergraduate Research is happy to provide documentation of your time. If you are a student and interested in volunteering, OUR can also reach out to see if your professor will excuse you from class or provide extra credit. 

Sign up here to be an UMCUR volunteer. If you are interested in being a judge, please use the form found in the "judging" section of this page.