Call for Papers - AASV Student Seminar

Veterinary Student Scholarships

The American Association of Swine Veterinarians announces an opportunity for up to 15 veterinary students to make a scientific presentation during the Student Seminar at the AASV annual meeting on Sunday, March 4, 2007 in Orlando, Florida. Interested students are invited to submit a one-page abstract of a research paper, clinical case study, or literature review for consideration. Abstracts and supplementary materials must be RECEIVED by Dr. Sandy Amass by midnight on Friday, September 22, 2006 (firm deadline). Faxes are acceptable. Late abstracts will not be considered. The abstracts will be reviewed by an unbiased, professional panel consisting of a private practitioner, an academician at a school from which no students have submitted an abstract, and an industry veterinarian. Students whose papers are selected for presentation at the meeting will be notified by October 16, 2006 and will be expected to provide the complete paper or abstract for publication by November 15, 2006.

ALPHARMA Animal Health has increased its financial support of the Student Seminar! To help defray the costs of attending the AASV meeting, ALPHARMA is generously providing a $750 honorarium to the student presenter of each paper selected for oral presentation.

Veterinary students whose papers are selected for presentation at the meeting will compete for one of several veterinary student scholarships awarded through the AASV Foundation. The oral presentations will be judged to determine the amount of the scholarship awarded to each student.

ALPHARMA Animal Health funds a $5000 scholarship for the student whose paper, oral presentation and supporting information are judged best overall.

The Eli Lilly & Company Foundation on behalf of Elanco Animal Health has provided $20,000 in additional funding enabling the AASV Foundation to provide awards of $2500 each for 2nd through 5th place, $1500 each for 6th through 10th place, and $500 each for 11th through 15th place.

NEW THIS YEAR! Students whose papers are not selected for oral presentation in the Student Seminar will be eligible to be considered for participation in a poster session at the annual meeting. Up to fifteen (15) posters will be selected through a competitive process. ALPHARMA has provided funding to award a stipend of $250 to those students who are selected and participate in the poster presentation.

Instructions for Submission of Abstracts

Please note, the rules for submission should be followed carefully. Abstracts will not be accepted after the deadline date. Abstracts that do not follow the instructions will be returned without review. Three categories of submissions will be accepted (Research, Clinical cases, Literature reviews). Submissions from all categories will be treated equally with respect to judging.

Abstracts should not exceed 1 page in length. The page should have 1" margins. The typeface should not be less than 12 pt. The body of the abstract may be single-spaced.

Each student must submit two abstracts:

The first abstract should have the title as the first line and the author(s) name(s) as the second line followed by a double space and the body of the abstract.

The second abstract should have the title and body of the abstract only. There should be absolutely no identifiers (i.e., student name, school, state, country, diagnostic lab name, farm name, etc.) on this abstract. This abstract will be used for judging.

The body of the abstract should include:

For Research Papers

• Statement of the problem:
• Objective(s)
• Brief materials and methods (including statistical analysis)
• Significant results
• Discussion of how results can be applied by practitioners

For Clinical Cases

• Statement of the problem
• Describe the herd(s) and the time period
• Case history
• State what data was collected, what tests were used, etc
• Discuss the most significant findings and your recommendations.
• Describe how your findings will assist the practicing veterinarian.
• State what we can learn from this case or the methods used to work up this case.
• Itemize the take home message(s) for the audience.

For Literature Reviews

(The literature review is meant to be a comprehensive review and a detailed summary of one specific topic)

• State the focus of the paper and include why you think this is an important and timely subject for swine veterinarians in 2007.
• Discuss the most significant information gathered from the literature review. Describe how the findings will assist practicing veterinarians.
• Itemize the take home message(s) for the audience.

Please note that papers having multiple authors may be submitted and presented by only one of the student authors. Distribution of any stipend or scholarship award is at the discretion of the presenting author.

Please include the following information on a separate sheet with each set of abstracts submitted:

• Student's name, home address, and school address
• Student's telephone number (include a daytime telephone number, if applicable)
• Name, title, and address of the faculty member working with the student

Students must also submit the following along with their abstract:

• A brief biography and explanation of their interest in swine medicine
• An explanation of the student's intended use of the scholarship funds
• A letter of recommendation from a veterinarian or veterinary school faculty member attesting to the character and interest of the applicant.

Submit abstracts with ALL supporting information by September 22, 2006 to:

Dr. Sandra Amass
Purdue University
VCS/Lynn
625 Harrison Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2026
FAX: (765) 496-1108
sandy@aasv.org (if submitting by email, the recommendation letter must be emailed by the veterinarian - not the student - or faxed) 

Students will be notified of the panel's decision by October 16, 2006. The final paper for publication in the proceedings of the meeting will be due in the AASV office by November 15, 2006. The honorarium will only be paid to students who submit their papers on time.

Students who wish to submit their research results to the Journal of Swine Health and Production (JSHAP) may publish only an abstract in the AASV proceedings rather than the full paper. Papers published in full in the proceedings are not eligible for publication in JSHAP.

Students will be expected to provide their PowerPoint presentation to organizers in advance of the annual meeting; failure to meet the specified deadline will result in the student not being eligible for scholarship awards.

For more information, contact the AASV office (phone 515-465-5255, fax 515-465-3832, email aasv@aasv.org ).

AASV Student Seminar Judging

The initial judging of abstracts is accomplished by having all judges fill out the Written Abstract Evaluation form below. The judges are then asked to rank the abstracts according to these criteria in case of tie scores. The judges’ results are averaged and the abstracts with the best 15 numerical scores are chosen for presentation. The judges view supplementary information only during the AASV meeting presentations, when they complete the Student Seminar Presentation Evaluation (next two pages) to determine scholarship award winners.

Written Abstract Evaluation

(for selection of abstracts to be presented during the Student Seminar at the AASV annual meeting)

Stage of completion ______

• Complete (3)
• Experiment complete, data collected, and results are being interpreted (2)
• Still collecting data for project (1)
• Project has not begun yet (0)

Interest to Practitioners ______

• High interest and information immediately applicable (3)
• Interesting and some components applicable (2)
• Less interesting or applicable (1)
• Not very interesting or applicable (0)

Subject contribution _____

• Significant contribution to industry knowledge (3)
• Moderate contribution to industry knowledge (2)
• Slight contribution to industry knowledge (1)
• No real contribution (0)

Grammar spelling ______

• No grammar/spelling errors (3)
• One grammar/spelling error (2)
• Two grammar/spelling errors (1)
• Greater than 3 grammar/spelling errors (0)
  

Student Seminar Presentation Evaluation

(for evaluation of Student Seminar oral presentations and selection of student scholarship winners at the AASV annual meeting)

Name:_______________________________

Subject ______

• Original idea of student (3)
• Component of a larger study-student ideas incorporated (2)
• Confirmation of known information but possibly with a new twist (1)
• Review (0)

Interest to Practitioners ______

• High interest and information immediately applicable (3)
• Interesting and some components applicable (2)
• Less interesting or applicable (1)
• Not very interesting or applicable (0)

Subject contribution _______

• Significant contribution to industry knowledge(3)
• Moderate contribution to industry knowledge (2)
• Slight contribution to industry knowledge (1)
• No real contribution (0)

Perceived Interest of Student in Swine______

• Committed (3)
• Interested (2)
• Somewhat interested (1)
• Not very interested (0)

Experimental Design Consistent with Expected Outcome

• Very consistent (4)
• Moderately consistent (3 )
• Only slightly consistent (2)
• Experimental design too simple or complex for expected outcome (1)

Student Leadership Skills ________

• Student recognizes contributions of others (3)
• Student worked alone or fails to recognize others’ efforts (0)

Perceived Overall Effort ________

• Significant contribution to study (3)
• Worked hard individually with some advisor help (2)
• Average effort, possibly 50-50 with advisor or others (1)

TOP TOTAL _________________

OVERALL TOTAL: Top _________ + Bottom _________= Final score_________