Teams prepare solutions:
- Teams may use any inanimate source of data or materials: computers, software, references, web sites, books, etc. ALL SOURCES USED MUST BE CREDITED. Failure to credit a source will result in a team being disqualified from the competition.
- Team members may not seek help from or discuss the problem with their advisor or anyone else, except other members of the same team. Input in any form from anyone other than student team members is strictly forbidden. This includes email, telephone contact, and personal conversation, communication via web chat or other question-answer systems, or any other form of communication.
- Partial solutions are acceptable. There is no passing or failing cut-off score, and numerical scores will not be assigned. The IMMC-Canada contest judges are primarily interested in the team’s approach and methods.
- Summary Sheet: The summary is an essential part of your IMMC paper. The judges place considerable weight on the summary, and winning papers are often distinguished from other papers based on the quality of the summary.
To write a good summary, imagine that a reader will choose whether to read the body of the paper based on your summary: Your concise presentation in the summary should inspire a reader to learn about the details of your work. Thus, a summary should clearly describe your approach to the problem and, most prominently, your most important conclusions. Summaries that are mere restatements of the contest problem, or are a cut-and-paste boilerplate from the Introduction are generally considered to be weak.
- Solution Paper:
Besides the summary sheet as described, each paper shall contain the following sections:
- Restatement and clarification of the problem: State in your own words what you are going to do.
- Explain assumptions and rationale/justification: Emphasize the assumptions that bear on the problem. Clearly list all variables used in your model.
- Include your model design and justification for type model used or developed.
- Describe model testing and sensitivity analysis, including error analysis, etc.
- Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your model or approach
- References
- The judges will evaluate the quality of your writing in the Solution Paper:
- Conciseness and organization are extremely important.
- Key statements should present major ideas and results.
- Present a clarification or restatement of the problem, as appropriate.
- Present a clear exposition of all variables, assumptions, and hypotheses.
- Present an analysis of the problem, including the motivation or justification for the model that is used.
- Include a design of the model.
- Discuss how the model could be tested, including error analysis and stability (conditioning, sensitivity, etc.).
- Discuss any apparent strengths or weaknesses in your model or approach.
- Papers must be typed in English, with a readable font of at least 12 point type and up to 20 pages.
- The solution must consist entirely of written text, and possibly figures, charts, or other written material only. No non-paper support materials such as computer files or software will be accepted.
- The Solution Paper must display the team control number and the page number at the header of every page; for example, use the following page header on each page:
Team # 2022001 Page 6 of 13
- The names of the students, advisor, or institution should NOT appear on any page of the electronic solution. The solution should not contain any identifying information other than the team control number.
- Failure to adhere to any preparation rule is grounds for team disqualification.