Source: http://ipho2018.pt/content/statutes
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 18:36:07+00:00

Document:
The competition is organized by the Ministry of Education, the Physical Society or another appropriate institution of one of the participating countries on whose territory the competition is to be conducted. The organizing country is obliged to ensure equal participation of all the delegations, and to invite teams from all those countries that participated during the last three years. Additionally, it has the right to invite other countries. The list of such new countries must be presented to Secretariat of the IPhOs (§ 8) at least six months prior to the competition. Within two months the Secretariat has the right to remove, after consultations with the Advisory Committee (# 8), from the suggested list the teams that in opinion of Secretariat or Advisory Committee do not meet the criteria of participation in the IPhOs. The new countries not accepted by the Secretariat or Advisory Committee may, however, participate as "guest teams" but such participation does not create any commitments with respect to inviting these countries to the next competition(s).
No country may have its team excluded from participation on any political reasons resulting from political tensions, lack of diplomatic relations, lack of recognition of some country by the government of the organizing country, imposed embargoes and similar reasons. When difficulties preclude formal invitation of the team representing a country, students from such a country should be invited to participate as individuals.
The Organizers of the Olympiad determine in accordance to the program the day of arrival and the day of departure as well as the place in their country from which the delegations are supposed to arrive and depart. The costs for each delegation as a result of activities connected to the Olympiad from the day of arrival till the day of departure are covered by the Organizing Committee.
Contestants may bring into the examination drawing instruments and approved calculators. No other aids may be brought into the examination.
The theoretical problems should involve at least four areas of physics taught at secondary school level, (see Syllabus). Secondary school students should be able to solve the competition problems with standard high school mathematics and without extensive numerical calculation.
The competition tasks are chosen and prepared by the host country and have to be accepted by the International Board (§ 7).
(a) Gold Medals should be awarded to 8% of the contestants (rounded up the nearest integer).
(b) Gold or Silver Medals should be awarded to 25% of the contestants (rounded up the nearest integer).
(c) Gold, Silver or Bronze Medals should be awarded to 50% of the contestants (rounded up the nearest integer).
(d) An Olympic Medal or Honorable Mention should be awarded to 67% of the contestants (rounded up the nearest integer).
The minima corresponding to the above percentages should be expressed without rounding. The suggested minima shall be considered carried if one half or more of the number of the Members of the International Board cast their vote in the affirmative.
A proposal placed to the International Board, except Statutes, Regulations and Syllabus (see § 10), shall be considered carried if more than 50% of all delegation leaders present at the meeting vote in the affirmative. Each delegation leader is entitled to one vote. In the case of equal number of votes for and against, the chairman has the casting vote. The quorum for a meeting of the International Board shall be one half of those eligible to vote.
(h)to elect the members of the Secretariat of the IPhO.
The long-term work involved in organizing the Olympiads is coordinated by a Secretariat for the International Physics Olympiads. This Secretariat consists of the President, the Secretary and the Treasurer. They are elected by the International Board for a period of five years when the chairs become vacant.
The members of the Secretariat of the IPhO should be invited to the Olympiads as the members and heads of the International Board; their relevant expenses should be paid by the organizers of the competition. The members of the Secretariat should not be leaders of any national team.
6. Such other persons appointed by the President.
the Syllabus mentioned in § 5.
of the number of the members of the International Board present at the meeting cast their vote in the affirmative. Such changes shall take effect from the end of the current IPhO and cannot affect the operation of the competition in progress. The vote can only take place if at least 2/3 of the all leaders are present at the meeting.
The Ministry of Education, or the institution organizing the competition, allots the task of preparation and execution of the Competition to an appropriate body.
Official invitations to the participating countries should be sent at least six months before the Olympiad. They normally are sent to the national institution that sent the delegation to the previous Olympiad. Copies of the invitation are also sent to the previous years' delegation leaders. The invitation should specify the place and time of the Competition plus the address of the organizing secretariat.
The accompanying persons are considered by the organizers of the next Olympiad and by the Secretariat of the IPhOs (§ 8) as contact persons until the next Olympiad (unless new accompanying persons or other contact persons are nominated by the participating country).
The host country must pay for organization of IPhO, food, lodging, transport and excursions of the delegations plus prizes.
The host country may ask the delegations for a contribution to the obligatory costs. Delegations with economic difficulties may ask waving this fee by sending a motivated appeal to the Secretariat of the IPhO.
The organizers of the IPhO are responsible for devising all the problems. They must be presented in English and the other official languages of the Olympiad as indicated in § 9. The examination topics should require creative thinking and knowledge contained within the Syllabus. Factual knowledge from outside the Syllabus may be introduced provided it is explained using concepts within the Syllabus.
All problems should be presented simultaneously and the board should have at least one hour (exact time to be determined by the organizers) to read them carefully and suggest changes. Changes should be suggested to the organizers during this period. Changes accepted by the organizers will not require a vote: they will form a new text of the problems. After this period, the organizers will present the modified problem set. The International Board shall be given time to consider the examination papers. It may change, or reject, problems. IB Members should not be allowed to suggest the cuts in the problems unless the part contains wrong or poor physics. They can suggest that the whole set of problems is too long and ask for a vote on this. If accepted, it will be up to the organisers to suggest the cuts. The next vote can decide if the cuts are sufficient or not and this procedure acan be repeated until the IB decides that the length of the problems is correct.
If a problem is rejected, the alternative problem must be accepted. The host country will be responsible for grading the examination papers. The delegation leaders shall have an opportunity to discuss with the examiners the grading of their students' papers. If an agreement, between graders and leaders, to the final marks cannot be reached, the International Board has to decide.
A calculator shall be an approved calculator if it is not a graphical calculator, its display has no more than three lines, and if its user memory is completely cleared immediately prior to each examination.
The host country may provide calculators to students which are approved calculators. If the country chooses to do this then the team leaders of the countries attending IPhO must be advised of the exact model at least two months in advance of the competition. Students who bring their own approved calculators shall be permitted to use them.
The host country is obliged to publish the Proceedings of the Competition electronically, in English, within the subsequent year.
Special prizes may be awarded. The participant who obtains the highest score should receive a special prize.
‧ or an observer or member of the International Board, who has attended all these five IPhOs.
b) All members of the Secretariat will hold office for a period of five years commencing at the conclusion of the final meeting of the International Board at which the concerned person has been chosen.
c) The members of the Secretariat must be appointed at different IPhOs. If this is the case, however, the period of the Secretary and/or the Treasurer will have to be shortened in such a way that the elections can be held at different IPhOs.
d) The members of the Secretariat must come from different delegations.
e) If the term of one of the members of the Secretariat comes to an end, the International Board has to be informed one year in advance that there will be the ballots of a new member of the Secretariat during the following IPhO. In addition to that, the Secretariat is responsible to send a letter to all leaders of the last three IPhOs with this information and with the question if any leader will be ready to run for these positions for the coming period by 31st January. This is normally done by e-mail.
f) If someone is willing to be a candidate for the ballot, he or she will have to tell this to the current Secretary by 31st March, normally by e-mail. A nominee has to send his/her curriculum vitae up to 31st March. A nomination may not be made by a person from the same country as one of the current members of the Secretariat who holds chair on another position than the one that becomes vacant.
g) The Secretariat is responsible to collect all these answers and has to make a list with all the names.
If the current members of the Secretariat are willing to continue his/her term, he or she has to enter his/her name in this list and has to follow the same rules as all the other candidates.
h) The list with the candidates for the new member of the Secretariat has to be published on the IPhO-home-page and the home page of the IPhO during which the ballot will be held.
i) If there is just one candidate for the vacant position of the Secretariat, the current Secretary has to inform the current President about that. In that case this candidate is accepted as the elected one.
k) If the current member of the Secretariat resigns or becomes incapable of continuing his/her work, the remaining members of the Secretariat shall appoint a replacement to act as provisional President, Secretary or Treasurer up to the next IPhO. The ballot of the new one has to be made as soon as possible.
1.2. During the meeting of the International Board (IB) of the IPhO where the problems are discussed, a detailed marking scheme has to be provided which will be approved by the IB, if more than 50% of all delegation leaders present at the meeting vote in the affirmative.
1.3. In the detailed marking scheme it is indicated which of the above is required.
2.1. All results per (sub)question need to be presented with it’s correct unit. Within a numerical or algebraic evaluation units are not demanded unless this is specifically asked for.
2.5 Unless specified otherwise in the question, the student needs to state how they derived their uncertainty (error) estimations, equally acceptable either by graphical or theoretical methods.
3.1. The leading principle to mark is to award the contestant in accordance to the extent in which the required performance is met. Therefore marks will be added for every correct intermediate or final result; this in contrast to a system in which marks are subtracted for every error.
3.2. Per (sub)question the maximum of marks allotted has to be in accordance with the marking scheme.
3.3. The allotted marks will reflect to what extent the contestant has fulfilled the task.
3.4. Partial marks (0 – maximum) will be given when the performance is incomplete. This includes evaluations where for instance the final result is incorrect.
3.5. In case an error propagates in subsequent results, full marks will be given per intermediate and final result when no extra errors are made, unless the error clearly simplifies the calculations or the algebraic manipulations. In the latter case the degree of simplification should be reflected in the marks allotted.
when in the case of error propagation the student remarks that the order (with respect to the unit) is wrong or that the unit is wrong, but when the student is unable to correct the error, no more than 2/3 of the marks should be allotted.
4.1 In the Regulation to §5 of the Statutes it is stated that: “The organisers shall provide the delegation leaders with copies of their students' scripts and allow at least 12 hours for them to mark the scripts.” The time allotted for the preliminary marking should be long enough to achieve a high quality of grading. This benefits the moderations, assures more fair results and increases the predictability of the number of awards.
4.2. The markers in the moderation should have excellent knowledge on the problem they moderate. It is preferred that these markers are the same as the ones that marked the papers of the contestants who are discussed with the team leaders.
4.3. The markers master English to the extent that a quick discussion on their marking is assured. In case the markers need translations the time for the moderation will be doubled.
4.4. In §3 of the Statutes it is stated that: “The delegation leaders must be specialists in physics or physics teachers, capable of solving the problems of the competition competently. Each of them should be able to speak English.” When the moderation is slowed down due to the fact that the delegation leaders do not meet these requirements, there will be no extra time allotted for the moderation.
4.5. In the Regulations to §7 of the Statutes it is stated that: “During the meeting of the graders where the final and most detailed version of the grading scheme is set, 3 members of the International Board will be present. They have the right to give advice to the group of graders in order to keep the grading scheme within the tradition of the IPhOs.” Since these members are elected by the International Board, which is the governing body of the Olympiad (see §7 of the Statutes), their advise is decisive.
4.6. After the leaders and graders accept the moderation results, the marks of the concerned contestants should be final. If there is any special reason for changing the grades, it has to obtain consent from the three representatives of the International Board.

References: § 10
 § 5
 § 9
 §5
 §3
 §7
 §7