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Dear colleagues!


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According to last year rank voting on the questions published on 30.08.2007
(http://www.issp.ac.ru/iao/2007/rp07_e.doc), the following questions were
chosen for voting pro, neutral or contra:

07-1. a - 7, b - 7, c - 8,
"c)" is chosen for official ANRAOs voting:
- To postulate that the reports of the National Olympiads should be
presented not later than (for example) 10 days after finish of the National
Olympiad (but, of course, not later than some deadline like June 15, for
example). The reason of such decision is to make the job of Advisory
Committee not so stressed at the days near deadline and diminish the period
necessary for the Committee to give answer (resolution) that is officially
equal to 5 weeks now.
Please, fill the cell in column 07-1 in the table as "+", "0" or "-"
for voting pro, neutral or contra.

07-4. a - 5.5, b - 10, c - 5.5, neutral - 1.
"b)" is chosen for official ANRAOs voting:
- To enlarge the age limit for the first time participating students till
~18.8 years (i.e. 18.0 for January 1st of the year of the Olympiad).
Argumentation is:
Just now the limit is about 17.8 years old (17.0 for January 1st while the
Olympiad in October) for the first and second time participating students
and about 16.8 years old (16.0 for January 1st while the Olympiad in
October) for the third time participating students. (Fourth time
participating is impossible in any case.) This rule seems "nonlinear".
While the proposed changing will be adopted, the curve will be linear: 18.8-
17.8-16.8 years for the 1st -2nd -3rd time of participation.
Please, fill the cell in column 07-4 in the table as "+", "0" or "-"
for voting pro, neutral or contra.

Representatives of ANRAOs of participating states, please, send your votes
pro or contra for every of the both above questions. 21 day is given for
you to send the vote. So, please, answer not later April 17, 2008.

In positive decision of the majority of ANRAOs the changing in rules will
come into operation after ratification (agreement) by the EAAS, the
governing body of IAO.
=====


=====
Other questions published on 30.08.2007
(http://www.issp.ac.ru/iao/2007/rp07_e.doc), the results and decisions:

2. pro - 15, contra - 6, special - 1. Nevertheless, obligation to follow
these requirements cannot be fulfilled by some countries. So this proposal
is adopted as recommendation:
- It is recommended for all countries to announce in advance the schedule
(dates) and places of the National Olympiads, Sub-National stages of
Olympiads (IV stage) in the large countries, Few-Countries Olympiads. This
information will be published at the Web-page of IAO.

3. pro - 16, contra - 6, special - 1. So the proposal is adopting by
qualifying majority:
- To publish main information (dates, duration, number of rounds, number of
participants at every stage, etc.) about the past National Olympiads at the
Web-page of IAO. It helps to make the job on the reports more public.
=====


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March 27, 2008.

There are also some new questions and proposals, some of them were taken
from the list of proposals made by a group of team leaders at the XII IAO
in Katsiveli.

Please, answer us (to gavrilov@issp.ac.ru) till April 17, 2008.

Please, for every question choose one of the proposals (a, b, c...) for the
rank voting or agree or disagree with the proposals with the only proposed
point (neutral position may be as well). Note you motivations. The proposal
that have the largest number of the votes at the rank election will be
proposed for ANRAOs voting "to adopt changing" or "to reject the proposal".
The table http://www.issp.ac.ru/iao/2008/votes08_03.xls is to be filled by
your votes.


While any point adopted, the changing in rules will come into operation as
obligations since XIV IAO in 2009 (since XIII IAO in 2008 they may be used
as recommendations).

08-1. Web-sites of National Astronomy Olympiads.
Rank voting.
a) Keep the current situation. It may be decision of National Committee to
have or not to have the web-site of the National Astronomy Olympiad.
(Note: The most of countries have their own sites about some National
Olympiads, but for some countries such an obligation may be hardly
fulfilled.)
b) Every National Astronomy Olympiad of countries, participated in the
International Astronomy Olympiad should have the own website, the main
information at the web-site will be in Native (Natives) and at least one of
the official languages of IAO.
c) Every National Astronomy Olympiad of countries, participated in the
International Astronomy Olympiad should have the own website, the main
information at the web-site may be at the language defined by National
Committee (i.e. information at official language of IAO is not necessary).
Please, fill the cell in column 08-1 in the table as "a", "b", "c" or
"0" for voting for any alternative or neutral. If you agree with two
alternatives (a and b, for example) but disagree with the third one you
should write like "a/2 b/2".

08-2. The International Astronomy Olympiad website should provide the links
for the National Astronomy Olympiad (NAO) websites of all the participating
countries. It means that the NAOs representatives to be obliged to send the
references to IAO web-site.
(Note: There are links for some National Olympiads at the page
http://www.issp.ac.ru/iao/nao/. One can find a reference to this page from
the page "Participating States" (http://www.issp.ac.ru/iao/sta_e.html) and
reference to "Participating States" from the main page of IAO. Maybe, the
way to find it is not too evident. Nevertheless, other countries
representatives are welcome to send the references.)
Please, fill the cell 08-2 in the table as "+", "0" or "-" for voting
pro, neutral or contra.

08-3. Observational Round. In case of unavailability of sufficient number
of examiners, due to some unforeseen situations, Junior and Senior rounds
can be conducted on different days as there is a provision of additional
days.
(Note: This way seems optimal and may be realized and conducted.)
Rank voting.
a) Organization of the Observational Round for Junior and Senior groups may
be done on different days (nights).
b) Organization of the Observational Round for Junior and Senior groups
should be done at the same day (night) in any case.
Please, fill the cell in column 08-3 in the table as "a", "b" or "0"
for voting for any alternative or neutral.

08-4. If some facts or suspicions of unfair practice appear, the team
leaders should be polite, careful and prudent in displaying extreme points
of view (like a proposal to cancel the results of the round, etc.). Unfair
play being used by one student, one team or a few of students should not
cancel the long preparing to the Olympiad by many honest persons.
(Note: The level of opposition in debates on 03.10.2007 was extremely
high. Such thoughtless displaying of the extreme proposals seriously
disturbs the atmosphere at the Olympiad. By the way, such style of debates
not meets the Statutes of IAO, see #2.3., paragraph 5. Many students and
team leaders are stressed before/during/after the round and any thoughtless
word may play a role of match.)
Please, fill the cell in column 08-4 in the table as "+", "0" or "-"
for voting pro, neutral or contra.

08-5. The participation fees should be published well in advance on the IAO
webpage.
(Note: The proposal to publish at the webpage the values of the fees
has been discussed in team leaders community a few years ago and was
rejected by the reason: sometimes the financial sources agree to support
actual students but not team leaders; so team leaders ask to mention in the
invitations the larger fees for students and zero fees for team leaders.
Nevertheless now we are returning to this proposal.)
Rank voting.
a) Keep the current situation. The information about the value of the fees
sends individually to every team leader by his/her request and also
published in the invitations for the teams, the recommendations of the team
leaders how to write this information in the invitations will be taken into
account for every case.
b) The value of a fee for every student and team leader will be published
in advance on the IAO webpage.
(Note: The publishing will help to avoid the unpleasant situations as
in 2007 when some team leaders were too late to request invitations or the
information about the fees.)
c) The total value of a standard fee for a standard team (2 team leaders
and 5 students) will be published in advance on the IAO webpage.
(Note: As usual such information is enough to understand the fee for a
person. As an alternative, in this case additionally may be published that
this fee includes fee for only the team leaders and 5 students. The fee for
the 6th, 7th student in the team is additionally 1/7 of the standard team
fee. The discount of k*1/7 of the standard team fee proposed for the teams
with 5-k students, if there are less than 5 students in the team.)
Please, fill the cell in column 08-5 in the table as "a", "b", "c" or
"0" for voting for any alternative or neutral. If you agree with two
alternatives (a and b, for example) but disagree with the third one you
should write like "a/2 b/2".

08-6. Students should get tables with all possible necessary constants.
(Note: The current rules, Statutes of the IAO, #4.4, paragraph 5,
postulate that organizers may support participants with "the table of
physical constants and well-known astronomical facts", which comprises the
various data in physics and astronomy. This table should be known for the
participating states not later than 3 months (13 weeks) before the
beginning of the Olympiad. It means that now it is one of the alternatives,
and the decision on to give or not to give such a table depends on
organizers. The discussed proposal is to provide participants by this table
in any case.)
Rank voting.
a) Keep the current situation. The decision on to give or not to give such
a table depends on organizers.
b) The tables will be published at IAO-page in official languages in
advance. The team leaders will be responsible to translate the content of
the table to Native languages in advance as well. The content of the table
of constants will be open for students in advance.
c) The tables will be provided to team leaders for translation together
with the problems, i.e. a few hours before the rounds. I.e. the content of
the table of constants will be hidden for students before the rounds.
Please, fill the cell in column 08-6 in the table as "a", "b", "c" or
"0" for voting for any alternative or neutral. If you agree with two
alternatives (a and b, for example) but disagree with the third one you
should write like "a/2 b/2".

08-7. Question about control of the translations of the problems made by
team leaders.
Rank voting.
a) Keep the situation that existed on I-XI IAOs. Back translation of the
problem papers annually made by the organizing committees for a few
language papers. But the translations were not open for all other teams.
(Note: Some misinterpretation and extra explanations (that may be
interpreted like half-hints) were found only in a few cases and the ANRAOs
of that states were informed to refrain from repetitions.)
b) Translations of the problems made by team leaders should be controlled
more strongly. Hire people to translate back the text in order to cross-
check the translations of the question papers, or all the translations to
be made open to all the juries. This will help avoid any
misinterpretation/hints/additional information passed on to students in the
translated versions.
(Note: Inviting professional independent translators for these jobs is
too expensive and, we think, quite not reasonable for IAO budget.)
c) Translations of the problems made by team leaders should be controlled
more strongly. Any voluntary back translations should be welcome. The
proposal to make it possible is to publish all the translations at the web-
site of IAO.
(Note: By the way, all translations made by team leaders for the
Theoretical and Practical rounds of XII IAO are displayed, see reference
from the main IAO-2007 web-page.)
Please, fill the cell in column 08-7 in the table as "a", "b", "c" or
"0" for voting for any alternative or neutral. If you agree with two
alternatives (a and b, for example) but disagree with the third one you
should write like "a/2 b/2".

08-8. As a rule, the possible number of Diploma of every rank should be
defined by more strong principles (formulae or logic explanation).
(Note: The practice of Jury meetings at the last IAOs and APAOs show
that the Jury members vote for the most possible number of Diploma defined
by the declared rules regardless of the gaps between the numbers of points.
So the recommendations to establish the Diploma boundaries at the largest
gaps in minutes were ignored last times. De facto it means that according
to the current rules the numbers of Diploma of each grade are defined as
the largest in the possible diapason.)
Please, fill the cell in column 08-8 in the table as "+", "0" or "-"
for voting pro, neutral or contra.

08-9. An exception from the rules of the possible number of Diploma of
every rank may be done in the case of total (100%) consensus of Jury
members done by hidden (and only hidden) voting.
(Note: If non-hidden voting for consensus is used, the jury members
who are against the proposal have a great moral pressure for voting as the
majority, it discriminates the idea of consensus.)
Please, fill the cell in column 08-9 in the table as "+", "0" or "-"
for voting pro, neutral or contra.



There were also other proposals. By evident reasons the following types of
proposals are not included into the current list:
- the proposals to include points that exist in the current rules (i.e. the
proposals that appear due to inattentive of the team leaders who made such
proposals);
- the proposals that are de facto advices and evident (like "IAO should be
recognized by the International Astronomical Union" or "the host countries
may avail the grants from local sources in order to reduce the
participation fees");
- the proposals that concern not regulations but the principles and do not
coincide with the founding principles or initial fundamental ideas of IAO
(like "IAO should follow an organizational structure like that of other
science Olympiads") (some of proposals may lead to broke the ideas of IAO);
- the proposals that are too "theoretical" and cannot be fulfilled in
reality (like "a provision to change the questions during observation round
with the sets of tasks that should be of equal difficulty level").



Also you may send the problems-candidates for the XIII (or, maybe next)
IAO.
The problems-candidates may be for any round.



With my wishes for you, your teams,

Sincerely,
M.G.Gavrilov,
Chairman of the IAO Council.