JUROR PROCESS

Instead of relying on a small panel of individuals reading hundreds of applications, we use a crowdsourcing process to include many people reflecting diverse perspectives, yielding a diverse programming.


How we Jury

For each Open Call over 400 individuals from around the world each review 50 proposals from the hundreds submitted during the one month following the Open Call. Our process hides the submitter's name from the jurors, ensures that each proposal receives an equal number of votes and changes the order each time the juror logs in. Each proposal is typically juried by more than 30 individuals each with more than 15,000 votes in total. Apexart does not affect the voting and publishes a full list, by number only, for submitters to see where their proposal ranked.

People from more than 75 countries submit their proposal in English, sometimes as their second, third, or even fourth language. We ask our jurors to respect the effort and difficulty of writing in a foreign language, and allow for grammatical and translation errors.


How to be a Juror

All voting is done online, on your schedule, in multiple sessions over one month. Aside from the classes that participate according to the teacher’s parameters, jurors read fifty or more 500-word proposals during this time and takes about 2 hours. A login is sent via email on the day prior to jurying with weekly reminders. The more votes received, the more effective the process becomes.

You cannot be a juror and a submitter to the same Open Call, however, we encourage jurors to submit proposals in the future.

Jurors are really important to our program. Send an email to sign up to be a juror.


Class Participation Jurying

We are pleased to now offer a unique opportunity for your students to participate in the selection process that determines which exhibitions we will present in NYC and locations around the world. Many faculty and students find that the process serves as a great point of class discussion, from the process to the content as well as the students participating in real time real life programming.

Learn more here.

Teachers/professors have access to a live voting dashboard of their students, and are able to monitor scores and pull up proposals for subsequent discussion. At the conclusion of voting, we provide you with a summary page that shows all the votes for your class. This is a grid See example below that displays the ratings by student, and all proposals submitted in the order of its current ranking by all jurors (not just your class) for deep discussion of the ideas, the form and the issues. This tally page provides the ability to view any proposal allowing the class to reread any together for discussion.

Login information and deadline reminders are sent directly to your students or an anonymous numbered list is provided for your distribution to maintain anonymity.

Juror FAQs

We suggest you read three or four proposals before you begin voting to get a sense of how they read. Are there any specific criteria you are looking for in evaluation and scoring? No. We ask that you evaluate proposals based on your interest in the subject, the clarity of the written proposal itself, and your desire to see the idea transformed into an exhibition. If a proposal is unclear or you feel it would likely result in an uninteresting show, you should evaluate the submission as a 1 (lowest).

How long will it take?
We ask you to read 50 proposals over a one-month time span. This generally takes less than 2 hours and is done at your leisure, in one sitting or several over the month of voting.

Should I judge the idea or how well someone writes?
The idea. Keep in mind that many people submit their proposal in English as a second, third, or even fourth language. Please respect the effort and difficulty when you judge their proposal and allow for this.

Should I skip a proposal if it is difficult to understand?
Please do not skip. If it is hard to understand the proposal concept, you can assign a lower score.

What if I am unfamiliar with the names/ ideas/ terminologies in a proposal?
Many names are only known locally. It is the choice of the submitter to use their 500 words as they see fit to be clear and communicative.

I think I am reading a colleagues/friend’s proposal. If I know who the submitter is, can I still score that proposal?
If you can do it objectively, yes. If not, skip that one and move on to the next.

I left my screen open on a proposal and now it shows a different one. What happened?
It is likely that your window refreshed. Since we have 400 people voting at the same time, our custom script ensures that each proposal gets an equal number of votes. When you reload the page, your reading list auto-updates with proposals that need votes.

Can I rate more than 50 proposals??
Absolutely. If you want to read and vote on more, it will add votes to the tally increasing the number of votes overall and the efficacy of the process.

Can I change my scores?
No.

When is the jurying deadline?
December 5, 2023, 11:59 PM PST.

Do we appreciate you doing this?
Yes, yes, yes! And we will include your name on our list of jurors unless you wish to be anonymous and will also offer you one of our publications. Just Write to us and tell us which one you'd like.