STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF THE FUNCTION OF THE 1992 INTERNATIONAL-CONTINENCE-SOCIETY SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Papers submitted to the International Continence Society are read by t he six members of the scientific committee, who assign three scores to each paper, one for its originality, one for its scientific value, an d one for its academic or clinical interest. Following discussion at t he scientific committee meeting, a program is made from the abstracts with the highest scores. In this study statistical properties of the a ssigned score values for the 1992 ICS meeting are discussed. It is con cluded that the three scores do not measure independent properties of the abstracts, that different abstract types (for instance ''clinical' ' and ''basic'' papers) are scored differently by the different commit tee members, that there is a significant consensus among the committee members, that the scientific committee meeting has a relatively small effect on the scores, and that different abstract types are not equal ly represented in the final program. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss. Inc.