It has been almost two weeks since we went live with this year’s Edublog Awards and we thought you might be interested in what happens behind the scenes while the nominations are flooding in…

And more importantly get some tips on making sure your nominations count!

Each day we work through your emails to sort your nominations into lists for each category.

This year we’ve changed the process slightly and are using a Google Document so we can:

1. Publish a spreadsheet with all of shortlisted nominations for each category including links to the nominating posts (will be available after the Awards ceremony).
2. Feature snippets of comments from nomination posts about why a blog, website or individual was nominated.

So if you would like to explain why you’ve nominated a blog, website or individual we’ll do our best to include this information.

Here’s an example of what it will look like in the published spreadsheets:

This year there are 23 categories and our focus is ensuring the nomination lists are complete so when nominations close we’re ready to start the voting stage.

At this stage most nominations are transferred onto the lists except for those that:

• Obviously don’t fit the category
• Are self nominations
• Haven’t followed the nomination submission process

Once nominations close we comb through the lists to confirm all nominations fit their category and finalize the shortlisting.

Here’s some important tips that’ll make sure your nominations count and make our job easier!

Tip # 1

You can’t nominate your own blog or website…especially in lots of categories….doesn’t work that way 🙂

Tip # 2

If category says it is a blog then it means a blog not a Ning, not a Wiki or other.

There are other categories for them such as:

• Best Educational Wiki
• Best use of a social networking service
• Best use of a PLN

A ning isn’t a group blog 🙂

Tip # 3

The nomination process is a two step process–miss one of the steps and your nominations don’t count!

The two step are:

1. Write a post on your blog linking to the blogs & sites that you want to nominate
2. Email us the link to your nomination post (submitted via our contact form)

If you’re nominated by someone you might want to check they remembered to send the link to their blog post via our contact form!

And to make sure it is uber clear!

• You can’t just email us links to blogs & sites you want to nominate — you must write a nomination post on a blog or website such as a Ning or Wiki
• Your nomination post must be on a website where we can view your nominations — last time I checked we can’t see behind locked private sites 🙂
• You must email us the link to your nomination post using our contact form

Tip # 4

For the latest up-to-date news on the Edublog Awards:

1. Follow edublogs on Twitter
2. Subscribe to the Edublog Award blog via our RSS Feed or email (add your email address to the email subscription widget in the top right sidebar)
3.  Like Edublogs on Facebook