With the Grammy Award nominations announcement inching closer, The Recording Academy has carved out a handful of new amendments to assist the nomination process.

The amendment with the biggest impact on the Rap categories involves the introduction of a Nominations Review Committee for the Rap field, according to a press release.

Nominations Review Committees existed in other genres, but up until this year, the Rap, Contemporary Instrumental and New Age fields were without committees.

In addition to the amendment in the rap category, songwriters with at least 33 percent or more playing time on the winning album will now be eligible for the Album Of The Year category and, for the first time in Grammy history, voters will cast their ballots online rather than by a traditional paper ballet.

Established in the late ’80s, the Nominations Review Committees were intended to serve “as an additional round of checks and balances to eliminate the potential for a popularity bias that puts emerging artists, independent music, and late-year releases at a disadvantage.”

Nominees for the 60th Grammy Awards will be announced on November 28, 2017 and the awards ceremony airs on January 28, 2018.