Talk:Judge allocation and evaluation

''The following are comments made on the original paper draft of the Chief Adjudicator's Handbook. Please feel free to add to them where appropriate.'' martpol 06:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Shadow judges
Trevor Sather

Shadow judges taking part in discussions outside the debate room: “Personally I prefer to have them listen but not participate, as the outside-room discussions can run on anyway and the waiting debaters and audience are impatient.”

Special ballots for shadow judges: “A recommendation for future years (originally Daragh Grant’s) would be to produce a special ballot for shadows, in a distinctive colour. This would include the normal boxes for marks and also two extra text fields – one for the shadow judge to answer the question, “What are the key reasons why you have voted for a winning team?”, and the other for the chief judge to add a written sentence or two evaluating their performance as shadow. This is pretty important, as relying on verbal anecdotes is an ad hoc process, not always exhaustive in the end of day bustle. This shadow ballot could also be used for an adjudicator training day evaluation debate, with only the first of the text fields used.”

Promoting shadow judges to 'full' status: “I’m pretty happy that some judges at least can be promoted after two rounds – e.g. very experienced schools debating judges at their first Worlds, or very experienced student debaters. However those with much less experience will usually accept that you ask them to continue shadowing for another two rounds, to give them more confidence. Once (if) you do decide to promote them to full status, it’s nice to give them a round or two immediately rather than keep them waiting to take part properly in the tournament.”

Evaluating judges' performances
As judge allocation practice has become more advanced and at the same time more controversial, the Adjudication Group has been asked to write a set of guidelines for evaluating and selecting judges. When ready, they can supplement this section of the article.

Claire Ryan “This may take a long time as accreditation, especially pre-tournament, is not a concept warmly embraced by all.”