Registration for the 2014 World Universities Debating Championships in Chennai will only open for 24 hours from May 20, 2013 at 1000 GMT (1700 WIB) but the allocation won't use the normal "first come, first served" policy. This is good news for Indonesia which has a slow Internet connection. Many from across the globe complained the previous way gave advantage to those with faster services like Western countries and Japan. The participation and breaking history of institutions at 3 past WUDC competitions in any category will determine the order for the first ever WUDC in India. This is not only good news for powerhouses like Monash and Oxford but also an advantage for Indonesian schools that have broken into the EFL or ESL eliminations in the past 3 WUDCs. Click here to open the organiser's letter.
Important registration dates
April 29 -- Organisers will post list of institutions that have attended any of the last 3 WUDCs and the number of teams those institutions have broken, in any category, during those competitions.
May 17 -- Deadline for those who think the list has incorrect information
May 20 (1700 WIB) -- Registration opens
May 21 (1700 WIB) -- Registration closes
June 1 -- Deadline for initial registration result. May be sooner.
July 8 -- Deadline for deposit payment for teams on the main list.
August 5 -- Deadline for deposit payment for teams promoted from the waiting list.
September 5 -- Deadline for full payment
September 30 -- Deadline for full payment for teams who are eligible to replace withdrawals
Priority List
From May 20, each institution can register to up to 3 teams. The organisers will initially take in 354 teams. Then, they will allow 30 scholarship teams to enter and if resources permit, the total number may rise to 400. Institutions without any presence in the previous 3 WUDCs can only register 1 team. The significant change comes after this. Organisers will create a "Registration Priority List" with the following rules
- Institutions first will be grouped according to their average number of breaking teams
- The groups will be listed from largest to smallest average number
- Then, institutions with the same average will be ordered randomly by a number generator
Step 1 - Each registered institution will be allocated a team
Step 2 - A second team will be allocated to all requesting institutions with a record of at least 1 break starting from the highest on the priority list.
Step 3 - A third team will be allocated to all requesting institutions with a breaking average of 1.5 or more during the past 3 years.
Step 4 - A second team will be allocated to all remaining requesting institutions
Step 5 - A third team will be allocated to all remaining requesting institutions
((The org comm seems to think there would still be slots after Step 5))
Waiting List
Theoretically, the allocation for the main list should initially end with the 354th team on the priority list and the waiting list begins from the 355th team. This can change if there are remaining slots on the main list after Step 5. Any institution with outstanding team requests then will be placed on the waiting list following the same steps outlined above. Eventhough the rules first say institutions that have not attended any of the past 3 WUDCs would not get more than 1 slot, they may request extra teams. Of course, they will be placed at the bottom of the waiting list. Although the likeliness is very thin, they could get their request granted if space permits.
Indonesia's 3-Year Break History (priority for 2nd slot)
Berlin 2013: Universitas Gadjah Mada (1 EFL), Universitas Atma Jaya (1 EFL)
Manila 2012: Universitas Indonesia (1 EFL), Sekolah Tinggi Akuntansi Negara (1 EFL)
Botswana 2011: Universitas Indonesia (1 ESL, 1 EFL), Universitas Gadjah Mada (1 EFL)
Hi,
ReplyDeleteAs a member of the org comm for Chennai Worlds, I'd like to clarify on the "2 guaranteed slots" point. Please note however, that I am only stating this in my personal capacity, and that this should not be construed as an official response or policy. You may please contact our CA's for clarifications on that count.
Our stated allocation policy follows the rules of priority as listed above. As per council's directions, this means prioritizing institutions with no allocated teams, so as to ensure that we can, as far as possible, guarantee one team per institution (OTPI).
Based on Berlin registration trends, we could thus very likely have more than 350 institutions registering initially (Berlin had 399, I believe). Based on this trend, lets say that there are 450 institutions that register initially for Chennai Worlds. This means that after the first round of allocation, where we allocate a team for each institution, we will still have about 100 institutions that aren't allocated a team. These will be given first preference for freed slots in the 2nd phase of allocations (after the 50% deposit payment, when we expect a fairly large number of slots to be freed up).
Once the OTPI rule is satisfied, any free slots will be allocated according to Steps 2 (and later, step 3), allocating a 2nd team to previously breaking institutions, starting with the institutions with the highest average and going down the list. An official list will be released soon.
As is evident, at this point, we cannot guarantee that all institutions will get a team (because that is based on how many institutions pay up for their slots), or that previously breaking institutions will be guaranteed a 2nd team (that is based on how many free team slots we have after OTPI is satisfied).
However, we are doing a benchmarking and predictive analysis at this point of time, based on previous registration trends at worlds, and can hopefully provide some clarity on the LIKELIHOOD of a 2nd team offer for all previously breaking institutions. Initial analysis appears positive, but as I must again point out, is hypothetical.
Hope this provided some clarity.
Thanks