Key
Details
Initial Team Cap: 384 (potentially rising to 400)
Fees: Rs. 25,000 per debater or adjudicator (approx. 350
Euros, US$460)
Rs. 57,000 per observer (approx. 800 Euros, US$1,045)
Payment can be made via PayPal, which will be integrated into
FastRego or via Wire Transfer.
Each institution will shoulder the surcharges and
corresponding wiring fees of their bank transactions.
Institutions may lose their allocated slots should they fail
to meet payment deadlines. Any payment made prior to the
forfeiture of slots is non-refundable.
Dates
We are opening registration later than we intended. This is
because it took us longer than expected to finalize our
registration system. Given the magnitude of the change to the
registration process, we wanted to ensure we had time to
discuss and refine various proposals.
Registration will open on
Monday May 20, 2013, at 10am GMT.
Registration will remain open for
24 hours.
Three weeks prior to registration, on
Monday, April 29,
2013, we will post a document with a) all of the
institutions who have attended any of the prior 3 WUDC
competitions and b) the number of teams those institutions
have broken, in any language category, during those 3 years.
When we post that document, please review it and let us know
if there are any mistakes. The sooner you let us know, the
easier it will be to correct this information. The deadline
for informing us of a mistake will be
Friday, May 17, 2013.
Initial registration results will be announced as soon as we
can, and
no later than June 1, 2013.
All institutions will be required to create a FastRego account
by
Monday, June 11, 2013 at 10am. Failure to do so will
result in institutions forfeiting their places.
All institutions will be required to pay a deposit of
Rs.10,000 per debater or adjudicator (approx 140 Euros,
US$183) and Rs. 25,000 per observer (approx 350 Euros, US$460)
by
Monday, July 8, at 10am. Institutions can pay the
full balance on that date. Any institution that has not paid
their deposit will forfeit any unpaid places.
Any institution allocated a place after July 8 will have until
Monday, August 5 to pay their deposits.
Full payment will be required by
Monday, September 9, at 10
am. Any institution that has not paid in full will
forfeit any of their unpaid places and may lose their
deposits.
Any institution allocated a place after September 9 will have
until Monday, September 30 to pay the full payment.
Team Allocation
When registration opens on May 20, institutions will be
allowed to request
up to 3 teams.
We will initially be allocating 354 team slots. Pending
confirmation, we aim to allocate another 30 slots through a
‘Scholarship Scheme’ at a later date. Details will be released
soon.
We may also increase the team cap to 400 at a later date. We
first want to fully assess our financial position, judging
resources and have some room to adapt to any unforeseen
circumstances.
Institutions that have not sent a team to
any of the
previous 3 WUDCs will only be able to register a maximum of 1
team
this year.
After registration closes, all institutions that have
requested teams will be ordered on a “Registration Priority
List.” Institutions on that list will be prioritized as
follows:
- Institutions will be grouped
according to the average number of teams from that
institution that have made the break in any language
category over the past 3 WUDCs. E.g. an institution that
broke 2 teams in 2011, 0 teams in 2012, and 1 team in 2013
will have an average of 1.00. This is equally true if
those teams competed in the open break, ESL break, EFL
break, or a combination thereof. An institution with an
average of 1.00 will be ranked higher than institutions
with an average of .667.
- Institutions with the same
average will be ordered within that group by random. If
institutions A, B, and C all have broken an average of
1.00 teams over the past 3 WUDCs, a random number
generator will determine their order in the Registration
Priority List. Regardless of how they are ranked within
the “1.00 group,” all of them will be ranked higher than
every institution with an average of .667 teams, and all
of them will be ranked lower than every institution with
an average of 1.33.
- The Registration Priority List
will be the source of the mechanism by which teams are
allocated.
NB: For institutions that have hosted WUDC during one of the
previous 3 years, their average will be for the 2 years they
did not host. We believe this a fair way to use the same time
window that applies to everyone else but not punish an
institution for choosing to host Worlds.
Teams will then be allocated in the following manner:
Allocation Step 1 – Each registered institution will be
allocated a team, starting with the highest ranked institution
on the Registration Priority List and proceeding until there
are no institutions remaining that have not been allocated a
team.
Note, as mentioned above, institutions that have not
attended any of the past 3 WUDCs will only be allocated 1
team.
Allocation Step 2 – A second team will be allocated to
every institution that has an unresolved team request AND has
an average of better than 0.00 (i.e. has had at least one team
break in the past 3 years), starting with the highest ranked
institutions and proceeding down the list. This will proceed
until all institutions that have unresolved team requests and
have an average of better than 0.00 are allocated a second
team.
Allocation Step 3 – A third team will be allocated to
every institution that has an unresolved team request AND has
an average of 1.50 or greater. This will proceed until all
institutions that have unresolved team requests and have an
average of 1.50 or greater are allocated a third team.
Allocation Step 4 – A second team will be allocated to
every institution that has an unresolved team request AND has
an average of 0.00 (i.e. has not had a team break, in any
language category, in the past 3 years) until all institutions
requesting a second team have been allocated one.
Allocation Step 5 – A third team will be allocated to
every institution that has an unresolved team request AND has
an average of below 1.50 until all requests for a third team
are resolved.
Waiting List – Any institution with outstanding team
requests will be placed on a waiting list. Teams will be
allocated from the waiting list in accordance with the
procedures outlined above. We expect teams to make it off the
waiting as institutions decide not to attend Worlds and/or
fail to meet payment deadlines. Institutions that have not
attended any of the past 3 WUDCs may
request extra
teams, though they will be placed at the bottom of the waiting
list.
Modifications to Council’s Advisory Note
At Council, delegates voted on an advisory note to guide
future WUDCs in selecting a registration policy. That note was
passed with the understanding that it would not be binding and
that improvements could be made. We have made two
modifications to the advisory note that we believe improve our
registration policy.
- We have limited institutions
that have not sent a team to any of the previous 3 WUDCs
to 1 team. This is for two reasons. First, all
institutions with an average of 0.00 – i.e. institutions
that have not broken a team at any of the past 3 Worlds –
will have an equal chance of being ranked at the top of
their group. Given this fact, it seems unfair to give a
brand new institution the possibility of sending a second
team before an institution that has regularly attended
Worlds. We believe that institutions that have shown a
commitment to WUDC should be prioritized. Second, many
institutions attending Worlds for the first time (or
institutions with a long-lapsed record of Worlds
attendance) often are not able to send as many teams as
they initially suspect when they register.
- Our policy likely means that a
limited number of institutions will be allocated a third
team before many institutions will be allocated a second
team. This decision reflects our commitment to balancing
the competing principles of access and quality of
competition. If we strictly followed Council’s advisory
note, which requires every institution to receive a second
team (assuming it requested one) before any institution
receives a third, plausibly no institution would be able
to send 3 teams to Worlds. But for institutions that have
broken an average of 1.5 teams or greater, at least half
of their delegation from the past 3 years has broken at
Worlds. We think these institutions are highly likely to
bring third teams that would significantly add to the
quality of the competition.
Judges
We will enforce an
n-1 judging requirement. Any
institution that sends 2 teams must also send 1 judge, and any
institution that sends 3 teams must also send 2 judges.
Given, however, that this new registration procedure will
likely result in changes to the number of institutions sending
more than one team, institutions will be allowed to express a
desire to send additional judges, should they wish to do so.
Since we will not know how many extra judges we can cater for
until after registration has been completed, institutions will
be able to note how many judges they wish to send on the
registration form.
Independent Judges
Individuals that are not affiliated with an institution and
want to attend Chennai Worlds can apply to do so at a later
date. Further details will be provided by
Monday, June 3.
Please let us know if you have questions. We look forward to
seeing you in Chennai!