Ready or not, deadlines for a c a d e m i c district meets are upon us! The good news is that the online entry and results system is now ‘old hat’ to many of you, and based on your input and that of numerous contest directors, it has been tweaked and revamped to make it as user friendly as possible.
Those changes and three years of experience with the system have reduced phone calls and email questions significantly, saving time for those of you setting up meets and for our staff, as well.
We’re available to answer any questions you might have about the online system, but urge you to read the excellent help instructions before you call.
Setting Up the Academic District Meet
The bad news is, if your are in charge of setting up your academic district meet and haven’t done so by the Feb. 1 deadline, you’ll be hearing not only from our office, but from all the coordinators in your district trying to enter their contestants.
Many academic district directors or meet hosts have already entered meet information, but some have failed to click the correct ‘Status of the Meet’ link from the pull-down menu on the meet setup page. ‘This meet is closed to schools and public’ is the default setting, which you would use before you are ready for schools to use the entry process.
However, meet directors must change the status by Feb. 1 at the latest (and sooner is better!) to ‘schools may enter contestants in the meet’ to allow academic coordinators to enter students in events.
Some meets that have been setup online do not yet have scheduled times of events, so meet directors will want to check this, too.
Journalism and Speech team points must be calculated, so Speech and Journalism are listed as ‘events.’ The team points are combined from several contests. These team events will automatically be saved when you save the meet. You won’t need to enter a time or location.
When your entry deadline has passed, change the status to ‘meet schedule is posted and available for review.’
Additional entries would be considered late entries. Any substitutions after that date would need to be sent to the district academic director, but the public can still view the schedule.
Entering Contestants
Academic coordinators entering their school’s contestants need a UT EID, but do not need to be authorized by our office. Be careful to type students’ names correctly. Use upper and lower case, and enter last name first, followed by first name. Proof for correct spelling.
If Treva Dayton is typed as Trivia Data, that’s what will be heard at roll call at every level of the contest. (Been there.)
Unless a student actually prefers initials to a name, don’t use them. It’s a good idea to enter substitutes in each event, as they will appear on the contest roster as eligible to compete if a replacement is needed.
Entering Results
It’s important that the meet director or authorized data entry person enter the results of each contest into the online system BEFORE verification is held for those contests which require it. Have someone double check results entered to avoid errors, since the computer can’t recognize typos or inverted numbers and will only crunch the information it is given.
Don’t rush. If you hurry to announce results with wrong information, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Trust me on this one.
Once proofed, print the results and have these available at verification. If your results do not print on a single page, or more likely, print too small to read easily, try another Internet browser. Mozilla and Firefox print larger than Safari, which is good for old folks like me who can’t see tiny print anymore. Internet Explorer prints quite small, but you can enlarge the font before you print, if needed.
Only after verification, when any actual errors in grading can be corrected, should you ‘Certify event results as final’ in each contest. Read instructions carefully, as it takes several clicks before you see ‘the results of this event are final and certified,’ which is necessary to advance contestants to regional competition.
Contest directors for individual speech events should download the speech tabulation program, PC-TalkTab, from the UIL speech and debate Web site under the heading Tournaments and the link Download Speech Tabulation Software. It’s free, fast and as accurate as the rankings entered, because it really knows the UIL panel ranking criteria!
Carefully enter the rankings of any panel of judges and let the software rank the contestants before ballot verification.
The program also provides a ‘diagnostic’ sheet, which explains the criteria for ranks and how any ties were broken.
After Results Are Official Once events have been verified and official results announced, the meet director or district chair must change the status of the meet to ‘Meet results are posted and available for review’ so they can be seen by the public. If you forget this step, expect lots of phone calls.
The wild card team is the best second-place team score in the region. Not all second place teams advance. Only the team with the highest score among all of the second place teams in the region will advance to the region meet.
Districts must post results online by 5 p.m. of the Monday following the second district week. By Tuesday following the second district week, the UIL will post a list of tentative wild card entries to region. Schools will have 48 hours to notify the UIL of errors or omissions.
The final list will be posted on the Thursday morning after the second district week. After that time, no changes will be made. Wild card qualifiers will not be notified directly.
The list of wild card qualifiers will be posted on the UIL Web site (www.uil.utexas.edu). All coordinators should check the posting, even if you think it’s a long shot.
We’ve had a qualifying wild card team not attend State Meet, just because someone forgot to check.
When the whole thing is over, take deep breaths and relax! And don’t forget to follow up with a thank you to all the folks who helped: supportive administrators, graders and judges, student assistants, teachers whose rooms were used, school secretaries, security and janitorial staff, parent and community volunteers and anyone else who helped carry the load.
No one can run a good meet alone, and you’ll want their help again the next time around. Best wishes for a smooth and successful academic district meet!