Technical Guidance

SDIVSL Technical Guidance Sheet (TGS)

Last update: 9/10/21

Purpose: The purpose of this Technical Guidance Sheet (TGS) is to provide clear and fair guidance to competitors, judges, and tournament officials in the case of technical difficulties during tournament rounds. It does not supplant official SDIVSL or CHSSA bylaws. Final decisions regarding issues related to technical difficulties are the sole discretion of tournament officials.

General Guidance:

• Coaches and speakers are ultimately responsible for their own technical equipment and ability to be seen and heard by judges.

• All judges and speakers should ensure that they have functioning access to tabroom.com using google chrome.

• All speakers must have their video on at all times during a round unless instructed by the judge to turn off their video as part of a technical pause (see below).

• Judges are advised not to factor in speaker audio and video streaming quality into their judging decisions. For IEs (speech events) if videos are used, if there is an issue accessing the video, ask the student if they can provide a link, or contact the judges’ room for assistance. 

• If a judge drops out of the room or indicates that they are not able to hear sound at all, time stops in the round. Time will resume once the judge returns and is able to hear sound.

• If a speaker experiences technical difficulties and/or temporarily leaves the round, time does not stop except at the discretion of the judge. 

Event-Specific Guidance:

Policy Debate

• During debate rounds, partners may not “fill in” during their partner’s designated speaking time if their partner is experiencing technical difficulties.

• Debate partners remain responsible for timing themselves and their partners.

• Oral prompting of a partner during their speech to indicate that it is impossible/extremely difficult for them to be heard is permitted.

• Prep time is limited to 8 minutes per team for Policy Debate even if one or both members of the team experience technical difficulties during prep.

Lincoln Douglas Debate

• Prep time is limited to 4 minutes per debater for Lincoln Douglas Debate even if the debater experiences technical difficulties during prep.

Student Congress

• Debate should continue even if a competitor experiences technical difficulties. A competitor experiencing difficulties will simply rejoin the room and the debate as they are able.

Parliamentary Debate / Public Forum

• During debate rounds, partners may not “fill in” during their partner’s designated speaking time if their partner is experiencing technical difficulties.

• Debate partners remain responsible for timing themselves and their partners.

• Oral prompting of a partner during their speech to indicate that it is impossible/extremely difficult for them to be heard is permitted.

• Prep time is limited to 20 minutes for Parliamentary debate even if one or both members of the team experience technical difficulties during prep.

• In Public Forum, Grand Crossfire will continue as long as at least one member of each team can hear and be heard.