Tournament Expectations

NSDA CAMPUS EXPECTATIONS & GUIDELINES

The tournament will run online. We will use NSDA Campus for our Squad Rooms and Zoom Breakout rooms for our competition. 

* All coaches, competitors, and judges will need to create a Tabroom.com (free) account to participate in the tournament.  

* Every judge and competitor will need a device with a microphone and camera, as well as a separate device (phone, tablet, etc) for communicating with partner/team in round (if applicable).

*Use of Google Chrome as your browser is highly recommended.

* Logging into Tabroom when competition begins will show the Squad Room with a video icon and the actual rooms will show up as a Zoom link.

* Only the judge(s) and competitors may access their competition rooms (except for Tab/Tournament staff). This means no observers allowed (this includes coaches). The reason for all of this is security and safety.

* Every team will have a virtual squad room available throughout the tournament. Coaches, judges, and students registered for that school for the tournament will have access.

* Test rooms are available on the NSDA website with a login- these rooms will at least show you what a competition room will look like.

* An adult sponsor (authorized by the school) must be in attendance at all times either by judging at the tournament or waiting in the virtual designated Zoom Room.

* Any team or competitor that is more than 15 minutes late to their round (their fault not our fault) will forfeit that round with zero speaker points.

JUDGING EXPECTATIONS

* The judge obligations are: All Debate Events require one judge for every two entries. Speech Events require one judge for every four speech entries. Congress Events require one judge for every four as well. Same for novice, JV, or Varsity. 

* You can have judges assigned for specific days, but not specific rounds. 

* All judges will complete training prior to judging their first round at the tournament.

* No show judges, like no show students - will be charged a fine to your school. 

* If you are not listed on a round – please stand by in the designated breakout room. 

* All school judges are obligated to judge 1 round past their student’s elimination if we need them; please remain available. 

TOPICS & FORMATS

Policy (CX) will follow an 8-3-5 format with 6 minutes of preparation time per team. Teams will debate the 2020-2021 topic, "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its protection of water resources in the United States." Novice CX must use the official UDCA Novice Policy Evidence Packet. 

Lincoln-Douglas (LD) will follow an 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 format with 4 minutes of preparation time per debater. Students will debate the Nov/Dec topic, "Resolved: A just government ought to recognize an unconditional right of workers to strike." Novice LD will use the same topic (NOT the NSDA novice topic). 

Public Forum (PF) will follow an 4-3-3-2 format (3 min summaries) with 3 minutes of preparation time per team. Teams will debate the Nov/Dec topic, "Resolved: Increased United States federal regulation of cryptocurrency transactions and/or assets will produce more benefits than harms." Sides will be assigned; there will be no coin flip in PF prelims. 

STUDENT PARTICIPATION

Students must compete on behalf of a singular school institution. Teams representing a private entity (aka "independent entries") that is not a school (i.e. any for profit entity, league, consortium, etc.) and/or are comprised of students from different school institutions will not be permitted to compete.

Each student must be enrolled and in good standing with their respective school institution. Tournament registration must reflect the actual names of the students in accordance with their school enrollment. False names, symbols, etc. that are not congruent with school enrollment records will not be permitted as registered competitors. 

Our tournament and school administration considers this data to be important for ensuring the safety of all students. It is also necessary for us to supply information (when needed) to the National Speech and Debate Association or the Utah High Schools Activities Association.

SCHOOL CHAPERONE

The tournament's preference is that a school employee "accompanies" their institution's students to the competition. This means the school employee must be available for any tournament related communication. The adult sponsor (authorized by the school) must be in attendance at all times either by judging at the tournament or waiting in the virtual designated judging pool.

DURING TOURNAMENT EXPECTATIONS

1. The camera of judges and debaters should be on while a student is speaking and during RFDs. Students should be able to see who they are communicating with in a communicative activity. All judges’ web cameras should always be at eye level while judging. If a judge wants the camera off during prep time/decision time, that is acceptable.

2. Student behavior - Students should be courteous and respectful with other students, coaches, and judges. Do not engage in behaviors that will negatively affect your opponents during the round. Excessive disruptive behavior should be reported directly to the tab staff by the relevant responsible judge.

3. Connection issues – Internet connection issues are inevitable in an online world. The question is how best to resolve those issues in the most equitable manner. In a preferred scenario the debaters would notice if a judge dropped off because they would have been attempting to make eye connect with them. 

If a connectivity issue DOES happen for a debater or judge, a few things should happen:

A) As soon as the connection issue happens – stop the debate and come back to the main room immediately.

B) Once connectivity is restored, the speech will start where the judge or team drops out of the call. If a student needs to redo the majority (or all) of a speech, that is a preferred method of resolving the missed information.

Certainly, everything should be done that can be done to minimize connection issues in advance (sitting closer to the router, using an Ethernet cable etc) but if a loss of connection DOES occur, this is the process we will use to address it moving forward.