Tournament Invitation

 NDCA National Tournament Invitation

Welcome to the 2022 National Debate Coaches Association National Tournament!

Important Information for 2022 Tournament

1.     The tournament will be held virtually via the NSDA Campus platform and tournament times will operate on the Central Time Zone

2.     The tournament will offer Novice and Varsity divisions in each event.

3.     The tournament will have dedicated Equity and Ombudsperson Committees.

Important Dates

All entries should be registered on Tabroom.com           Monday, March 14, 2022
Remaining waitlisted entries will be accepted                 Wednesday, March 16, 2022
All entry fees and Appendix C due                                  Friday, April 1, 2022
Drop deadline                                                                  Friday, April 1, 2022
Tournament Dates                                                            Saturday, April 9 – Monday, April 11, 2022

Entry Fees and Payment Instructions

Entry fees (which will include membership to the NDCA for non-members) must be paid in full by Friday, April 1, 2022.

Per Lincoln Douglas entry: $125

Per Public Forum entry: $125

Per Worlds School entry: $125

Per Policy entry: $150

Per Novice entry (any division) $100

Method of Payment – We can now accept credit card payments and checks.

Paying by Credit Card (email clariondebate@gmail.com) and an invoice will be sent to you.

Paying by Check, please make checks payable to:

National Debate Coaches Association

Mail checks to:

Tournament Procedures

These can be found on the main tournament page on Tabroom.com

Please read them carefully for details related to the qualification process, getting off the waitlist, the Novice divisions, and how the tournament will be run.

Appendix C

This form must be submitted for every school entered in the tournament.

The form can be found on the main tournament page on Tabroom.com. Please submit the completed form via your school’s Tabroom.com account. Please do not email Appendix C.

Important Notes About Online Debating and Scheduling

Check-in Time

All participants (teams and judge) are expected to check into their room within 10 minutes of the release of the pairing. This is to facilitate everyone testing their ability to connect, for email thread set-up, setting up naming conventions, and disclosure. This means you need to login to the room. This will allow tournament staff to verify we have seen everyone and minimize the need for replacements or delays in the schedule. Once you have checked in, you may go off- screen or prep somewhere else as needed – you just need to come back at Report Time.

Report Time

We kindly request that all participants observe “Report Time” – at 15 minutes before Start Time, and report to competitions rooms at that time. You may continue to prep/coach off-screen, but in order to verify we have all participants able to access their rooms and ready to debate at start time, we need folks in their rooms and we need a little lead time to ensure we start on time. This will help minimize delays and enable tournament staff to quickly target those needing help accessing the platform/tournament/rooms or finding folks who are missing. It is a little trickier for staff to identify missing persons and start debates in our new online environment, and we ask for your cooperation to help make this work by observing Report Time.

Tech Time: What do we do if someone gets disconnected/freezes/etc.?

In most instances, tech fails have been minimal (especially when folks use ethernet connections).

1. Most of the time tech issues can be caught quickly (you might notice a screen freeze, for example – good reason to keep screen on) and resolved without significant time spent.
2. If you cannot immediately reconnect, you should use a Help Ticket via the website – direct your issue to the Tech support folks (NSDA Campus) option on the menu – for assistance.
3. In the event of a tech failure by a team, a team may use up to 10 minutes of “Tech Time”. This should be clocked by the judge, and not used as standard prep time. It is only for use with tech/connection/AV issues unique to the online format (not for setting up your email chain, e.g.).
4. The judge should notify the tab staff asap if Tech Time is invoked, or if the judge has a tech issue, so that the tab staff can factor that into scheduling.

Each team will be allocated up to 10 minutes “tech time” for resolving exclusively tech-related issues.