How does the preset recency operation work in Congressional Debate? Can Judges and Competitors see the recency listing? If we are using tabroom for tabulation and paper ballots where can I print the recency list? How random is the recency? Is there a way to adjust the randomness (i.e. make it so the same student doesn’t speak last in multiple rounds?
Thanks for asking! You can turn on the preset recency function at Settings > Events > Congress > Chambers > “Auto-generate recency”. To answer your questions:
- Parliamentarians will see a tab on their online ballot that lists recency; they can download a CSV/PDF and share that list with whomever they determine needs it in their chamber. It will not automatically show up for competitors and non-Parli judges.
- You can find the recency for each chamber by clicking into the round details (select the room number), and there is a button called “Change Recency” on the right side of the page. You can also manually adjust the order from this screen.
- Randomness is hard for a computer! It is set up so that you can make adjustments as needed. When you go to the screen described above, Tabroom will show you their recency for all rounds that have been paired in the tournament (eg “Lauren’s recency in the 3 prelims is 2, 14, 7”). It also shows you the cumulative recency scores (2+14+7=23) of each student in the chamber so you can easily spot that Lauren was early on the recency chart overall compared to other students in the round.
- For an in-person tournament, if you print ballots, the competitors will be listed in order of their recency on the ballot.
Hope this helps!
Burdt