A Guide to Championship Marking

Anyone who has ever been involved in an Irish Dancing Championship will know the frustration at the end of a long day to be kept waiting around in the hall for the results. The only thing the dancers want to know is whether they have made it to the recall, or their final position. Even worse however, is finding that your child hasn't made it to the recall and you could have gone home several hours earlier! I'm sure that we have all had the experience of sitting through two or sometimes even three other competitions before the results are finally available. It has sometimes even crossed my mind that this may have been a deliberate attempt to make sure there is an audience for the final competition of the day! On reflection however it is obviously mainly due to the inexplicably complicated system of making that is used in competition. Read on for an explanation!

Why do adjudicator scores vary so much?
As with all solo competitions in the Grades each adjudicator marks the dancer with points out of 100, using their experience and judgement to score comparatively against the "perfect 100 point dancer".

It is not uncommon therefore to find scores for one dance varying from perhaps as low as 69 with adjudicator A, 77 with adjudicator B, and as high as 85 with adjudicator C. It's entirely possible that Adjudicator A might have only marked the top dancer with 87 and the bottom one with 65, whilst another adjudicator may have marked the top with 97 and the bottom one with 78. It is for because of these variations in marking styles that the GRID System exists.

This commonly causes argument from inexperienced parents who can't understand why one adjudicator didn't like their childs dancing. In reality the score of 69  could have been 5th place as far as judge A was concerned, whilst 85 might have been 6th with judge C. There will always be some variance of position as the marking is bound to be subjective. In addition, for example, one judge may spot an error that was missed by another due to their view being obscured by another dancer.

One adjudicator recently told me he doesn't like to see dancers marks sold at feisanna for this reason. He said he was tired of having to explain this variance to parents who thought their child had been "punished" by one adjudicator!

Lets look at this for "Maggie" our Championship dancer.

The adjudicator therefore marks Maggie in the first round dance out of 100, as a solo, and then the second round out of 100 separately. These two scores are known as the "Raw" marks

Sometimes an adjudicators individual scores are used at this point to give Solo dance results for each round. As this is only the opinion of one judge, it may bear little relationship to the overall result of the Championship. Depending on how she danced it is very possible Maggie could be 5th in the Light round and only 12th in the Heavy round with judge A.

Once both rounds have been scored the fun begins!
The judges two "Raw" scores are added together to give a total cumulative Raw score for Maggie from that adjudicator. This score is used to determine her current placing with that adjudicator.
(e.g. judge A currently makes her 7th overall, as 6 other dancers have a higher total cumulative Raw score)

These placings are then placed onto the GRID and the Grid scores are applied.

The Grid scores are allocated on a specially designed reducing scale starting at 100 points for 1st place, 75 for 2nd, 65 for 3rd......... and so on down to 50th place which gets 1 point. (see GRID table here - opens in new window)

This process is then repeated for all 3 judges individually.

To help you to understand I've entered the scores for Judge A below, and showed the effect this has on the GRID. I've assumed there were perhaps 60 dancers, but I've only showed the first 13 (who in this case are actually the top 13 too!)

Maggies marks

Why did I get a big fat zero?
At this point it must be stressed that a Grid mark of Zero doesn't mean that a judge doesn't like you. The GRID only allows for marks for 50 places so in a large competition dancers from 51st place down get zero. Because each judge won't necessarily have the same top 50, in a large competition some dancers will have Grid marks from one, or maybe two judges, but a zero from the third. Indeed in a Major competition many dancers will have Grid marks from only one judge, or none.

What about if I tie* with someone?
It gets very complicated where there are equal scores with points being split. For example, if 3 people tie for 3rd place having the same total "Raw" marks, then the Grid score for the next three places (3rd, 4th and 5th in this case) are added together and divided by 3. In this example the Grid marks are 65, 60, and 56, giving a total of 181, which when divided by 3 gives a Grid score of 60.33. It is this new points total that is the Grid mark awarded to all 3 dancers. The next dancer placed dancer would then be 6th, because 5 dancers scored better, and therefore they would get the Grid mark for 6th. You'll notice that dancers 104 & 105 tied for 2nd above so they were awarded the average of the Grid Score for 2nd & 3rd
(i.e. 75 + 65 = 140 divided by 2 = 70)

Back to Maggie!
Finally the three adjudicators Grid scores are then added together to give a total Grid score, and her current placing on the GRID.

Based on the completed GRID it is usual to select between the top 30% and 50% of dancers to make the Recall stage. To a degree this depends on the number of dancers in a competition. If two dancers are on equal scores at the cut off point they will both be included.

As soon as the Recall has been declared the Grid scores are deleted from the GRID. The dancers then perform their Recall dance, usually an Open Set dance, which is also marked as a Solo round out of 100 "Raw" marks again by each adjudicator. This "Raw" score is then added to their first and second round "Raw" scores to give a total final score for that judge, out of the 300 (3 x 100) "Raw" marks possible. This of course gives their final placing with that judge.

Again the "Raw" marks for each adjudicator are placed onto the GRID and the Grid scoring system is applied, 100 for 1st etc.
The three adjudicators Grid scores are then added together again to give a final GRID placing. This gives us the final result.
(see table below for Adjudicator A's results)

Maggies results after the recall

You should notice that a strong Set has meant that Maggie has moved up 2 places overall, so she could have done even better if she had placed better in the second round. It may be that she made an error in that round, or maybe her light dance just isn't as good as her heavy round. At least she knows what to work on now!
You'll also note that after the first 2 rounds dancers 104 & 105 were tied 2nd, but 104 has had a very slightly better Set round and has moved slightly ahead into 2nd with 105 now 3rd. 113 has also swapped places with 108 due to a better Set too.

With all three adjudicators scores the final result might look something like this.

Again you should note that the judges do not completely agree and Maggie who was 5th with judge A was placed higher by both judge B & C, giving her an overall place of 4th. Dancer 109 who was 1st with judge A is only 2nd overall.

Judge B gave a very low mark to 101, so it is likely he placed another dancer in the top 13 instead, a point on which the others disagreed.

For the competition above you can imagine dancer 109 feeling good after the Judge A's set of scores are called out, but then cringing as the score for 105 from Judge B is called (100). and then both of them panicking when 104 is given a GRID score of 100 by Judge C. Who will be First overall?

There is undoubtedly a great deal of checking and re-checking to make sure errors aren't made before the results can be announced.
To make matters worse of course there are results from more than one competition to deal with, usually at the same time!

Is it any wonder it takes such a long time???

So when I heard about the FeisMark scoring system I just had to investigate. Any system that might be able to speed things up has to be worth a look, and I wasn't to be disappointed by the outcome!

I have seen computerised scoring used in the past, usually at major championships, and assumed that the systems would be complicated and very expensive. I have even toyed with running results on a spreadsheet set up which does work but I had problems with the Grid scoring.
When I approached Bob Yorke from FeisMark I was surprised to find that he was very keen to promote the software for all the right reasons. His own daughter dances and he has obviously been on the receiving end himself!
Bob sent me a fully working version of the software and left me to it. I didn't ask for any support or advice as I wanted to view it as a dance school would on first receiving it. The version I received came without any documentation except its own Readme text file and inbuilt help file.
Unfortunately my own PC couldn't read the CDROM at all, although this wasn't a FeisMark problem as this has happened with other CDROM in the past. I therefore copied the disc onto floppy discs on another PC.
The Readme was simple and I followed the straightforward installation process without any problems. I then opened the program and read through the Help files.
I would recommend that you do this to familiarise yourself with all of the program. The Help files were easy to follow and understand and so I decided to give it a go. I decided to load up all the scores from the results of a recent feis to see how well it performed with real data.
Loading the dancers names etc. took about 5 minutes for 20 or so dancers, which would probably be quicker for someone who types with more than one finger! Entering the judges scores for each dance is easiest using the numeric keypad and took much less than 5 minutes for the first two rounds, including checking!
I then calculated the Grid and ran the Recall report. This took under a minute, so I was in a position to announce the recall in under 15 minutes, not bad for a first try. I then entered the recall scores, calculated the Grid and ran the Final Results. This took me under 2 minutes so the total time from start to finish was still just around 15 minutes. This seemed too good to be true! I was then able to print out a Recall report in number order for the announcer to call from, a recall placings report, a final placings report, and a Winners roster with names and schools. In fact a full marks pack in under three minutes on a fairly old printer.
To say I was impressed would be an understatement. However, this wasn't real life and I really needed to see the program working in a true environment with the pressures of a hectic feis. Luckily Bob thought this was a good idea and allowed me to pass the FeisMark software onto well known teacher and adjudicator Stephen Masterson. The Masterson school were just about to hold their first Open Feis on the 10th & 11th June 2001 in Huntingdon, so it was a perfect opportunity to try it.

I passed them the program a week or so before and they agreed it was easy to use and set up. On the Sunday I visited the feis and spoke to Tina Kelly who was running the system. Unfortunately there had been problems with the results on the Saturday but she did confess that it might have been to do with a cup of coffee spilt onto the keyboard! I joined her for a while to see the system in use, joined by Bob Yorke himself.
Bob and I then ran the results for one of the competitions that were being held in another hall. The first thing that we realised was that the dancers name and school details were in a different order to the adjudicators marks for round one.
We therefore spent a couple of minutes carefully reordering them as we entered them. This made entering the scores very quick and easy, and less prone to error.
I would recommend a two man approach with one calling out the scores and the other entering the data. Be aware however that you need to keep your voice down, if in an area where dancers could hear!
Within five minutes we were ready for the next round. As this was still proceeding we closed the file. If a second competition had been running in another hall we would have had time to score that as well before round two for the first one came back. Eventually round two arrived, and in only a couple of minutes we had printed the recall results!
These were then taken up to the hall where we met Stephen Masterson coming out with round one and two scores for a boys competition. There were only 8 or 9 competitors so we had the recall report ready in minutes! These were back in the hall ready to be announced in under 15 minutes!
Amazing stuff, I'm sure you would agree. We scored several competitions without any problems and in lightning quick time.

If you are running a feis then you should seriously consider investing in this software. Not only would you be providing a vital service to dancers but making the feis more enjoyable for everyone. Not to mention the time saved and pressures on your organisers reduced! You could easily recoup your investment by selling the full scoring packs at £1/£2 each. You don't heed to be a computer whizz to use it and it seems able to cope with most scenarios, quickly and effectively. FeisMark are looking to make it even better and will try to incorporate minor improvements into free updates wherever possible. If you have a particular need then ask Bob Yorke if it can be done, he'll do his best to accommodate you. I would suggest that you bear one or two things in mind however.
Firstly, it probably makes sense to have a back up PC, just in case there are errant coffee cups! FeisMark actively encourage multi installations under the single licence, provided they are only for your own use.
Secondly even a very fast printer will take some time to churn out the details score packs in any great numbers so if possible have a fast laser printer or photocopier available. It would seem a waste to save so much time and then have people waiting for the printer.

Final words from Stephen Masterson "Many thanks for your help with the software - I wouldn't have liked to have worked out the recalls and results for Sunday manually!"

Overall, this is a winner. Your feis looks more professional, the punters are happy and it could generate a bit of revenue too. Irish-Dancer recommends that you try this out. A trial download is available on FeisMark's site at www.feismark.com