2013 National Tournament: Wright State University

[kentuckyfan1001]

Anyone notice that the Division B national tournament results were changed? J.C. Booth Middle School got moved up from 15th to 12th, and based on comparing the new scoresheet with the old scoresheet it looks like it was because their 61st in Disease Detectives got changed to 27th. But what's really odd is that now the official scoresheet shows two teams at 12th place overall and no teams at 15th place overall. Another odd thing is that the timestamp on the new scoresheet says that the new scoresheet was not generated until the evening of May 22nd, which is well outside the one-hour window for verifying changes as specified in the Science Olympiad official scoring policies. Also, it's troubling that both the old scoresheet and the new scoresheet are still linked in official-looking locations online.

I think that they must've decided to keep the other teams at 12th 13th and 14th, possibly because the date for such a rankings revision has passed. At the same time, they wanted to ensure that Booth had a 'fair' rank, so they moved Booth up to 12th.

The strange thing is Booth has been involved in another national scoring controversy as well: In 1996, when Thomas Jefferson Middle School and JC Booth Middle School tied. However, it doesn't look like either of these cases Booth is at fault.

[Luo]

I think that they must've decided to keep the other teams at 12th 13th and 14th, possibly because the date for such a rankings revision has passed. At the same time, they wanted to ensure that Booth had a 'fair' rank, so they moved Booth up to 12th.

That sounds like a reasonable explanation and seems fair to all parties involved. However, I would hope that Science Olympiad would clarify this decision in writing (perhaps by a note on the tournament page or on the scoresheet itself), since it doesn't seem to fall within the official scoring guidelines that are explicitly set forth on soinc.org. I think it's important for the integrity of the competition to explain any decision that may fall outside of published policies so that there is no appearance of impropriety or inconsistency.

[chalker]

That was quick. Didn't expect anyone to notice this minor change. Without getting into all the details of what happened, let me assure you it was all handled appropriately. We were notified promptly there was a potential issue, and once we dug into it we found an issue that was primarily due to a tournament official error. We also never take away 'good' results after they have been posted, thus the issue with there now being no 15th team place and a tie for 12th. All this was completed by the morning after the Awards ceremony (and was promptly communicated to all parties involved). The reason it's just now being posted is actually rather mundane - we all had a lot of other things on our mind and just kind of each assumed someone else was taking care of this (or kept putting it on the back burner), however we wanted to ensure we publicly documented the ultimate result for posterity.

[Luo]

Thank you for the explanation. The scoresheet linked on the Wright State Science Olympiad homepage is still the old one, so I hope that will be changed.

[erikb]

Awards ceremony is online now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK4bhA7IjWs