New Zealand and the New Judging System By Craig Anderson, 6 August 2004 The announcement last week that the NZISA will request equipment from the ISU for the New Judging System (NJS) signals the beginning of the end for the familiar 6.0 scoring system in New Zealand. The NJS was approved at the 50th ISU Congress as a remedy to the judging scandal at the last Winter Olympic Games. Scoring Fundamentally, the NJS is a huge change from the old 6.0 scoring system. Every element a skater might perform has been assigned a level of difficulty, called the base value, in the ISU Scale of Value (SOV) chart. Skaters are judged on how well they perform each element and given a mark from +3 to -3 (called the Grade of Execution, or GOE). For each GOE the SOV indicates how many points are to be added or deducted from the base value. The skater's final Total Element Score (TES) is made up by adding the base values and the GOE adjustments. But the TES only makes up a portion of the skater's final score. There is also the Total Program Component Score (TCS). The TCS is made up of five components: Skating Skills (SS), Transitions (TR), Performance/Execution (PE), Choreography (CH), and Interpretation (IN). Each of the five components is given a score from 0.00 to 10.00 in 0.25 increments. The Total Segment Score (TSS) for each program is calculated by adding the TES and the TCS and subtracting any deductions for rule violations. Deductions would be made for such things as time violations (-1.0 for each 5 seconds over/under), music violations (-1.0 for vocal music where not allowed), costume and prop violations (-1.0) and illegal elements (-2.0 each). The skater's final score is made up of the TSS from both the free skate and short programs such that the free skate counts for 2/3 of the final score and the short program for 1/3 of the final score. Note that there is no defined upper limit for NJS scores. Scores are additive and depend on the number of elements a skater performs, the base value of each of the elements, their grade of execution, and the five program component scores. . Officials/Judges In the NJS, there are new, appointed officials on the judging panel. A major change in the NJS is a specialist judge who identifies each element in a skater's program. This judge is called the Technical Specialist (or Caller) and is responsible for identifying each jump, spin, or other element in the program (e.g. double Axel, level two solo spin combination). The Caller is responsible for identifying each element so its base value can been determined from the Scale of Values (SOV) chart. Briefly, the officials in the NJS are: Technical Controller: The Technical Controller supervises the call made by the Caller. The Controller is also primarily responsible for marking additional, wrong, and forbidden elements in a program. Technical Specialist (Caller): The Technical Specialist is responsible for identifying and calling all elements, their levels, and corrected elements and guidelines (e.g. under-rotated double Axel). The Technical Specialist is also responsible for re-confirming the marking of additional, wrong, and forbidden elements. The Technical Specialist can also award up to 2.0 points per program for innovative elements. Technical Assistant: When enough officials are available, there may also be a Technical Assistant backing up the Technical Specialist, so that both the Technical Assistant and Technical Controller are assisting/monitoring the Technical Specialist's calls. Judges Coordinator (Referee): The Judges Coordinator is responsible for organising the judges and performing the job of Referee. The Judges Coordinator is responsible for identifying over/under time, vocal music violations, and costume and prop deductions. Judges: Judges are responsible for awarding the GOEs and the five program component scores (skating skills, transitions, performance/execution, choreography, interpretation). When fewer officials are available, the above roles may overlap, portions may be split between officials, and some roles may be performed only by a single judge. Even if there are plenty of officials, these roles may be altered to some degree. The number of judges can range from 3 to 12. Panels may consist of an even or odd number of judges because the NJS is not ordinal based and so a tie is no more likely to happen with an even number of judges than with an odd number of judges. With 12 judges, 9 will be selected at random during international competitions. With 3 judges, no random selection will occur. Responsibilities with only three officials are split between officials with other titles: the Technical Judge (calls the elements and awards the GOEs), the Referee Judge (Referee, backup for Caller and awards program component scores) and the Performance Judge (awards program component scores only). With just three officials there is only one judge awarding the GOEs (the Caller) and two judges awarding the program component scores. With four or five officials available, the extra judges award both GOEs and program component scores. But with these extra judges, the Referee Judge no longer awards the program component scores (and thus becomes a Technical Controller/Referee). And the Technical Judge no longer awards GOEs (and thus becomes the Technical Specialist). There are other options available with four and five officials, including having the Referee Judge award GOEs only and the Judges award program component scores only. A possible solution not discussed by the ISU would be to use a Referee Judge who awards program component scores, a Technical Judge to call the elements and award GOEs, and Judges who award both GOEs and program component scores (with 5 officials, this would allow for 4 GOEs and 4 program component scores). When more officials are available, the Technical Controller and Referee jobs can be split and a Technical Assistant may be added. With the often limited number of officials available at NZ competitions, it would seem likely that the use of a Referee Judge or Technical Controller/Referee (and no Technical Assistant) would be the most common choice. This maximises the number of judges awarding the GOEs and program component scores. In addition to all the above officials, there will be officials and/or administrators responsible for the large amount computer data entry the NJS requires. . Technical Implementation The NJS was trialled at a number of International competitions last year. Judges sat in front of touch screen computers which offered video replay of a skater's program and touch screen input of elements, GOEs, and program component scores. Nine judges scores were chosen at random from a panel of twelve by a central computer and scores were displayed after each skater had completed their program. This was a demonstration of the full ISU Level 3A operational equipment. Clearly not all of this is going to be happening at club competitions or even Nationals in the foreseeable future. So what are we to do? The ISU has defined several operational equipment levels for implementing the NJS. These equipment levels are independent of the number of officials involved. The higher levels just facilitate easier scoring and allow open marking and random judge selection. At the most basic level, the NJS can be run without a single computer. Judges use a paper and pencil to record the elements, GOEs and program component scores. Scores are tabulated by hand. Of course it is obviously easier and possible to tabulate all the scores using a computer (or two) in a manner very similar to the IceCalc system we use today. This is the Level 1 operational equipment. Judges still use paper, but the data is entered into the computer to obtain the result. In either case, the determination of the score will be done, at the earliest, while the next skater is skating. There is no practical way to provide open marking in this system or to display results after each skater has finished. In order to be able to provide open marking, officials must be able to input all the elements, GOEs, program component scores, deductions, etc. directly into the computer so the scores can be calculated in a reasonable time. The Level 2 operational equipment, which New Zealand will ask the ISU to provide, can do this. The Level 2 equipment uses tablet PCs (touch screen laptops), ordinary laptops, or small handheld PCs for each judge/official and a main PC (with backup) which receives the data entered on the judge's PCs to compute the skater's score. There is no support for video playback, nor does the ISU expect this at club or even national level. The Level 2 system also overcomes another problem inherent in the Level 1 system. When there are more than three officials, responsibilities are not so overlapped and so several judges will be awarding GOEs while the Technical Specialist calls the elements. The problem is that the judges awarding the GOEs need to know how the element was called. (e.g. was it an over-rotated double or a severely under-rotated triple?). The simple solution is the Level 1A system which adds, to the Level 1 system, headsets for the judges and the Caller. When using Level 2 systems and above, a skater's elements can be programmed into the computer. Judges can then see what elements are coming up. Skaters must submit a list of their elements prior to the competition (as is being done at Australian Nationals this year for Junior and Senior events). This isn't a requirement of the system, but should aid the judges in their work. The Level 3 system adds video replay for the Technical Specialists and Technical Controller, while the Level 3A system provides video replay for all officials. It is likely New Zealand will see both the Level 1A and Level 2 systems used when the NJS is adopted in this country. However, the Level 3A system with video playback for all officials might reduce the burden on NZ's limited number of officials by shifting work onto administrators, treasurers (to find the money), and other volunteers. Whatever choices are made for the implementation of the NJS in New Zealand, there can be no doubt that a lot of learning, training and work lies ahead for everyone involved.