Entries over the internet - Enter events online

FatBoy · Post by **FatBoy** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:42 am

I hope to get my report finished today. The site looks a good start Ryan - I will leave it to the committee/any working party to decide where to start. The key for me is to define the data standard(s) for transfer to the clubs, and for it to be good enough for it to be adopted by the software vendors - the actual website should be the easy bit. The data standard is what I'm still working on (in between real work). As Ryan says where is the data held if you have one central system? The answer has to be in two places as you almost certainly won't have a connection to the central system at the race site - hence the need for those standards for getting data between the systems. Even if you imposed the use of a single results system for all slaloms to use you would still need that standard.

Re entry on the day and orienteering. It is true that most low key orienteering events are EOD. There are big differences though. EOD is usually used for non-ranking events - same as slalom, just there are more non-ranking events. Most events now use electronic timing and most competitors have their own timing chip which are registered centrally. Thus when they finish you know who they are without having to type it in (I know - I wrote one of the systems). Very low key events results will not be available on the day - this would be very easy to do with slalom - give everyone a bib and take their name etc. Fill in a blank entry card for each run then take the lot home and work it all out. Not having results on the day I suspect would not be acceptable however - whereas it is on very low-key orienteering.

FatBoy · Post by **FatBoy** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:45 pm

I've finished the report as promised. I hope it's food for thought at least. As I indicated I feel the standard for data transfer is the key so I've spent a few hours on that tonight. Report is designed to be non-techie and readable by anybody. Data standard is very techie - you have been warned.

Report

Data Standard (3 files zipped)

I won't email it to Jim as I know he's active on this forum, as are other committe members. If anybody wants to contact me about it personally rather than publically in this thread then send me a private message. I don't really want to post my email address here and get a lifetime of spam!

Post by **SteveM** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:58 pm

That's excellent, very professional! Have you received any feedback on this yet?

Cheers,

Steve

FatBoy · Post by **FatBoy** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 3:22 pm

Nope!

Any feedback most welcome, as are any questions.

Anne · Post by **Anne** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 4:05 pm

I have printed off the report etc, and one person has e-mailed me offering to be part of the working party. Hopefully a few more of you with all these ideas will do the same. We have a meeting on 5th Nov I will put it to the committee that we put forward a motion at the ACM to form a working party with a view to loooking into and setting up some sort of workable system and pilot it at a few events next year. But without that working party with the IT know how it won't happen!! Well done for all your work, the reprot makes sense to me but not the rest!!!!

Mrs.A.Kiedis · Post by **Mrs.A.Kiedis** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:49 pm

Would we still have cards displayed at races so it's possible to see what penalties have been given etc? Because if we did the organisers would have to write out every card. Clearly therefore, we would not have cards at all.

Requesting entrance to a race is not the only reaon we have cards. Often the only way of telling whether you've had a transmission error and been given a wrong penalty or been given an unjust penalty/time is by looking at the cards. Would there be an alternative system if we no londer had them?

Mrs.A.Kiedis · Post by **Mrs.A.Kiedis** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:50 pm

Whoops a few spellig istakes tere, stupid laptop. Also, not sure that was very clear - organisers would have to write out all the names on each card.

Anne · Post by **Anne** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 7:20 pm

No the paddler could do it before competing. Don't give the organiser even more work please!

Canadian Paddler · Post by **Canadian Paddler** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:36 pm

Surely not beyond the wit of computer to set up a print from the competitor file onto entry cards? Might end up with legible cards too. Would be good to get the info on one page for simplex printing

More time for the organiser to do this, so might end up printing a sheet of five(or so) competitors, with gate penalies at the race.

Do we still need cards for the ranking compilers to check then?

Anne · Post by **Anne** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:32 am

This is why we need a working party of those that know what they are doing!!!

concerned paddler · Post by **concerned paddler** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:39 pm

I tried to show an example of what the international races use for displaying results but it didn't display. Basically they have a printout of every competitor with their time and also what penalty they got for each gate. Very simple and it does away with the need for a card.

John Sturgess · Post by **John Sturgess** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:31 pm

Congratulations Ryan and Fatboy

Slalom enters the 21st century

Let it roll!

Now all we need to do is get rid of Tutti .....

Anne · Post by **Anne** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:05 pm

Nothing wrong with tutti! simple to use only problem is the users failing to send US bits back for repair and replacement!

Dee · Post by **Dee** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:25 am

Printing Cards shouldn't present problems - I usually print one side of the cards that I send in and certainly am not using any sophisticated techniques (only do one side because I don't have a duplex printer).

We might want to consider design of cards to simplify process though.

My guess is that we can't do away with cards entirely - not unless all clubs can afford additional computing equipment in which case penalties could be entered direct on computer without using cards - so ranking compilers will still need to check cards against results list. Just occasionally penalties don't make it on to the computer list.

We also need to keep in mind that not everyone will have the means or desire to use internet booking and will still need to allow manual entries.

Personally I love the idea of internet entries, so much less hassle.
:;):

Yester Years Kayak · Post by **Yester Years Kayak** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 1:20 pm

It would appear that we are not alone in having a view on being able to enter races over the internet, as the WWR boys have recently picked up on this thread.

If the interest does indeed reach beyond slalom then i suspect that the BCU would be in a position where it should get more involved in the development of online entries, who knows.....