Contest Phases

This document explains the phases a contest goes through, and how proposals are moving from one phase to the next.

Overview

Each contest goes through five phases:

• Proposal creation
• Finalist selection
• Proposal revisions
• Selection of winners
• Completed

Each phase has a start and an end date. As soon as the end date is reached, the next phase is started. This information is stored in the table xcolab_ContestPhase.

Proposal creation

Everyone is allowed to create proposals for the contest in this phase. For each proposal created, an entry in the xcolab_Proposal2Phase table is created, which assigns the proposal to the respective phase. Upon each edit, a proposal receives a new version. The assignment to the contest phase is done based on ranges of this proposal (where -1 means infinite).

Finalist selection

After the creation ends, fellows and judges decide which proposals advance. The proposals may not be edited during this time.

1. Fellows screen the proposals. This means they decide if the proposal is off topic, incomplete or should be forwarded to judges. The data is saved in xcolab_ProposalContestPhaseAttribute, the name of the attribute is FELLOW_ACTION and FELLOW_ACTION_COMMENT. The screening is possible when the value of the column fellowScreeningActive in the table xcolab_ContestPhase is set to 1.

   Fellows can also add a personal comment and rating here. These are saved per fellow in xcolab_ProposalRating.

2. Judges rate the proposals which have been forwarded to them by the fellows beforehand. This is also saved in xcolab_ProposalRating.

3. Fellows then make a final advancing decision based on the judges' votes and send aggregated feedback to the author.

After the phase ends, the value of the column contestPhaseAutopromote, which was PROMOTE_JUDGED before, is changed to PROMOTE_DONE. At the same time, a new row in the xcolab_Proposal2Phase table is created for every column which made it to the next phase.

Proposal revisions

Proposal authors receive a note why their proposal has been rejected or accepted and what they can improve. If their proposal is accepted, they are able to make further changes and improvements to it.

Selection of winners

In this phase, the final winners are selected. This process is exactly the same as in the Finalist selection.

Completed

The best proposals have been selected and have been awarded with ribbons. The ribbon relation can be found in xcolab_ProposalContestPhaseAttribute, the name of the attribute is RIBBON.