|
|
Creating and Managing a Contest
This tutorial is of particular interest for State or Regional Administrators who are responsible for setting up new Contests -- that is, the competitive events -- in the Registration Manager system. If you are a local or district level Event Administrator (or "EA"), note that your State or Regional Administrator is responsible for the initial set-up of your Contest; though you may be responsible for updating your Contest's information in this system. However, all Administrators should review this tutorial, as this material is important to know before moving on to our tutorial entitled, "Managing Contest Registration Details."
If you haven't yet done so, we recommend you view the tutorials entitled "Registration Manager Overview", "Logging into the RM Admin Area" and "Overview of the RM Admin Start Page" before continuing. Also, note that for simplicity, we will occasionally refer to Registration Manager simply as "R.M."
Bear in mind that many of the Contest parameters and settings you'll provide through the RM Admin interface will not only govern how your online registration process will appear, but these values will also transfer to AcuWeb's Competition Manager module, which you may also be using to govern the scheduling, scoring and reporting of results for your Contest.
To create a new contest from the AcuWeb Admin Start Page, click the "Add New" button to the left of the "All Contests" link to open a new contest form.
Or, if you're interested in updating or adding information for an existing Contest, simply find that Contest on the contest list just below the series of "add new" items. In either case, you'll be taken to a Contest Edit View where you can enter a variety of information that "teaches" Registration Manager how your Contest is organized and conducted.
Whether you're creating or updating information for a Contest, the process is as simple as filling in the required fields denoted in red and choosing any of the other options RM offers you, which are relevant to your event. You are NOT required to utilize any of the non-required features of Registration Manager, though as we go through these options in this tutorial, consider how each option might apply to your particular Contest.
Now, let's take a look at the items and options shown on the Contest Edit View:
Under Enter the Contest Name, we recommend that you include the name of the Contest's jurisdiction or district in the name, such as "National History Day in Central Florida," to help your registrants easily identify the correct Contest in which they wish to enter.Your contest type is your competition level. The options available in the Select a Contest Type field are the standard terms for competition levels used by your national organization. Your state terminology may differ slightly. Choose the one that most closely represents your contest level. If you are unsure, ask your State Coordinator.
If this contest is being conducted at a district, or other sub-state level, choose your district name from values provided in the drop-down box labelled "District (if applicable)". If you do not see your district listed, ask your State Coordinator.
Next, provide the Entry Fee per Student. This number should be a whole dollar amount representing what each student is required to pay to participate in this contest. It should be entered as a whole number, without a dollar sign or decimal point.
Next, enter the City, State, and Venue where your contest will be held. "Venue" should be central location where you want participants to initially report, such as "Edmonds Convocation Center, Smith University."
Enter the Event Administrator and Event Admin Email. This should be the person primarily responsible for managing your Contest online. Registration Manager automatically sends confirmations via e-mail to your registrants. The "from..." label on these confirmations will display this email address. In addition, this is the address where important Administrator communications will be e-mailed from your State or National Coordinators, or from the Registration Manager System Administrator.
If you plan to offer offline fee payment by check or Purchase Order, the next two fields allow you to show your registrants the address to which you want these payments mailed, and how the check or P.O. should be made out.
The next two fields establish when your Contest will take place. From the drop-downs, choose the month, day, and year for the First Day of Contest and Last Day of Contest. If this Contest is a one-day event, enter the same date in both fields.
The next six fields tell the system when to begin and end allowing online registration on the public website. As with the contest dates, use the drop-downs to the right of each field. Note that you can specify a different set of registration dates for different types of registrants; or set all to be the sam. Use these drop-down menus to set-up the Student Registration Open, Student Registration Close, Teacher Registration Open, Teacher Registration Close, Others Registration Open (for judges, volunteers and other non-competing attendees) and Others Registration Close.
If you have not received specific guidance from your organization about how long registration should be made available, we suggest that you allow at least four weeks of open registration before your Contest. Of course, your prior experience may suggest otherwise, but remember that with online registration, you no longer need to worry about leaving time for the U.S. Mail to deliver paper-based forms, or for data entry chores on your part, once they arrive.
With online registration, your registrants enter their information for you, saving you days or weeks between the end of the registration period and the date of your event; and so you can keep registration open much closer to your event date, and still have plenty of time for pre-event preparations. In an online environment, we've found that registration can close about two weeks before your event date, still allowing you sufficient time to schedule the competition and make other pre-event preparations which depend on having a complete set of registrant information. Again, of course, the specifics of your event may suggest otherwise.
Note that for an academically-based competition such as yours, if you will be allowing students to log in and provide at least part of the information required to complete their registration, Registration Manager mandates that teachers first register themselves, create the initial, basic student and entry records, and then provide their students with usernames and passwords, so they can provide additional, necessary information. With this in mind, you may wish to open and close teacher registration earlier than student registration. While these two registration periods can overlap, you want to end teacher registration with enough time remaining for the teachers' most recently-entered students to log in and finish updating their registration records.
The number in Maximum Number of Students Per Entry determines how many students can be assigned to a single group entry.
If your Contest allows alternate, or "stand-by" team members, use the Enter the Maximum Alternate Students Per Entry field to indicate how many. If you do not allow alternates, enter "0" in this field.
Registration Manager can handle your event's competition scoring chores automatically, in one of two ways. Specify a Scoring Method based either on determining results based on judge consensus ranking (for example, first, second or third place), or by averaging numerical scores, like percentages or percentiles. Note that you will be able to establish specific judging criteria and scoring rubrics in the AcuWeb Competition Manager module, once your event is set up here in Registration Manager.
The next group of fields will only be necessary if you intend to offer an online survey or questionnaire to individuals during your registration period, using online survey tools such as Survey Monkey or our own AcuSurvey product. If you would like to take a survey your registrants, check the box next to Include Surveys, and then use any or all of these fields to specify the web address, or URL, where the survey(s) can be accessed. As you can see, you can offer a different survey for each types of registrants. This sets up links to the survey(s) from within your online registration process. If you do not have a source for online survey capabilities, contact us at Acuity Marketing and we will be glad to provide assistance.
Following the survey fields, you will find four Shipping fields. You'll want to complete these fields if you will be allowing your registrants to ship their entry materials to you, prior to the event. If you will be accepting shipped entry materials, simply check the box labeled Include Shipping Form for Entries. Next, enter the Shipping Fee as a whole dollar amount with no dollar sign and as a whole number (no decimal point or "cents"). This is intended to assess a materials handling and/or storage fee for materials you're willing to receive in advance. Please note that this fee does not include any freight, shipper or postage costs -- your registrants will have to make those shipping arrangements themselves. Use Shipping Fee Covers to select whether the fee you will be assessing is per item or for an entire shipment from each registrant. Finally, enter the Ship To address, which tell registrants where to send their materials. This address will also be included on a shipping label Registration Manager will generate as a courtesy to your registrants, which we will direct them to place on each item they are shipping to you. This will also help you easily identify such packages when they arrive.
The remaining fields on this form are a series of check-boxes, allowing you indicate which items you wish to offer to (or require of) your registrants. For each item you check, specific forms will be added to your online registration process, for your registrants to complete. Here is a brief description of each option:
Unless your State or Regional Coordinator has specified that you should accept online fee payments for your upcoming event, you should leave the Include Online Payment box unchecked.
Online payment typically involves setting up what is called a "merchant account" with an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) agent, such as PayPal or AuthorizeNet. This generally requires the assistance of your bank. Within Registration Manager, we must also set up your online registration to accommodate online payment. There are additional costs to your organization for these services, from the EFT agent, your bank, and our company. For our part of this process, we will need all required information at least two weeks prior to the opening of your online registration period.
If you are a State or Regional Coordinator interested in setting up online payment for your jurisdiction(s), please contact Laura LaPrad at Acuity Marketing (or 615-591-7025, ext. 205) to find out more about this process.
The next item, Parent/Guardian Registration, allows you to collect information about the parents or guardians of student registrants, as part of the student registration process.
Volunteer, Judge, Alumni Registration allows you to offer online registration for your event's volunteers, judges, and former participants, or "alumni".
Student Statement of Originality adds an affidavit-type statement to the registration process, instructing Registration Manager to require the contestant's agreement with this statement before accepting that person's registration. You will be able to add your own unique wording for this statement to Registration Manager, later in the event set-up process.
Similarly, Parent/Guardian Authorizations tells Registration Manager to require the agreement of parents or guardians of student contestants with specific authorization language before accepting that student's registration. For example, such a statement might include asking the parent to officially permit the student's participation in your Contest, and could include liability and other legal waiver language. You will be able to add your own unique wording for this authorization to the system, later in the event set-up process.
Include Student Medical Information instructs contestants to complete a standard medical form as part of registration.
Include Write Your Elected Officials Page allows you to encourage a grassroots letter-writing or lobbying campaign on the part of your registrants, in order to build support for your organization or advance an issue of interest to you and your registrants. This adds a page to your online registration where you can post instructions, sample letters, e-mail links to public officials, and other materials to facilitate such campaign efforts.
Include "Local Media" Form adds a page to the online registration process to collect information about each registrant's local media contacts, to aid your organization in developing publicity opportunities, and to recognize your Contest's winners in their home town media outlets.
Include Entry Preferred Time allows you to give registrants the option of expressing a preference a morning or afternoon judging time (but not a specific time) for their competitive presentation; this may be helpful if you have registrants driving a large distance, who may not be able to arrive at your venue in time for a morning competition time.
Include Entry Special Needs allows you to offer registrants the opportunity to request special assistance or equipment relating to their competitive presentation; for example, to request that a TV and DVD player be available in the room; or to advise you that one team member needs wheelchair access to the presentation venue.
Include Special Awards for Entries allows you to list Special Awards categories for which your event's contestants may be eligible, including an option [which you will be able to set later on] for registrants or their sponsors to self-nominate their entries for consideration.
Include Scholarship Form for Students adds a form to the student registration process for qualified students to apply online for scholarships related to your competition.
Include Special Events for Registrants allows you to offer registrants the opportunity to sign up online for special events you may be offering in conjunction with your Contest, such as seminars, tours, social events and the like.
The Include Merchandise Form lets you offer items for sale in conjunction with your event, allowing registrants to order such items while registering. These items could, for example, range from T-shirts to souvenir programs to videos of the awards ceremony. This feature does not necessarily require online payment, as the additional cost can simply be incorporated into the registrant's total registration fee, which you may choose to collect by check, money order, or other offline payment method.
Include Display Your Work Form allows your contestants to sign up for an opportunity to display their entry at a local venue, such as a university, museum or civic facility.
Include Housing, Meal Form adds the appropriate forms to enroll registrants in housing, food service, or other accommodation services.
Once you've completed all the required fields, and selected from among the various options in the Contest Edit View, select "Save Changes" to create your contest. You will know that your contest has been successfully saved when you see it listed on the Admin Start Page, beneath the "Add New" cluster of button-items.
To get back to the Admin Start Page, simply click on the red Back to Admin Start Page link at the top left of this screen, just below the gray toolbar.
And thus, your contest has been established in the Registration Manager system. Next, you'll want to specify the details for each of the items you've just chosen to include in your online registration process. To learn how, please view our tutorial, "Managing Contest Registration Details."
To view another tutorial in this series, please return to the listing of RM Tutorial contents. |
|
|
