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Last update: Friday June 3, 2005 9:44
Chris Majer: 18 Longmead, Woolmer Green, Knebworth, Herts SG3 6JH. Tel: 01438 812781. E-mail: cemajer@aol.com
Richard Furness: 9 Cranwell Ave, Culcheth, Cheshire WA3 4JX. Tel; 01925 762654. E-mail: Richard.Furness@btinternet.com
Roger Edwards: 490 Chell Heath Road, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs ST6 6QD. Tel: 01782 818560. e-mail: bcfgrader@yahoo.co.uk
Most of you will have heard the news of Roger Edward's resignation as a Director of the BCF. Robert McFarland (Finance Director) has taken over responsibility for Game Fee and is the person to whom all questions on Game Fee should be addressed. The BCF Management Board have appointed me, Chris Majer, Acting Grading Director with David Thomas as Deputy. Roger will continue to serve the BCF in the post of Grading Manager. Roger will be responsible for the day-to-day technical issues and supervision of the Grading sub-contract with Richard Furness. In addition, Howard Grist will be working on solving the residual problems of the Chris Howell software such as data checking. I will deal with coordination of the various people working on grading, and am the point of contact for questions and complaints on Grading.
In case any of you are wondering what my background is in Grading, I will tell you - none. What I do have experience in is the management of software development projects. If any of you out there feel that they are better qualified than me to take on this role, and are willing to do it, then please contact me. In default of anyone better, I believe that by coordinating the efforts of experienced Graders such as David, Howard, Richard and Roger I can make a success of this season's Grading list.
The following addresses some points of immediate concern on Grading:
a) Work will continue to process omitted Grading results from the 99/00 season and it is expected that this work will be completed by January. The Grading List itself will not be re-printed when this exercise is complete. However, updated data will be provided to graders and consideration is given to the best method of publishing amendments.
b) An updated Junior list will not be produced in January. However, if the Grading process works well this season, it should be possible to produce six-monthly Junior lists starting in 2002.
c) Finally, I am aware that some of you are champing at the bit wanting to know where to send grading results to. If you will bear with me, I expect to issue guidelines within a week on the format for submission of grading data and the person to whom to send the data.
The following is a summary of what was agreed on Grading at the BCF Management Board Meeting (MB) on 18th November. This shows the current thinking of David and myself on the things that we should be doing on Grading, please feel free to come back with constructive suggestions, or better still offer your services to help tackle one of the issues that we've identified. I will publish progress against this report, both on the BCF Website and via the Grading Forum run by Richard Haddrell. I would advise anyone involved in Grading, to join the Richard Haddrell Grading Forum, as this will be one of the main methods by which I will communicate Grading information.
The Grading system planned to be used for the 2001 list will be a hybrid system, utilizing elements of the Chris Howell and pre-Chris Howell systems. This will have the benefit that additional checking of submitted grading results will be possible without any essential change in the format in which local graders are asked to submit results. Essentially, individual grading results submitted would be converted to a grading performance (X Games, Y Points) with the first stage of the Chris Howell software. The grading performance data would then be converted from Access to dBase, which would be compatible with the pre-Chris Howell grading computation software. The hybrid grading system may produce a slightly different grading calculation result to the Chris Howell system in some circumstances (e.g. for new players, or where a player plays insufficient games in a season and results from a previous season are carried over).
The following measures are planned to ensure that the 2000/2001 Grading List is a success:
1) Ensure closer involvement of Union Graders with BCF Officers working on Grading Centrally, e.g. Roger Edwards and Richard Furness.
2) Convene a Grading Forum (User Group), involving representatives of the MB and all interested local graders at which problems can be discussed during the season. As Richard Haddrell is already running a Grading Forum, I intend to make use of it to start with.
3) Compile a list of lessons learnt/most common mistakes made in submitting grading results and provide as a checklist to graders. In addition, provide some basic instructions on how to do things.
4) Encourage graders to submit results at an earlier date [Footnote ¹], rather than at the last minute. Specifically: ask congresses to submit results one month after completion, while for leagues get the league to submit interim results mid-season so that the player lists and event format can be validated.
5) For this season only, increase the time available for central processing of grading data after the closing date for results. Thus. bring the cut-off date for the grading season forward one month to end April and bring the cut-off date for submission of grading results to the BCF forward one month to end of May.
6) Seek to provide a means to local graders for them to check their results files before they are submitted. Alternatively if this can't be done due to machine compatibility, enough time must be built into the process to ensure that the local graders get the chance to check the central results.
7) Endeavour to introduce a process for "new" players
such that they are checked to see if they really are new. A similar checking
process should be instigated for abnormal grading jumps. Finally, the
feasibility should be investigated of improving the central software to
provide:
a) better error reporting for processing problems,
b)
improved speed to generate processing reports.
The following longer term issues have been identified for where we go next, e.g. after the next two years:
1) An initial audit of the Chris Howell software has been conducted. It was concluded that the grading system is not a finished product. The immediate essentials are some documentation and an improved user interface. However, the fundamental design is sound and the implementation appears to be basically accurate. Finally, the programming is sufficiently good that the errors are correctable. Work will be done to confirm the feasibility of solving these problems so that the Chris Howell software is easily useable in future.
2) Investigate the issues associated with moving to an ELO based grading system (Generating an ELO style grade and/or using the ELO computation method).
C E Majer Acting Director of Grading 26/11/00
Footnote: ¹
It is
considered that a contributory factor to the grading difficulties has been
insufficient time available for the central processing due to Graders
submitting results at the last moment and a big flood of results at the end of
the season. This and the following measure are planned with the objective of
increasing the time available for the central processing and checking of
grading results. Back