ICONS User Manual: Implementation Issues

Umpiring

Country-Team Roles
Team Organization
Decision-Making Procedures
Scenario
Position Papers
Communication
Foreign Language
Umpiring
Grade
Facilitation

Like many other aspects of the simulation process, the umpiring function for ICONS has undergone a significant evolution. Originally, the task of umpiring was viewed in a more formal fashion. SIMCON (Simulation Control) reviewed all messages on the system before their final "send-off". There was an actual lapse between the point at which the team put their message on the system and the judgment on the part of SIMCON as to whether that message should be forwarded or rejected. This was a form of quality control, designed to ensure that all messages satisfied some basic criteria. As one can imagine, however, this task became more and more difficult as the size of ICONS exercises began to grow. We now practice a more informal monitoring of the quality of messages, which we urge individual faculty members to use with their students as well.

Specifically, we monitor the daily flow of messages after they are put on the system, and engage in troubleshooting, designed to catch messages that do not meet the following criteria:

Plausibility: A message may be rejected if it is not deemed to be plausible within the context of the game.
Consistency: A message may be rejected because it is deemed to be inconsistent with the policies set forth in the team’s position paper. SIMCON’s motive here is to get the team to think their move through more carefully.
Clarity: In certain cases, SIMCON will reject a message owing to its imprecision or verbosity.
Appropriateness: Personal insults and undiplomatic language are not tolerated (and often result in other country-teams taking the offender less seriously in the negotiations).

Naturally, if a team feels that any action taken by SIMCON is unfair or unwarranted, it is free to engage in a dialogue with the "Control Center." In general, however, we find that most students are willing to revise their initial messages if their faculty facilitator or SIMCON indicates that changes are warranted.

We have found that stressing the concepts of plausibility, consistency, clarity, and appropriateness in pre-simulation training can be very helpful. Depending upon the particular students involved, this latter method may be all that is needed to keep the team on track. In short, we hope that a combination of cross checks on the types of messages that the teams are sending will protect the overall quality and integrity of the simulation for all those participating.

SIMCON monitors the simulation for problems in message content as well as technical difficulties. However, SIMCON’s monitoring should be secondary to the watchful eye of the faculty facilitator. While we encourage facilitators to step back from the team’s decision-making process, we hope that they will keep close enough track of their teams’ performances to assist when necessary. A team that is allowed to "run wild" can have significant adverse effects on the simulation as a whole. To this end, we ask that faculty keep abreast of simulation developments.

In addition to the umpiring function, SIMCON is also responsible for administrative issues with the simulation community and for moderating all conferences.