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Welcome!

Placard is an MUN management system in which you can use to conduct conferences. Enjoy!

Creating a Conference

Creating a conference requires to input the following information:

  • Title - This can be topic titles, group names, your name, etc...
  • Committee - Choose your committee! If you do not see the committee you want, don't worry, you can write your own.
  • Room Number - Now, this is just so you make sure you are in the right place. If you don't have any, just type "none" or whatever you wish.
  • Session - This is important as it will determine how many sets of sessions you will get. Think of it this way, everytime you conduct a roll call, that is a new session.
  • Delegate Information - Obviously, you need to put in countries (it's MUN after all). If you do not see the country you want, it's ok to put it anyway; It's just that the flag won't appear. It's also worth noting that duplicate countries are not allowed.
  • Rule Sets - This is for you to choose the time limit for different types of speeches.

You are now ready to go! Rember that you can edit these information again in the "edit conference" function so don't worry even if you mess up.

Performance

Now that you are in the conference, you will want to see how the delegates are performing. Here are the break down of each information.

Speech Performance

In here you can see how active each delegates are.

  • Most Spoken - This counts how many times the delegate spoke. This data includes: general, main submitter, for, against, yielded speeches.
  • Most Questions Asked -This counts how many times the delegate asked a question (POI).
  • Longest Speaking - Instead of counting, it measures the time they spoke when they are making speeches. The data includes: general, main submitter, for, against, yielded speeches.

Global Relations

This is honestly more for fun but some do actually give crucial information as a chair.

  • Global Consensus - This counts the total of how many people voted "In favor" and "Against" in a conference. If you see the graph leaning towards one side too much, you may want to let the opposition talk more!
  • Vote Pass Rate - This shows the ratio between how many votes passed in a conference. You definetly don't want to see all your votes failing.
  • Main Allies - This is purely for fun. This is calculated by looking at people who often vote on the same side of the voting procedure, which shows that they are more "aligned" with each other's objective.

Chair Assistant

This is so that it helps the chairs during the conference.

  • Inactive Delegates - This is here so you can see who is not participating. It is ranked by the top 5 most inactive. Make sure to encourage them to talk!
  • Stopwatch - This may be used for measure the time that is not speech related. This may include caucusses.

Roll Call

Selecting Rolls

It's quite simple. There are three options:

  • A - Abstain
  • P - Present
  • PV - Present and Voting

If someone is marked as "absent", then that delegate will not be shown in the speech tab and they will automatically abstain during voting procedure.

If someone is marked as "Present and Voting", then that delegate will not be able to abstain from the delegate mode.

Speech

Speech Types

There are 7 different types of speeches:

  • Opening Speech - As the name suggests, it's for opening speeches.
  • General Speech - This can be used for the speech you would make during open floors.
  • Main Submitter Speech - Used for the main submitter of resolution, and/or amendment submitter.
  • For Speech - Speeches dedicated for supporting the current amendment or the resolution.
  • Against Speech - Speeches dedicated for opposing the current amendment or the resolution.
  • Yielded Speech - Speeh Yielded by another delegate. Remember that the time left from the previous speaker will be the time limit for the yielded delegate.
  • POI - This is for asking questions.

Speech Performance

This is the number of times a delegate spoke similar to what you saw in the performance tab. But in here, the number of question asked are also included so the data included are as following: general, main submitter, for, against, yielded speeches, and questions.

Timer

You can select the countries that are speaking here and the options for timer available are:

  • Done - This will save the speech a delegate just made and add it to the speech history.
  • Start/Stop - Starts and stops the timer. You may move between tabs while the timer is turned on.
  • Clear - This clears the timer without saving the time.

Tip: The time will save only after you click "Done". So when the delegate starts speaking, click "start" immedietly and slowly select the speech type and the country.

Speech History

This will show the recent past five delegates who spoke. In addition to that, if you accidently saved an incorrect time, you can delete it immediately here.

Voting

Starting a Voting Session

You can start the voting procedure by clicking the "Start Voting Procedure" button. Once you are in, you can choose to whether vote simple majority(1/2), or super majority(2/3). Note that if a delegate is absent, they will be automatically be marked as abstain.

Manual Method

You can conduct voting in the same way as you would without any software support. Meaning that you would ask each individual delegates on their vote and you would input their response in the screen. To do this, you just have to go directly into the "manual mode".

Remote Method (Premium Tier)

This is the preferable method of voting as it will save a lot of time. You just have to stay on the screen just before the "manual mode" and the delegates will input their votes directly from their screen. When you think you are ready, you can move onto the manual mode for those who may have experienced internet problems.

Result Screen

In the result screen you will see these information:

  • Individual Contribution - This is so you can see which countries voted for what.
  • Pie Chart - A graphic way to look at how the voting session went.
  • Ratio - A number of people who voted for each vote types.
  • Pass or Fail - According to whether you chose simple or super majority, a pass or a fail will appear.

Other Notes

Once leaving the voting procedure screen, the voting session will abruptly end and changes will not be saved.

Delegate Mode

From delegate mode, the delegates can directly vote by themselves. Below are few things to keep in mind:

  • During the voting session, they will not be able to message to other delegates.
  • When vote abruptly ends, the delegates will also return to their normal state.
  • Delegates can look at the same result screen as the chairs.
  • Delegates can look at the past vote results while not in voting session.
  • If delegates states "Present and Voting" during roll call, they will not be able to abstain.

Resolution

This is a function that is exclusive to premium users. (Free for delegates)

Writing a Resolution

As the delegates do not have access to the resolution, during the lobbying session you would use a third party document editor of your choice to create a resolution. (Google Doc and Microsoft Words are supported for correct formatting of the pasted text. Other document editor may result to wrong formatting when pasted in.) Once the resolution is complete, you can copy and paste it into the resolution section. This feature is mainly for everyone to see the same resolution during the conference.

Displaying Amendments

When an amendment is submitted you can display it below the full resolution. This can be done easily by clicking a button in the amendment tab (More on this in amendment section). You may also want to label it so it wont get confused with the resolution itself.

Amendment

This is a function that is exclusive to premium users. (Free for delegates)

Receiving Amendments

From delegate mode, delegates will be able to submit amendments. They are required to submit amendment with a title and the amendment type.

Amendment Type

There are 3 amendment types a delegate can submit and those are:

  • Add Clause - This will only include a new amendment and a note to chair if the delegate wishes to.
  • Amend Clause - From the delegate's screen, they will be able to choose the clause they want to edit and edit it from there. Note to chair is present if delegate wishes to.
  • Strike Clause - Delegates will be able to strike a clause by striking through with red on the part of the clause they want. They will be required to write a reason to the chair. Again, they can write a note to the chair if need to be.

Approving or Rejecting

You can choose to reject a clause by clicking the button on the top right. This will delete the amendment and the delegate will be notified.

You can choose to approve the clause by clicking the button on the top right. Once clicked, the amendment will move to the "approved" section and you can view it later. The delegates will be notified if approved.

Once approved, you may click the copy button just above the amendment. This will automatically add the amendment to the most bottom of the resolution.

Messaging

This is a function that is exclusive to premium users. (Free for delegates)

Sending Texts

This is a replacement of those wasteful note passing. There is no censorship of words. So there is a "Control Panel" tab you can use to moderate it.

Control Panel

When you find out that there is any kind of bullying, harrasment, or inappropriate act in the conference, you can look up on their chats to see what they were doing. But of course, only use this function when NEED TO BE. It is highly recommended for the host to always remind the users that chairs can have this ability.

Full Report

In here, you can see the statistics of the conference. Some are the same as the ones shown in the performance tab. You can choose to look at each sessions individually or the total which is shown in the final tab. In the final tab, you will be able to see additional information.

Calculations

  • Best Delegate - It is a point system in which the speech data is weighed. Speech Count: 1 point, Question Count: 0.5 points, Speech Duration: 1 point every 2 minutes of speech. Opening speeches are not counted towards the calculations.
  • Foreign Relations - This is determined by who they voted with the most. If one country almost always votes on the otherside, they will be marked as rival, while if one country votes on the same side, they will be marked as an ally. Abstention will not affect the count towards this calculations.
  • Radar Chart - The maximum of each speech type is given by the delegate who gave the most speech within that speech type. Ex. If China made the most general speech with 15 speeches, then 15 will be the maximum. Remember that for and against speech is counted together
  • Grading System -They are calculated by averaging the percentage of each radar chart data. Ex. If maximum is 15 for general speech and one delegate spoke 10 times. They will have achieved 66% in the general speech type. Repeating this for all speech types, you will get an array of perecentage values. Now these values will be averaged to form a final score. This is the range of the grades - A: 60+, B: 50+, C: 30+, D: 10+, F: <10

Editing Info

If you make a mistake during the creation or the conference, you may want to edit some information.

Conference Information

You may choose to edit any of the information that you were prompted to answer during the creation of the conference.

It is worth noting that ones you delete a country, their speech, roll call, and visibility will be gone. However, they will still remain as a data for the vote they already participated in.

Editing Conference Data

You may choose to delete a certain vote or speech made by a delegate.

Assist Chair

In a conference, it is usual that there are more than one chair. So you can assist a chair in the option below the cog in the main page.

Connecting to a Conference

You can connect to a conference by typing in the join code of the conference. Once clicked "Join" button, the host will be prompted to choose the following:

  • Role - Choose either "Assistant President" or "Deputy Assistant President"
  • Assigned Function - Click on the functions that you want to delegate to the chair who is joining. Remember that other chairs except for that chair will not be able to control the specific function you gave access to.

Click accept and now they are connected!