We’ve been missing a good, full-blown ODR tournament for several years now. No more! Cyberweek 2012’s eMediation competition provided the goods, and more. Organizer Katrina Nobles paints a picture of this tournament.

Compared with the ADR scene, in which negotiation and mediation competitions at the national and international level are proliferating (for example, see this description of a competition I participated in judging in Beijing for students from all across China, and read this comparative look at other competitions), the ODR scene has been pretty quiet on this front for a while. Sure, Smartsettle holds competitions on their platform every so often, including every Cyberweek, but it’s been about four years since the last ICODR (International Competition for Online Dispute Resolution), a full-blow tournament of online mediation, negotiation and advocacy, has been held.

Cyberweek 2012 saw the return of such a tournament in the form of the eMediation competition organized by Cornell University’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution.

While I mentioned the winners and runner ups in my first post summarizing Cyberweek 2012, this event was so exciting that I invited its organizer, Katrina Nobles of the Scheinman Institute, to guest-blog and share the names, numbers and behind-the-scenes of this event. The rest of this post is Katrina’s voice; the applause you hear in the background as you read through it, though, is mine   :-)

Noam

----------------------------

Cyberweek 2012 – eMediation Competition

Co-sponsored by Cornell University’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution and Modria

Utilizing an online platform provided by Modria’s Mediation Room, students from across the world competed in an eMediation competition during Cyberweek 2012. The platform provided conversation threads in an asynchronous communication environment, allowing students to communicate from different time zones. By next year’s competition, Modria’s mediation room will be able to accommodate asynchronous communication, as well as synchronous communication in the form of text chat and video-conferencing.

Students in the competition could play the role of the mediator or the role of the parties involved in the dispute. The students competed in two rounds of competition. The first round included an employment dispute, while the second round included a small claims/community dispute. Those students playing the role of mediator were judged on their ability to provide an informative opening statement, convey a collaborative behavioral style, use active listening skills, reframe each party’s perspective, remain objective during the process, address the parties’ behavioral styles, and empower the parties to be collaborative and generate creative solutions. Students playing the role of a disputing party were judged on their ability to present their case well, use active listening skills, work well together as a team, use a problem-solving approach, generate creative solutions, gather information from and communicate with the opposing party well, and appropriately respond to the mediator and opposing party.

Colleges and universities represented by the 44 students in the competition included: Capital University Law School, Cornell University ILR School, Cornell University Law School, Creighton University, Marquette University Law School, Ohio State University, Seattle University, Singapore Management University, South Texas College of Law, Southern Methodist University, Tbilisi State University, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, and Wayne State University. Programs of study the students are involved in range across several fields including Conflict Studies, Law, Industrial and Labor Relations, and Public Administration.

The esteemed panel of judges for the competition included: Ariel Avgar, Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois School of Labor & Employment Relations and College of Medicine; John Bickerman, Bickerman Dispute Resolution, PLLC; Noam Ebner, Assistant Professor and Online Program Chair of the Werner Institute at Creighton University; Judith Meyer, Adjunct Faculty at the Cornell Law School, and Owner of J.P. Meyer Commercial Dispute Solutions; and, Daniel Rainey, Chief of Staff for the National Mediation Board. Students were judged out of a total possible score of 40 points for each round.

First Round Results:

Mediator
1^st place: Maria Eugenia Solé, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (39 points)

2^nd place: Samantha Torres, South Texas College of Law (37 points)
3^rd place: Mingzi Ouyang, Ohio State Law; Becky Riger, Capital University Law; Karen Middlebrook, South Texas College of Law (all scoring 36 points)

Party A
1^st place: Mahalia Burford, Cornell Law School (37 points)
2^nd place: Suzanne Rose, Southern Methodist University; Susanne Donnovan and Simon Boehme, Cornell ILR School (both teams scoring 36 points)
3^rd place: Michael Hand, Southern Methodist University (35 points)

Party B
1^st place: Denise Hedges, Southern Methodist University (40 points)
2^nd place: Shilei Wee, Debbie Lee Mei Yong, Singapore Management University (39 points)
3^rd place: Todd Dickey, Cornell ILR School (36 points)

Second Round Results:

Mediator
1^st place: Firas Alsalih, Creighton University; Ferdinand Redulla, Cornell Law School (both scoring 40 points)
2^nd place: Becky Riger, Capital University Law (38 points)
3^rd place: Samantha Torres, South Texas College of Law; Maria Eugenia Solé, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (both scoring 33 points)

Party A
1^st place: Goeffrey Madu, Southern Methodist University (40 points)
2^nd place: Michael Hand, Southern Methodist University (39 points)
3^rd place: Abdiel Huerta, Southern Methodist University; Phallyn Thornton (both scoring 37 points)

Party B
1^st place: Denise Hedges, Southern Methodist University (39 points)
2^nd place: Shilei Wee, Debbie Lee Mei Yong, Singapore Management University (38 points)
3^rd place: Todd Dickey, Cornell ILR School (35 points)

Final Results (Round 1 + Round 2)

Mediator
1^st place: Becky Riger, Capital University Law (74 points)
2^nd place: Maria Eugenia Solé, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero; Firas Alsalih, Creighton University (both scoring 72 points)
3^rd place: Samantha Torres, South Texas College of Law (70 points)

Party A
1^st place: Michael Hand, Southern Methodist University (74 points)
2^nd place: Mahalia Burford, Cornell Law School (72 points)
3^rd place: Suzanne Rose, Southern Methodist University (69 points)

Party B
1^st place: Denise Hedges, Southern Methodist University (79 points)
2^nd place: Shilei Wee, Debbie Lee Mei Yong, Singapore Management University (77 points)
3^rd place: Todd Dickey, Cornell ILR School (71 points)