DataProject's eScoresheet Takes Away the Pen

Bill Kauffman
Manager, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: 719-228-6800
E-Mail: bill.kauffman@usav.org

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (June 1, 2010) – The mouse is becoming mightier than the pen at the officials’ table as DataProject’s eScoresheet is revolutionizing the sport of volleyball in Europe and starting to make its mark in the United States.

For the first time in the United States, the program is being put in front of key decision makers who run volleyball clubs, tournaments and regions as a way to market the program to potential consumers. The computerized, mouse-driven eScoresheet program (click here for screen shot) is being showcased to official scorers at this week’s USA Volleyball Open National Championships as a way to make the task of scoring matches easier.

Instead of making multiple marks and creating symbols on the paper score sheet, the official scorer using eScoresheet can make a couple clicks on the screen to accomplish the same task without ever really missing any match action in front of them. The software is intuitive in prompting the user when it expects certain actions to happen during a match such as a libero entry, making it user-friendly. At the end of the match, the score sheet can be produced in either a PDF document or printed for a hard copy without ever having to touch a pen. (click here for a sample eScoresheet print out, click here for libero tracking sheet)

“The program was fairly easy to use,” said Emi Vishoot, who has been a national rated scorekeeper since 1992 and earned her international scorekeeper certification in 2006. “Once I observed it, the program was very understandable and intuitive.”

eScoresheet was born through the same concepts as DataProject’s sister program Data Volley, which is an in-game statistical analysis program. USA Volleyball uses Data Volley and DataProject exclusively in its statistical and video analysis of National Team matches.

“Given the technology of Data Volley, we thought that there should be a way to do scorekeeping in a similar fashion,” said James Wilroy, managing director of DataProject in the USA for the Italian-based company. “Thus, the program has been in off-and-on software programming for the past 10 years.”

The eScoresheet program that went into conceptualization a decade ago has already been fully implemented in several professional volleyball leagues in Europe over the last couple years. The Confederation of European Volleyball (CEV) Champions League has replaced the paper version with eScoresheet as the primary live scorekeeping system.

The USA market is the next phase in the roll out.

“This program is not experimental software,” Wilroy said. “It has been implemented in other areas of the world. We are allowing individuals to test eScoresheet here at USA Volleyball Open National Championships during the Open Division matches, getting people aware of the program and to adopt it as a means to keep the official score.”

Wilroy has spent the better part of the last two years putting the eScoresheet software in front of different groups such as the NCAA.

“We have tested the program during the NCAA Men’s Collegiate Volleyball Championships the past two years and the NCAA Division I Women’s Championship last year,” Wilroy said. “Internationally, it has been in use as the primary scorekeeping method for two, three years now. In the CEV, it is the primary scorekeeping system.”

At the 2008 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship, a scorekeeping error on paper led to a several minute delay in the title match between Penn State and Stanford. If eScoresheet had been in use, the potential for such an error would have been significantly reduced.

“The importance of the project grew as I watched the scoring issue during the 2008 NCAA Division I Women’s Championship final,” Wilroy said.

With the various different rule sets in volleyball, the program is modularly built to handle all known rule sets being used – including the various number of subs allowed, if the libero can serve, changing out a libero for another libero and other experimental rules being used by the FIVB, NCAA or USA Volleyball.

According to Wilroy, the FIVB has been receptive to the computerized tool.

“The FIVB has been receptive enough to allow an official test of the software during the FIVB Men’s World Championship later this year,” Wilroy said. “Tom Blue, who sits on the FIVB Referee Commission, has been very helpful by advocating for the software. During World League matches held in the United States, the assistant scorekeeper will work the eScoresheet.”

The computerized version does have a couple limitations when being used at multiple court tournaments such as those contested at convention centers. The tournament organizers would need to be able to supply enough computers to run the software on all the courts. Further, convention centers do not always have electrical sources near every scorer’s table. According to Wilroy, those obstacles can be overcome.

“The software can run on Netbooks, which utilize less battery life than the full size computers,” Wilroy said. “One fully charged Netbook can be use for nearly seven straight hours without being re-charged.

Despite the potential hardware availability and electrical source issues, eScoresheet has many more positives to outweigh the negatives to make things easier for event management.

The software backs up its data on a flash drive after each action of a match. If the computer malfunctions, the data can easily be restored on another computer by transferring the flash drive.

One of the advantages eScoresheet presents is its ease to learn the program.

“People who have never been an official scorekeeper can keep score in an international match with limited training with this software,” Wilroy said. “At a junior match, you could have a 14-year-old with computer skills able to keep score with eScoresheet without any troubles. This program simplifies scorekeeping for volleyball.”

Wilroy envisions a time when juniors may fight to keep score versus calling lines during matches when called to duty.

“Once we get this software in the hands of people, it will be desirable versus the pen and paper version,” Wilroy said. “It is very easy for people to pick up and learn.”

Another advantage eScoresheet can provide to an event is its ability to be connected to a live scoreboard mechanism. Match scores can be shown real-time via a web site connected to the software, regardless of the number of courts being used for a single tournament. As long as each court’s computer is hooked into the central processing area, the entire tournament can display live results, point-by-point. In the final print-out (PDF or paper), eScoresheet has areas for sponsor logos as an additional means to raise revenue for the event management.

“Realistically, this software could revolutionize the sport of volleyball,” Wilroy said. “It can provide a live score for all matches, connect to the scoreboard and synch to video scouting software for better analysis. Overall, it can provide a ripple effect on the impact to coaches. For small colleges and club programs who use work study students or people with limited knowledge of volleyball to keep score, eScorekeeper can have a tremendous impact as the officials do not have to provide as much training before each match.”

“The fail-safe things built into the eScoresheet was nice,” Vishoot said. “Having the previous starting lineups as a default was nice in preparing the next set. The ability to rotate the previous lineup forward or backward on the computer screen was also a nice feature. I was also able to see the player number the libero replaced, which is very helpful.”

DataProject has not determined a firm price point for eScoresheet for each customer as much depends on the final use of the program.

“eScoresheet can be used in different environments, which presents different challenges,” Wilroy said. “We do offer an event or season license for the purchaser.”

Individuals looking for more information on the software can contact Wilroy at usa@dataproject.com.

Tags: Data Project, DataVolley, USA Adult Open Volleyball Championships, USA Volleyball Open National Championships