Judging Rounds
Run multi-round judging on AwardKit. Screen a large field down to a shortlist, then have a final jury score the finalists, each round with its own dates, panel, criteria, assignment, and blind setting.
Most programs judge in a single pass: every entry is scored once and the leaderboard decides the winners. Larger programs run in rounds: a broad screening round narrows the field to a shortlist, then a smaller final jury scores only those finalists. AwardKit supports as many rounds as you need, and each round is configured independently.
When to use rounds
A single round is the right default for most programs. Add rounds when:
- You have a large field (100+ entries) that a small jury can't score in full, so you screen first and only the finalists get a detailed read
- You want different criteria at each stage (a quick screen on fit, then a deep score on craft)
- You want a smaller, more senior panel to decide the finalists than the one that screened them
- You want a blind screening and an open final (see Blind judging)
A typical two-round program looks like Screening → Final → Winners, exactly as shown above.
Round 1 is your primary judging window
Every program starts with one round. It contains every submitted entry automatically (except entries marked Ineligible) and every judge sits on it, and it cannot receive advanced entries; only later rounds have a shortlist. Its dates are the program's judging window, set on the Overview page: the lifecycle bar's Judging step has Opens and Closes fields and a Use timeline dates shortcut that prefills them from your entries and results dates. With no dates set, judging is closed.
A single-round program never shows any rounds UI. You only see the funnel once you add a second round.
Adding a round
Next to Edit scoring on the Judging page, click Add judging round (single-round programs) or Add round in the Judging rounds card (once you have two or more).
The dialog walks you through the new round:
- Current round and New round: AwardKit suggests sensible names. Creating your second round offers to rename round 1 to "Screening" and names the new round "Final"; later rounds default to "Round N". Rename them to anything that fits your program.
- [New round] starts: When the new round opens. The previous round hands off where the new one starts ("Screening closes when the new round starts"), so you only set one handoff date. Leave it empty to schedule dates later.
- Scoring criteria: Choose Start from [previous round]'s criteria to copy the rubric forward, or Start fresh to build a new one for this round.
- Audience voting in this round: shown when public voting is on, so each round decides whether the audience votes. The new round inherits the previous round's audience ballot, Favorites with the same picks per category or the judges' rubric.
- Judge panel: Pick which judges sit on the round. A final jury is often a subset of the screening panel.
Entries don't move to a new round automatically. After judging closes on the previous round, you advance the shortlist from the Results page. Only the entries you advance are judged in the next round.
Each round is independent
Once you have multiple rounds, the Judging rounds card shows the funnel with a status chip per round: Open, Closed, Upcoming, or No dates set. Each round's counts line also says Audience when the public votes in it and Blind when blind judging is on, so a blind screening round feeding an open final is visible at a glance. Click a round to select it; the selection scopes the whole Judging page and the Results page, which show an entry-count badge per round. Everything below is set per round, so round 1 and round 2 can be completely different:
- Dates: each round has its own open and close
- Judge panel: who sits on the round (use Edit judge panel on later rounds)
- Criteria and method: each round has its own rubric, copied forward or built fresh, and can even use a different voting method
- Assignment mode: All judges, Per judge, or Rooms, chosen per round (see Judge assignment)
- Audience voting: each round decides whether the public votes alongside the judges, and which audience ballot it gets
- Blind judging: each round decides whether judges see who entered
From the round's menu (the ... button) you can Rename and dates, Edit judge panel (rounds 2 and later), or Delete round (later rounds only; the item reads Delete round (has votes) and is disabled once the round has live votes).
Rename and dates opens the Edit round dialog: Name, Judging opens, Judging closes (both default to "Follows the program window"), the audience voting switch when public voting is on, and Blind judging in this round ("Judges score entries without seeing who entered.").
Advancing entries between rounds
When a round closes, open the Results page and select the round you're advancing from. Pick the entries that move on, and they become the next round's pool.
Advancement is per category: an entry submitted to several categories can advance in one and be cut in another. See Results for the full advancement workflow.
Once the next round has votes, its entry pool locks so a late change can't pull the rug out from under scores already cast. To change which entries advanced, reset that round's votes first.
What judges see
Judges with access to more than one round get a round switcher on their dashboard. The active round is selected by default; closed rounds they served on stay visible as read-only history.
What's next?
Judge Assignment
Control how judges are assigned to entries on AwardKit. Every judge reviews everything, assign per judge with auto-distribution, or organize parallel judging rooms, set per round.
Overview
Review the leaderboard, advance shortlists between rounds, assign winners, publish results to your public program page, and export scores to CSV.