Potential improvements to invite matching?

[jwright25]

Originally Posted by AlphaGamUGAAlum

What determines what system a campus uses? Is there expensive software that the system would have bought that determines it, or does every campus have the choice of choosing priority ranking and flex list over accept/regret every year?

If you are asking what determines Priority over A/R, that is up to campus preference. An that preference is usually determined by history. If they've always done A/R, it is harder to convince them to go to Priority. Technically you don't have to have software for either - it can be done by hand. But it is very time consuming to match invites - even for schools that have only 4 or 5 chapters. There is currently a (slight) trend toward Priority, and those that are switching to Priority over A/R are doing so in order to utilize Flex and because it is easier for the RFM Specialist to consider current year chapter performance when working on invitation matching.

To my knowledge, there are three options out there for recruitment software - D&D, Innova, and ICS. I've never used Innova, but as far as being user-friendly, ICS is fabulous. It is all online, so chapters can submit lists at any time from anywhere rather than having to hand carry a list or a disk to the Greek office. Same for receiving invitation lists.

Technically you could do the Flex if you were matching invites by hand, but it would be a lot more back-and-forth and time. Luckily there aren't many campuses still doing that. I don't recall the cost of ICS right offhand, but I do know that several smaller systems have started using it without breaking the bank.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by jwright25

If you are asking what determines Priority over A/R, that is up to campus preference. An that preference is usually determined by history. If they've always done A/R, it is harder to convince them to go to Priority. Technically you don't have to have software for either - it can be done by hand. But it is very time consuming to match invites - even for schools that have only 4 or 5 chapters. There is currently a (slight) trend toward Priority, and those that are switching to Priority over A/R are doing so in order to utilize Flex and because it is easier for the RFM Specialist to consider current year chapter performance when working on invitation matching.

To my knowledge, there are three options out there for recruitment software - D&D, Innova, and ICS. I've never used Innova, but as far as being user-friendly, ICS is fabulous. It is all online, so chapters can submit lists at any time from anywhere rather than having to hand carry a list or a disk to the Greek office. Same for receiving invitation lists.

Technically you could do the Flex if you were matching invites by hand, but it would be a lot more back-and-forth and time. Luckily there aren't many campuses still doing that. I don't recall the cost of ICS right offhand, but I do know that several smaller systems have started using it without breaking the bank.

Thank you. I was mainly wondering if campuses basically decided what to use and paid for it each year (maybe through a contract with a recruitment management service?) or if it was an expensive one time purchase that then drove the decision for several years.

[lyrelyre]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

2) Allow a second invitation list below the first one, so if not enough women accept, it goes to the second group, as in final bid matching. In the above example, you could submit 150 invitations, plus up to 50 others you wouldn't mind inviting if you weren't limited by the number of invitations. If only 75 women accept from the first group, the software looks at the second list, and if any of those women do not have a full schedule, they are added to your party list.

The campus I advise does this. There is what is called a "flex list." Each chapter has a different size flex list, depending on their average return over the past 3 years and it works both ways. Example: A chapter has a flex list of 20. This means that they must choose, in order of their preference, 20 women that they did not invite back that they would be willing to invite to keep their numbers "ideal." Additionally, they must choose a list of 20 women from their invite list that they are willing to release if their return rate is higher than expected.

For obvious reasons, there is no "flex list" requirement before preference round.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Okay, I'm bumping an old thread with another math question. My understanding is that, at a large recruitment using RFM, bid matching is run several times with different quotas, and the one that results in the highest number of women placed is used. That, is, they put 85 into the computer, see what happens, put 86 into the computer, see what happens, etc.

The question is, when there are QA's, what difference does it make? Do the ultimate Deciders of Quota look at how many women match to their first choice under each scenario, or just how many match at all? Do they consider how many chapters make quota under each scenario, too?

I was thinking about this as a multi-objective optimization problem. One objective is to maximize parity, and the other is to maximize PNM happiness. Trying to place the maximum number of women prior to QA's doesn't seem to accomplish either one.

[Titchou]

They look at all of it. It's not an either/or thing. So, it could go either way at any given time. The goal is to place the most women in the highest placement possible. So they try to determine what that is.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Titchou

They look at all of it. It's not an either/or thing. So, it could go either way at any given time. The goal is to place the most women in the highest placement possible. So they try to determine what that is.

Okay, my question was mainly around whether they looked at WHERE women placed.

I'm always interested in the pieces done by hand, rather than automated, and why/how they are done by hand. In this case, automation would be an Integer Program (IP) something like:

Maximize "Total PNM happiness"
by changing the variable "quota"
subject to "all chapters make quota"

Basically, you'd come up with some sort of measure of PNM happiness, like 3 points for a woman placed in her first choice, 2 for a woman placed in her second choice, and one for a woman placed in her third choice. Then each time bid matching was run for a different value of quota, a value for Total PNM happiness could be calculated, and there'd be a "best" value of quota.

I'm not sure that "all chapters make quota" would be a hard constraint, though, as we know that won't happen at all on some campuses. Rather, I'd adjust the objective function to call it something like "CPH Strength" and define it as "Total PNM happiness - missed quota penalty," i.e. for each chapter not making quota, we'd subtract some quantity from the total PNM happiness.

Of course, you can't *really* just hand it over to the computer...who decides if a PNM in her first choice is three times happier than in her third choice, or four times? Maybe the points should be 4-2-1 or 6-3-1 instead of 3-2-1.

Even if someone were to write the program and hand it over to the computer during bid matching, the fact remains that the design would require a huge amount of up-front subjective judgment calls. In any case, I think it's fun to think about, and a good example of why real-world modeling is very difficult.

I think I'd make missed quota a huge penalty, because that way, if a chapter was NEVER going to make quota, it would apply to every scenario, and wouldn't make a difference, but if a chapter makes quota under some scenarios and not others, it would automatically avoid the latter. But then again, does it matter if a chapter misses quota by one instead of making quota? Then why penalize by number of chapters missing quota rather than the number of women they are below quota?

[DubaiSis]

At a school that has reached parity (more or less), I think weighting QA's to rushee preference would be an excellent idea (while still trying to retain something resembling parity). But for schools where there are 1 or 2 well below the rest, the sad but truth is those chapters are going to get the emphasis. As far as I know, the weighting metric is determined differently at each school, so this may actually be how it works. I have not been invited behind the curtain as yet, so I don't know how it really works at one or many schools.

Other than that, you made my head hurt.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

At a school that has reached parity (more or less), I think weighting QA's to rushee preference would be an excellent idea (while still trying to retain something resembling parity). But for schools where there are 1 or 2 well below the rest, the sad but truth is those chapters are going to get the emphasis. As far as I know, the weighting metric is determined differently at each school, so this may actually be how it works. I have not been invited behind the curtain as yet, so I don't know how it really works at one or many schools.

Other than that, you made my head hurt.

Oh! I hadn't even gotten into placing QA's yet...I was still working on determining quota. But yes, that's a good point, QA placement is another thing done by hand.

[Titchou]

I'm not a computer expert nor a math whiz. That being said, whether it is hand matching or computer matching, it always matches the woman to the chapter not the chapter to the woman. One of our members here posted the latest version of the NPC Green Book (MOI) a day or so ago and I strongly recommend that all of you take a look at it.(It's a sticky near the top of the page). Most of your concerns will be addressed. They have a method for adjusting the number of parties. The Flex List adds women if need be. The MOI lists things a computer program should do and duplicating the hand process is one of them. For those of you who have never done hand matching, the PNMs name is called with her first choice. If it is a match on that group's first list (or remaining women available which equals quota), then she is matched to that group. If she isn't on that list, then her card is set aside until all are gone thru and then they start over to see if her number has come up. And this is repeated over and over until there is gridlock - no one is matched after going all the way thru the remaining cards one full time. Then the method to break gridlock is implemented. The computer programs must adhere to this as well.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Titchou

I'm not a computer expert nor a math whiz. That being said, whether it is hand matching or computer matching, it always matches the woman to the chapter not the chapter to the woman. One of our members here posted the latest version of the NPC Green Book (MOI) a day or so ago and I strongly recommend that all of you take a look at it.(It's a sticky near the top of the page). Most of your concerns will be addressed. They have a method for adjusting the number of parties. The Flex List adds women if need be. The MOI lists things a computer program should do and duplicating the hand process is one of them. For those of you who have never done hand matching, the PNMs name is called with her first choice. If it is a match on that group's first list (or remaining women available which equals quota), then she is matched to that group. If she isn't on that list, then her card is set aside until all are gone thru and then they start over to see if her number has come up. And this is repeated over and over until there is gridlock - no one is matched after going all the way thru the remaining cards one full time. Then the method to break gridlock is implemented. The computer programs must adhere to this as well.

I'm not talking about the matching itself. I'm talking about the fact that the matching is run more than once, with several different quotas, and then the "best" one is chosen.

So, there are two things that are still done more or less by hand, choosing quota and placing QA's. I'm just talking through why that stuff isn't automated. Either the MOI has rules for it, in which case it can be automated, or these things are really subjective subject to the GA's whim.

[DubaiSis]

My understanding is that IS automated.

[Titchou]

It is automated. The computer places the QAs based on matching the girl to the group in the same way as quota. If the numbers look skewed, they can run it with a different quota. But it's nothing but a math formula. How many times will 10 chapters go into 287 women with the smallest remainder. But stop trying to make it something it isn't. And the school's assigned RFM specialist has to sign off on the final match anyway. So she can override the FSA if she thinks something hinky is going on.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Titchou

It is automated. The computer places the QAs based on matching the girl to the group in the same way as quota. If the numbers look skewed, they can run it with a different quota. But it's nothing but a math formula. How many times will 10 chapters go into 287 women with the smallest remainder. But stop trying to make it something it isn't. And the school's assigned RFM specialist has to sign off on the final match anyway. So she can override the FSA if she thinks something hinky is going on.

Thanks for the info. My intention is not to imply that anyone is intentionally screwing it up or going in with an agenda, I have just heard many different things about how QA's are placed. The only reason for the bump is that I enjoy getting into the really nitty gritty details of what the computer can and cannot do vs. what requires some kind of subjective human judgement.

[Titchou]

In hand bid matching the QAs were placed in the exact same way - only with a cap of 5% of quota. If you will look at the sticky with the MOI/Green Book, there is a whole section on what a computer program must do. It's very detailed.