Thank you for your interest in participating in the Forecasting Collaborative’s COVID-19 tournament.
Below we describe the general instructions for participation and have instructions for returning teams. Please take a look at our instructional video, and contact us at predictions.collab@outlook.com if you have any additional questions.
General Instructions
Step 1: Download data
Updated Nov 17, 2020 – corrected the Y-axis in the explicit gender-career bias file
Download the zipped folder containing the forecasting tournament data and instructions. In this folder, you will find:
- A general instructions document.
- A Forecasting survey question template.
- Folders for each of the variables you can make predictions for.
Within each variable folder, you will find:
- An excel document that contains past data and numbers to fill out.
- A description file of the variable you are predicting (below; step 4).
Step 2: Make forecasts
Using any method you choose (e.g., general intuition, theory-driven, data-driven, combined approach), create your numerical estimates based on past data for the next 12 months. Save these in the excel files. They will need to be uploaded to the survey (below; step 4).
Step 3: Prepare the questions for the survey
Using the question template in the folders, prepare answers to the questions about how you created your forecasts. Once these are prepared, you can copy/past your answers into the survey (below; step 4)
Step 4: Complete forecasting survey
The team leader should complete the forecasting survey found here. You will be asked to choose which variables you are predicting, upload the relevant excel files (with your forecasts), and answer the associated questions about how your forecasts were made. We highly recommend having the answers to the questions prepared in advance to shorten the process. Note that the survey cannot be saved in returned to, and must be completed in one instance, otherwise a new submission will be required.
Step 5: Complete team demographic survey
We require consent and demographic information from all participating team members. Each forecasting team member is required to complete the team member survey by the submission date (December 7th). This step is required to qualify for authorship on the resulting manuscript.
Returning Team?
Did your team participate in our Spring 2020 call for forecasts? If so, your team leader should have received an email containing individualized spreadsheets with your past predictions. Please use these to update your forecasts for the next 6 months, and create new forecasts for an additional 6 months. If you have any additional questions, please contact the Behavioral Forecasting Collaborative at predictions.collab@outlook.com.