HOLDING SCHOOL OLYMPIADS ON COMPUTER SCIENCE IN PANDEMIC CONDITIONS

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35433/pedagogy.3(110).2022.67-84

Keywords:

оlympiad in Informatics, online competitions, programming, pandemic, COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed attitudes to the educational process around the world, including Ukraine. Considering the importance of the Students Olympiad in computer science (CS) for the formation of future IT professionals in Ukraine, it was necessary to quickly develop appropriate approaches and safe formats for all stages of this Olympiad. Based on a survey of organizers, a review of Olympiads in CS in countries such as Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Croatia, and the Czech Republic was observed, and the format of the World Olympiad in Singapore was analyzed. Based on the analysis conducted and taking into account the importance of strict observance of all competition rules, including integrity and the importance of social contacts of all participants in the Olympic movement, it was decided that only the online format is insufficient and there was developed a safe format for the third and fourth stages of the competition, that includes a combination of in-person, online and mixed formats. Detailed requirements for each of these formats are formulated. Due to a significant increase in the load on the e-olymp server online verification system, the relevant software has been updated. The article provides detailed information on the holding of all four stages of the All-Ukrainian Students Olympiad in CS in a pandemic condition during 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academic year using established formats and an improved verification system and describes a typical algorithm of the participant's actions. Therefore, new competition rules are detailed and innovative, taking into account unexpected circumstances in the whole world. They were tested and they proved their effectiveness, so they were also used for the finals of the Ukrainian Junior Olympiad in Informatics and the Ukrainian Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics. Since there is uncertainty about the pandemic in Ukraine, the article proposes to apply the proposed rules to hold all future stages of the Olympiad in Informatics during a pandemic at the official level.

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Published

2022-10-27