BOCA Online Contest Alternatives

BOCA Online Contest

Although each local site runs its competition independently (for example, the programming environment and the submission systems are controlled locally), the problem set and test cases are prepared by a unique committee
and distributed to all sites. Hence, all the sites run their contests in the same day, almost at the same starting time, and local chief judges keep an online communication channel to discuss possible doubts about the problem set. Furthermore, the local sites are not demanded to use the same systems, but are obligated to provide equal conditions to all teams within the same site. The slots to the Brazilian finals are allocated according to the size of the sites and the performance of the schools in the previous year (medals are given to best teams, and such medals guarantee a slot to the site where the awarded school competes). In this way, slots to the finals are allocated to sites, and local teams compete within the site to be eligible to the finals, avoiding problems of distinct
conditions usually inherent of comparing teams that compete in distinct sites.
In order to provide an easy way to run a contest (besides the problem set, which is also done as mentioned), we have developed BOCA, an administration system for programming competitions based on the ICPC rules, and a linux distribution based on virtual machines, known as Maratona Linux [1]. The linux distribution is provided with a simple step-by-step guide that enables the system personnel to configure it as a team machine, a judge machine, or even a server for the local contest. Hence, it is ensured that all teams, judges and server contain
the same set of editors, compilers, etc, and with the exactly same configuration and version. BOCA, the contest administration system, also contains step-bystep configuration instructions to set up the contest (installation is not required as it is already included in the linux distribution), and technical support for the local sites is provided.