.regulations

1. Poznan Open Objectives

Poznan Open is an opportunity to demonstrate and improve skills in team solving computer science problems. It gives a chance to meet programmers from various universities, high schools, companies and all others, interested in programming and algorithms. Poznan open is also a chance to see the specificity of this kind of challenge and helps to prepare yourself for a start in such a contest like International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM) or Polish Academic Programming Championship.

2. Participating in Poznan Open

2.1. Each team consists of at most three contestants.

2.2. The name "Poznan Open" speaks fot it self. It is an Open Contest, therefore everyone is allowed to take part in it, except organizers and judges.

2.3. There are no other regulations determining who is allowed to participate in Poznan Open (except the one that limits the number of contestants in one team,paragraph 2.1). In particular, a team can consist of contestants from different institutions, cities, and of different age.

2.4. Teams will compete in two categories. General classification meant for all teams, with no exceptions. "Junior" classification, meant for teams, which consist of contestants born in 1988 or later (these contestants should bring a document prooving their age). Competitors in both categories will be awarded independently (it is possible to get awards in both categories).

2.5. At most 400 contestants may take part in Poznan Open Championships. In special cases, the Organizing Committee reserves the right to change this limit.

2.6. In case there are too many teams at registration, we take into account the order of time, which teams were registered. Organizing Committee reserves the right to accept teams, which were invited by the Committee, beyond the order of time.

2.7. Teams consisting of one or two contestants are allowed to participate in the contest. They may also aply for merging with other incomplete teams. In case there are too many teams registered, Organizing Committee can arbitrarily merge incomplete teams.

2.8. Teams will be able to register for the contest through a web site form, which can be found on the official website of Poznan Open Championships, on the understanding that the deadlines and rules included on the website were taken into consideration. Filling the form with untrue information may result in disqualification from Poznan Open (the current edition and the future ones) or any kind of programming championships, which will be organized by any of the Organizing Institutions.

2.9. If too many teams are interested in participating in the contest, the Organizing Committe is allowed to carry out a parallel on-line contest for remote teams. This contest will have it's own independent ranking, which will not be taken into account in general ranking of Poznan Open..

3. Poznan Open Run

3.1. Poznan open lasts two days.

3.2. The first day is trial contest day. It's purpose is giving contestants a chance to see the network enviroment, to check software availible on their workstations and learn how to work with a Judge System. Results from the trial contest are not taken into account to the Ranking of Poznan Open.

3.3. The Main Contest holds on the second day of Poznan Open, and lasts for 5 hours. Ranking of Poznan Open is based only on the results of the Main Contest. In case of unexpected problems, the Referee, with the acceptance of the Organizing Committee, can prolong the duration of the Main Contest

3.4. Contest takes place in network environment. Contestants should use the network only for working with the web sites provided and allowed by organizers, called Judge System (Judge System can be used for sending the solutions, communicating with the judges, printing source code). Using the network in order of exploring web sites other than Judge System, using e-mail, accessing remote machines, ftp or any others purposes will be strictly prosecuted, punished, and may result in diqualification. Each contestant, who finds any kind of bug in the Judge System, is obligated to inform Organizing Committee about it.

3.5. Each team receives from 8 to 12 algorithmic tasks, which should be solved in Pascal, C or C++ programming languages (it means, that solutions should be acceptable by the compilers used by Judge System, which will be announced, with their version numbers, on the official web site of Poznan Open). T asks will not depend on any programming language.

3.6. Tasks will be presented in English.

3.7. Contestants can ask question (through the Judge System) about the ambiguity or mistakes in presented tasks. The questions will be answered by the Judges. If the judges admit the validity of the question, all teams will receive appropriate explanation

3.8. Each solution must be a computer program, written in any of the availible programming languages (named above in paragraph 3.5). Program must contain a single file with source code and must not use any other files or create any temporary files.

3.9. Solutions cannot include any activites (such as cheating or violating the security of the Judge System), other than the ones that lead to solvig the problem. Program should not execute any of the system calls. Library functions, which interact with operating system should be used only for reading/writing data, allocating/deallocating memory or exitting a program. In case of violating this rule (in Trial or Main Contest) Organizing Committee may disqualify contestants from current and future Poznan Open Championships (and from other contests organized by Organizing Insitutions).

3.10. Each team uses one computer, provided by organizers. The computer will contain installed software and other elements, indispensable for solving tasks, such as: operating system, web site browser, text editors, compilers listed in paragraph 3.5, libraries needed for compilation and execution of programs, debugger, calculator, and documentation for elements listed above. More details about available software will be published on the official web site of Poznan Open.

3.11. Contestants are allowed to use their own paper materials, i.e. books, printed versions of programs, notes. Using any kind of electronic materials is strictly prohibited. Using any kind of electronic devices (except the computer provided by the organizers), i.e. calculators, portable computers, mobile phones and similar, is also strictly prohibited

3.12. During the contest, contestants are allowed to communicate only with their team members, organizers or judges. Communicating with other people (in particular with a coach or a contestant of any other team) is prohibited and can be punished with disqualification. Organizers can help contestants solve technical problems, but are not allowed to help with problems connected with tasks. Only judges are allowed to answer questions connected with tasks.

3.13. During the first 4 hours of the Main Contest, an official ranking will be availible for publicity. During the last hour, the ranking will be frozen, and the Judge System will show only the status of submitted task to the team, which sumitted it.

3.14. After the Main Contest an official ranking will be announced.

4. Poznan Open Judge Committee

4.1.  Judge Committee and the Referee are chosen by the Organizing Committee. Each Organizing Institution will be represented by at least one member in the Judge Committee.

4.2. The Judge Committee is allowed to change the regulations in case of unexpected situations. Decisions of the Judge Committee are arbitral and no appeals will be taken into consideration.

4.3. Judges are responsible for the correctness of the answers of the Judge System. The Referee, with cooperation of other Judges, is responsible for awarding the winners of the Contest.

5. Criteria and mechanizms of the Judge System

5.1. Teams submit their solutions through the Judge System, which is managed by the Judges.

5.2. Solutions are checked automaticaly by the Judge System, using the tests prepared by the Judges. Each solution receives an answer. A solution is correct, if it returned the correct answers for all the tests, and none of the limits applied by the Judgdes was exceeded (message: Accepted), Otherwise a solution is rejected, and the team receives an appropriate answer. The reason for rejection can be one or more of listed below:



5.3. If the solution is rejected, the team can submit an another solution during the contest.

5.4. Ranking is formed on the basis of accepted solutions for tasks. Order of teams with the same number of accepted solutions is determined by the sum of times obtained by all accepted solutions. Time obtained by a solution is the sum of the time elapsed from the begging of the contest untill the accepted solutions was submitted, and the penalties for every incorrect solution for that task (20 minutes for every incorrect answer). If the task was not solved by the team (team didn't submit correct solution) no penalty will be added for it..

5.5. Rule in paragraph 5.4, which regulates the 20 minutes penalty for every incorrect answer, does not apply to solutions which received Compile Error and Rule Violation.

5.6. Futher more the Rule Violation status of the solution can cause disqualification of the team, if the Judges decide that the violating activities taken by the solution were made on purpose and could potenatially jeopardize the security of the system.