research-article

A Programming Contest Strategy Guide

Authors:

Aaron Bloomfield,

Borja SotomayorAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '16: Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education

Pages 609 - 614

https://doi.org/10.1145/2839509.2844632

Published: 17 February 2016 Publication History

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Abstract

The ACM's International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is the world's oldest and largest programming contest. Although students can benefit both pedagogically and professionally from participating in this contest, participation in North America is far smaller than in the rest of the world, which we partially attribute to the perceived low payoff of participating in ICPC. We discuss the pedagogical benefits of participation in ICPC, which include higher student enthusiasm for computer science studies and better career prospects post-graduation, and present a set of cohesive strategies aimed at increasing involvement and success within the ICPC. For aspiring coaches and contestants, we also provide links and references for further study.

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Cited By

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Biró PKádek T(2024)Comparing Student Results on a Programming Task During a Contest and a Practice Situation with the Help of the ProgCont System2024 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578829(1-6)Online publication date: 8-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578829
Oliva-Caipe JSinza-Diaz YGuerrero-Calvache S(2023)Análisis de los componentes relacionados en programación competitiva: un mapeo sistemático de literaturaRevista Politécnica10.33571/rpolitec.v19n38a1419:38(212-230)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.33571/rpolitec.v19n38a14
Blum J(2023)Competitive programming participation rates: an examination of trends in U.S. ICPC regional contestsDiscover Education10.1007/s44217-023-00034-12:1Online publication date: 21-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-023-00034-1
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Index Terms

A Programming Contest Strategy Guide
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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Published In

SIGCSE '16: Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education

February 2016

768 pages

ISBN:9781450336857

DOI:10.1145/2839509

General Chairs:
Carl Alphonce
University at Buffalo
,
Jodi Tims
Baldwin Wallace University
,
Program Chairs:
Michael Caspersen
Aarhus University
,
Stephen Edwards
Virginia Tech University

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 17 February 2016

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SIGCSE '16

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SIGCSE

SIGCSE '16: The 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education

March 2 - 5, 2016

Tennessee, Memphis, USA

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SIGCSE '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 105 of 297 submissions, 35%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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SIGCSE TS 2025

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Cited By

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Biró PKádek T(2024)Comparing Student Results on a Programming Task During a Contest and a Practice Situation with the Help of the ProgCont System2024 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578829(1-6)Online publication date: 8-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578829
Oliva-Caipe JSinza-Diaz YGuerrero-Calvache S(2023)Análisis de los componentes relacionados en programación competitiva: un mapeo sistemático de literaturaRevista Politécnica10.33571/rpolitec.v19n38a1419:38(212-230)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.33571/rpolitec.v19n38a14
Blum J(2023)Competitive programming participation rates: an examination of trends in U.S. ICPC regional contestsDiscover Education10.1007/s44217-023-00034-12:1Online publication date: 21-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-023-00034-1
Zhang JLi DKolesar JShi HPiskac R(2022)Automated Feedback Generation for Competition-Level CodeProceedings of the 37th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1145/3551349.3560425(1-13)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3551349.3560425
González Arrieta AMartín García THernández González GGarcía-Bermejo-Giner JPérez Lancho MÁlvarez Navia ISánchez Lázaro ÁHernández Simón JVega Cruz P(2022)Mentoring High Ability University Students: An Experience with Computer Science UndergraduatesTrends on Active Learning Methods and Emerging Learning Technologies10.1007/978-981-19-7431-1_4(51-68)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7431-1_4
Popyack J(2018)Recognizing excellence in programming competitionsACM Inroads10.1145/32333909:3(8-11)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3233390
Raman RVachharajani HAchuthan K(2018)Students motivation for adopting programming contestsEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-018-9697-323:5(1919-1932)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10639-018-9697-3
Constantinescu ZNicoara SVladoiu MMoise G(2017)Computer science student contests: Individuals or teams?2017 16th RoEduNet Conference: Networking in Education and Research (RoEduNet)10.1109/ROEDUNET.2017.8123737(1-6)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/ROEDUNET.2017.8123737
Vladoiu MConstantinescu ZMoise G(2017)A New Collaborative Paradigm of Computer Science Student Contests: An ExperienceOn the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems. OTM 2017 Conferences10.1007/978-3-319-69462-7_18(284-297)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2017
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69462-7_18

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