Prepare an assessment round

Agree on the assessment and its review

• Define the skills to assess, the question format and the review criteria.
• Confirm permitted languages, tools and runtime requirements for the actual round. Do not infer them from an editor’s syntax highlighting.
• Agree on the start and end time, timezone, device requirements and any candidate arrangements.
• Name the people handling setup, live incidents, result review and candidate questions.

Create the contest and check its schedule

1. 1

   Open Contests → New contest

   Enter Title, Starts and Ends. The date and time inputs use your computer’s local timezone. Confirm that timezone before entering the schedule and communicate it explicitly in the invitation.

2. 2

   Review the options

   Check Freeze scoreboard and whether this should be a Practice contest. Confirm the intended behavior for your round rather than leaving an option selected by habit.

3. 3

   Choose Create contest

   Open the created contest and verify its title, schedule and status. A draft cannot be joined with the invite code until it is published.

4. 4

   Correct the schedule before sharing it

   Use the schedule controls if the window is wrong. Recheck the displayed times after saving, and tell candidates if an already shared schedule changes.

Attach the intended question versions

1. 1

   Open the contest’s Problems tab

   Choose Add problem, check and select the intended Problem version, then set its label and score.

2. 2

   Check what was attached

   Review the problem title, label, displayed limits and score. Repeat for the remaining questions, using distinct labels.

3. 3

   Resolve unavailable questions

   Only problem versions with an uploaded package are offered. If a question is missing, prepare or publish it in Problems before returning to the contest.

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Organizer workspace

Zoom in

Zoom in to read the interface details.

A draft assessment, its schedule and problems. Synthetic example data. Example data.

Build the roster before distributing credentials

1. 1

   Prepare the Participants directory

   Confirm the people and email addresses in the organization’s Participants area. Adding a CSV to a contest does not create missing people in the directory.

2. 2

   Add people to this contest

   In the contest’s Participants tab, use Add from Access or Add participants. The CSV option accepts email addresses and shows matched, already-on-roster and unknown entries before adding them.

3. 3

   Resolve unknown entries

   Correct the directory or CSV first. Review the intended additions and confirm them; an unknown email is not an invited candidate.

4. 4

   Check credentials and delivery

   Use the credential controls to issue access and distribute it through your agreed process. A roster entry, an issued credential, an email queued for sending and a candidate successfully signing in are separate states. Check missing passphrases and failed email statuses.

Send one clear set of instructions

• Contest name, start and end time, timezone and when setup opens.
• Download location, required app version if specified, and instructions to install and test before the round.
• Individual login instructions, permitted tools and the assessment rules.
• Required permissions, what is recorded, who can access it and how to ask privacy questions.
• A live support channel and a way to request participation arrangements in advance.

Check readiness, then publish

1. 1

   Review the round as a team

   Confirm questions, tested configuration, schedule, roster, credentials and candidate instructions. Arrange a rehearsal with authorized test accounts before a real round; use the same device and language requirements.

2. 2

   Choose Publish when the draft is ready

   The contest needs a problem before publishing. Read any error, resolve it and confirm the status changed. Copying an invite code does not publish a draft.

3. 3

   Verify entry and support

   Check that the published schedule is the one you communicated and that an authorized test candidate can reach the intended entry flow. Keep the organizer’s incident support available during the round.

Keep invigilation and review separate

Use the contest’s Invigilation tab to check Help requests, Live sessions and Entry-gate reports. A quiet session or a failed device report needs context and follow-up; it is not a misconduct finding.

Resolve a help request only after handling it. Follow your organization’s authorization process for session recovery or any exception to a required check.

After the round, move to Submissions and your agreed review process. Confirm data handling and result communication before exporting or sharing records.