Contests grading systems in programming education

Abstract

Programming contests are very popular form for attracting young people to the profession of program developers. Because of the nature of these contests for long years the evaluation of the contestants’ works is performed with developed for the purpose Contest Grading Systems (GS) that spare time and eliminate evaluation mistakes. As the qualities of the contestants that are checked in a programming contest are the same with the qualities of the students that are prepared to be professional programmers are the same, GS could be successfully used in education in programming, too. In this paper we introduce GS – what they are, how they are used in evaluation of programming contest and how they could be used in education of programming. Different challenges that using of GS rise when they are used in such education are outlined and ways to cope with such system are discussed.