scilympiad platform - consistency, cheating, etc

[weinhold]

Scilympiad.com is GREAT. It salvaged the 2021 season and looks to do the same for 2022. And as in-person competitions resume, I expect some will continue to use Scilympiad to manage their events.

However, I don't think SciOly national/state organizers are doing enough to drive consistent usage of the Scilympiad platform across tournaments. Specifically:

• Event rules are adapted to the platform in tournament-specific ways. It would be better if such rule changes came from the national and/or state organizations. E.g.,
  • allow online notes? (as opposed to one double-sided piece of paper)
  • allow google text and image searches? (if not, how to prevent?)
  • allow the reuse of prior work?

• The submission of build event documentation varies widely. I witnessed many competitors struggling with dropbox/google drive storage, links, permissions, sharing, storage limits, passwords, etc.
  • Event supervisors often couldn't email or google collaborate with the competitors to sort through these issues since many school districts block external access to student email.

• The hosting of external content also varies widely.
  • music, images, videos may be hyperlinked or embedded. What is the best method to avoid opening new browser windows, maintaining one's place in the exam, etc?
  • How can PDF files best be used as part of events? Many event supervisors are more comfortable creating PDF content than having to recreate everything inside Scilympiad

• Cheating potential is high - from minor transgressions to premeditated deception.
  • There is no guarantee that a given competitor is who he/she claims to be, or that the competitor isn't getting help from someone else
  • Event start times are largely unregulated, allowing a JV team to preview an event before the competition team starts it.
  • The platform's built-in cheating defenses -- "away from browser time" and disabling copy/paste -- are untrustworthy, easy-to-defeat, and only aimed at basic cheating behavior.
  • (Last season, I witnessed "grey area" cheating in the two events I supervised. But I had to let it go since I had neither the time nor tools to call it out in a fair and impartial manner.)

• Team collaboration was also all over the place
  • Most participants favored discord or facetime over scilympiad's built-in chat box. (some collab apps counted as "away from browser" time.
  • Screen-sharing and discord made it easy to get non-competitors into the test

• When tournaments are hybrid, how can in-person and remote competitors be given the most similar experiences?

Scilympiad has done an amazing job creating a platform for us, but it has its limitations. I urge the National SO officials to update event rules and offer specific guidance to make scilympiad-hosted tournaments more consistent, predictable, and fair.