2.  Team Size:  1-2 individuals for  Cobol, C++, Visual Basic, Web Design, Java, Database, Systems A&D, Network Design

3. NEW for the 2005 event - ALL contest team fees are rolled in/included in your individual attendee registration fees!  As always,  substitutions for members of registered teams is allowed but at the time of team registration, ALL team members must register or already be registered for the conference. Contest team registrations "only" will be "held" until the individual student attendee registrations are received.

4. Teams will have a total of approximately 4 hours to complete their assigned problem or problems. This amount of times INCLUDES registration, briefing, problem statement review, Q&A, the actual contest itself and any contest de-briefing.

5. A team may not consult with nor communicate with anyone outside the team during the contest. This includes, but is not limited to the use of Instant Messaging, email, or other electronic forms of communication. Only teams and authorized room proctors will be allowed in the contest labs during the competition and the team's sponsor/advisor may not communicate with the team during the competition.

6. Due to the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) nature of the events, students may utilize whatever applications they have installed on their computers. However, in certain events, a specific development environment may be dictated to fulfill the completion requirements. For instance, VS.Net requires Visual Studio 2002 or higher. Refer to contest specific rules for details. Students may NOT download or install software during the contest event.

7. Legitimate special physical needs such as special keyboards, chairs, etc., need to be communicated to the host site and their availability and use negotiated by March 15, 2005.

8. Proctors in the contest labs will give a 15-20 minute warning before the ending time for the contest. Any final printing or other work must then be finished by teams before the announced ending time for the contest. When this ending time is reached, all teams must stop and turn in materials to the room proctor promptly.

9. Teams must not include the team members names nor the name of the college the team represents nor any other identifying information anywhere in the materials or solution turned in to the proctor. The team's solution and other materials may only be identified by the team number assigned to the team at the beginning of the contest.

10. Any violations of the rules and guidelines will result in the offending team being disqualified. Such disqualification may be ruled by the room proctors, contest coordinators or judges.

11.  Although team feedback will vary by contest event and judges, our goal is to provide maximum team feedback beyond recognizing the top three contest winners. We will rank the top ten teams for each contest event with places 4^th through tenth receiving an honorable recognition for their achievements. (The exception is the Web Design Competition which uses a different "categorical" ranking system.) Sample and/or winning solutions will also be posted on the web site www.aitp.org/ncc after the conference. In the event of a tie, the time stamp will be used to break the tie. Please note that all judges decisions are final.

1. Micro Focus for Windows Net Express Version 3.1, running on a Windows XP Pro platform should  be utilized with Office XP 2002 & Text Pad
2. A program shell (from the Identification Division to the Working-Storage Section header) and data files will be  supplied to each team. A sample of correct output will be available to the teams during the contest.
3. Basis for Evaluation: Correct Output (60%), Structure & Modularity (30%), Internal Documentation (10%)
4. If you need a copy of MicroFocus Cobol:  Refer to http://www.microfocus.com/shop/

Visual Studio.net Competition (BYOC)

1. Microsoft Visual Studio.NET running on a Windows 2000 Professional (or later) platform should be utilized in this blended VB.NET/C# contest event.
2. Problems will test expertise using Windows Forms, ADO.NET, and general .Net Framework knowledge
3. Students may choose either Visual Basic.Net or C# to complete the problem statement "only".
4. Basis for Evaluation: Correct Output (60%), Structure & Modularity (30%),  Internal Documentation (10%)

PC Troubleshooting Competition

1. Qualifying Round: Written test that each team member will take individually and the team average score will be used for Finalist Determination

2. The written test will consist of 100 questions covering the hardware (core) and the operating system.  It is randomly generated so no two tests will be the same.  The student will have one hour to complete it.  A test score is automatically generated and each team will get an average grade for each of the tests.   No reference materials of any kind (books, notes, CD's, etc) will be allowed during the written test.

3. The top twenty-five scores will move onto the second phase, troubleshooting.  When teams are involved, the average score of both team members will be used.

4. Finalist teams will be posted online as well as in the conference registration area!

5. Finalists: A "Real World" PC troubleshooting exercise   **For the top 25 teams based on the average qualifying test score for the team.

6. Finalists: The student team will be given a computer and asked to troubleshoot and the fix the machine so it will boot to Windows.  There wont be any software problems with these computers. The following problems will be implemented for each team and all computers will have the same problems.  These include CMOS errors and hardware problems.  It will be judged on time and accuracy by a staff and faculty team from multiple colleges.  The student should be able to access CMOS information and determine whats wrong and fix the problems.  The hardware problems could include cabling, hard disk, floppy disk or CDROM failures, memory configuration errors, bad power supplies, connections, keyboards, mouse and adapter cards such as sound, modem, video and NICs.  This phase will be one hour long.

Web Design Competition (BYOC)

1. Teams of 1-2 students may compete in this event. Teams must provide their own computers and development tools. Local Area Network connectivity will be provided. Laptops must be configured to use DHCP to be assigned an IP address/DNS settings. In keeping with BYOC requirements, computers must be fully patched and running antivirus software.

2. Each team will be provided with the same starter web site. A list of technical and aesthetic specifications will be provided. Each team will have access to a Microsoft IIS web server, Apache web server, Microsoft SQL server, MySQL server, or may used an Access database as a data store in order to complete the objectives.

3. Technical tasks will be along the lines of user registration pages, order forms, reading and writing to a database, etc.

4. Three winners will be announced from the competition, Best Artistic, Best Technical, and Best Overall. Students may choose to attempt either the graphical or technical requirements or a mixture of both. Winners will be chosen based on a predetermined point value for each requirement. By design, It is not expected that any web site will meet every requirement, students should choose the requirements they feel best represent their skills and pursue those goals

5. Please be prepared to leave a short document outlining technologies used in development and any special considerations for the website such as passwords that may be needed to access certain areas or other special elements that may not be obvious to the judges

6. No Internet connectivity will be provided, however local area network connectivity will be provided to web/database servers provided for the competition.
    

Java Programming Competition (BYOC)

1. Sun Java 2 (1.4.2 or 1.5.0, including the JavaDoc) running on Windows XP and Office XP should be used.  An IDE, such as Eclipse, NetBeans, or JBuilder may be used.  MySQL and the MySQL Connector/J (http://dev.mysql.com/) for JDBC and either XOM (http://www.cafeconleche.org/XOM) or JDOM (http://www.jdom.org/) for XML may be used.  Specific software mentioned above should be installed beforehand.

2. To help contestants prepare for the contest, a list of topics is provided below.  It is important to remember that the items on this list may not be in the actual problem statement (and that items on this list may be included).  The items listed below represent Java topics that a contestant should have a solid working knowledge of:

   • JDBC and SQL

   • XML

   • Streams input and output

   • JavaDoc

   • Use of the toString Method

   • String class

   • Wrapper classes

   • Collections

   • AWT and layout knowledge

   • Swing and user interface design

   • Applets and Applications

   • Listeners

   • Basic Java API's

   • Exception handling (try-catch)

   • Packages

   • UML and Use Cases

   • Foundation Java programming skills

   • How to use getter (assessor) and setter (mutator) methods

   • How to import specific classes .vs. global importing using .*.

   • Object-Oriented architectural skills (proper use of composition, inheritance, interfaces and defined classes)

    

3. Basis for evaluation; Satisfying Specifications (50%), Implementation & Problem Solving (30%), Internal Documentation (10%), Structure & Architecture (10%).

Network Design Competition (BYOC)

1.  Competing 1 or 2 person teams will create a proposal for a network design given a problem statement scenario.  Elements will include LAN design, network components, protocols used, security issues and network architecture and a budget.

2. Each team will be provided a hardware/software inventory list which includes make, model, specifications and prices. 

3.  Basis for Evaluation: Functionality (35%), Efficiency (30%), Creativity (20%), Organization of the Proposal (15%).

Database Competition (BYOC)

Teams from one to two individuals will be given a problem statement and approximately a three hour time frame to (1) design the database and (2) implement specified components of that database using Microsoft Access 2002.  The database design will consist of an Entity Relationship (ER) diagram and a relational schema, which will be turned in for scoring.  Teams may use software, such as Microsoft Visio or Visible Analyst, to create the ER diagram, or may draw it by hand.  Each team can bring your own laptop/notebook PC with your own ER diagramming software and bring any needed reference material.  Teams may not use their own computer to complete the implementation component. 

The implementation component of the competition will be in Microsoft Access 2002.    After a team has completed the design component and turned in that design for scoring, they will begin working on the Access database, which will contain the populated tables of the database.  The Competition Problem Statement:

        Will require the students to draw the ER diagram (entities, relationships, cardinality, and optionality) and to specify a relational schema normalized to 3NF, with all keys indicated

        Will require students to perform operations on Access tables, create queries of various types, develop custom forms, reports, and data access pages.

        Will require students to develop macros, switchboards, and event procedures.

        Will describe an application that can be designed and developed in approximately 3 hours

The judging will use the following for determining each teams score:  Design Component (25%), Production Component (75%).

Individually authored and presented undergraduate and graduate student papers are solicited dealing with contemporary and important issues in business information systems. Topics include, but are not limited to, software engineering issues, the use of CASE tools, user interfaces, client server, database systems, expert systems, decision support systems, applications of object-oriented, graphical, or visual programming languages, data communications and networks, ethical and social issues, security, and multi-media environments.

Papers for review and publication are limited to fifteen (15) typed, double-spaced pages including figures, tables and references. Paper must use 12 point Times font, be right and left justified, and have 1 inch margins all around. Paper must include a separate cover page with title, name, college and/or university, address, and e-mail address for the author. The first page of the paper must have the title and a list of appropriate keywords such as those presented as suggested topics, but NO NAME or EDUCATIONAL AFFILIATION of the author. A 250 word maximum abstract must immediately follow the keyword list. The body of the paper must contain NO NAME or EDUCATIONAL AFFILIATION of the author. References must appear in alphabetical order at the end of the paper as follows:

Adams, D., Wagner, G., and Boyer, T. (1983) Computer Information Systems: An Introduction, Southwestern Publishing: Cincinnati, OH.

Liebowitz, J. (1995) Integrating Expert Systems Throughout the Undergraduate Curriculum. Journal of Information Systems Education, 7 (1) 34-36.

Senhouse, C. (1995) An Entity-Relationship Design for Graphical Software Development. Proceedings of the 33^rd Annual ACM Southeast Conference, Clemson University, SC, 37-41.

They are referred to in the body of the paper as (Adams et al., 1983), (Liebowitz, 1995), and (Senhouse, 1995) respectively.

Referees are instructed that they are reviewing what is essentially a final paper. The referees will assign point values to the papers. On the back of this flyer, you will find both the criteria for initial paper evaluation and the onsite presentation evaluation points. The combination of these two scores will determine the ultimate student paper contest winners.

Authors will receive notification of acceptance or rejection by March 19, 2005. Only the top ten (10) papers in the competition will be accepted for presentation at the conference. All finalists must register for the conference in order to present. Information on presentations will be sent with notification of acceptance. A group of judges, different from the previous referees, will attend each student presentation at the conference and make the final determination as to first, second, and third place winners who will receive at $500, $250, and $100 respectively for Graduate and Undergraduate competitions (separately).

Email a Word or PDF document of your paper to:  aitpncc@aitp.org     AITP 2005 NCC Student Paper Contest   Attn: Sean Gallagher 

Papers must be emailed  no later than February 20, 2005 to aitpncc@aitp.org and must also indicate which division (Undergraduate or Graduate) you are competing in.  Finalists will be announced on or before March 19, 2005.