Contest Eligibility and Guidelines

The following rules and guidelines apply to the Cobol, Visual Studio, Webpage Design, Java, Database, Systems Analysis & Design, Network Design and PC Troubleshooting contest events. For an explanation of the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) option for the contest events - refer to the BYOC Page.  The rules for the Graduate Project contest are totally separate and have their own set of rules unique to that contest.

1. Students competing on a team must be AITP members currently enrolled in courses at a two- or four-year college/university. Undergraduate students who have already graduated from college with a related Bachelor's or Masters degree (CIS, MIS, IS, CS) may not compete except in the Graduate Division. Additionally, IS/IT professionals or students with prior IT/IS experience (excluding internships or co-ops) may NOT compete. We are asking all AITP student chapter faculty advisors to assist us in enforcing this rule so as to make the contest fair to all contestants. All graduate students, regardless of their previous degree, may compete in the graduate competition.  (Edited on 2/4/2006 for Graduate Students with non-technical undergraduate degrees)
    

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

3. 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, 2006.
    

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. Contest judges will also recognize additional teams  with an honorable mention. (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.
    
    Additional contest information (and changes/updates) will be published on the web site http://www.aitp.org/. Additionally, links to web sites maintained by our volunteer base will contain tips, solutions, sample problems. However, not every contest event provides this supplementary material.
     

12. Internal documentation refers to descriptive data and module names, readability of code and internal comments
     

13. AITP reserves the right to limit the number of teams for a particular contest event by college/university so as to allow all attending colleges & universities the chance to enter a particular contest event.