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Managing Contests

Complete guide to creating and managing programming contests in omegaUp.

Creating a Contest

Basic Information

  • Title: Contest name
  • Alias: Short identifier (used in URLs)
  • Description: Contest description
  • Start Time: When the contest begins
  • End Time: When the contest ends
  • Public/Private: Visibility setting

Advanced Settings

  • Window Length: USACO-style individual timers
  • Scoreboard Visibility: Percentage of time scoreboard is visible
  • Points Decay: Time-based score decay factor
  • Penalty Policy: How penalties are calculated
  • Submission Gap: Seconds between submissions

Contest Types

Standard Contest

  • Fixed start and end time
  • Shared timer for all participants
  • Traditional contest format

Virtual Contest (USACO-style)

  • Individual timer per participant
  • Starts when participant enters
  • Window-based duration

Managing Problems

Add problems to your contest:

  1. Create or select problems
  2. Set point values
  3. Order problems
  4. Configure problem-specific settings

Managing Participants

Public Contests

  • Open to all users
  • No invitation needed

Private Contests

  • Invite specific users
  • Manage participant list
  • Control access

Scoreboard Configuration

  • Visibility: Control when scoreboard is visible
  • Freeze: Freeze scoreboard before contest ends
  • Refresh: Real-time updates via WebSocket

Running a contest at a school (network checklist)

If contestants use a school lab or locked-down network, allow outbound HTTPS (port 443) to omegaUp and related services.

Required / usual

  • https://omegaup.com — standard contest mode
  • https://arena.omegaup.com — only if you intentionally use lockdown mode (see below). If you use lockdown, block normal omegaup.com for contestants so they cannot bypass restrictions.
  • https://ssl.google-analytics.com — used by the site

Optional

  • https://secure.gravatar.com — avatars
  • https://accounts.google.com — “Sign in with Google”

Only HTTPS is supported; HTTP redirects to HTTPS. Prefer firewall REJECT/DENY with an explicit response over DROP for blocked hosts, or browsers may wait tens of seconds per blocked domain and the UI will feel frozen.

Lockdown mode (arena.omegaup.com)

Lockdown mode trades flexibility for integrity: many features are restricted (for example admin views, practice mode, and viewing past submission source). No exceptions are made per contest—if you need those features, use https://omegaup.com instead of the arena hostname.

Contestant environment (Windows vs judge)

Submissions are graded on Linux. Code that relies on Windows-only headers (for example conio.h) or non-portable printf formats may fail even if it runs on lab PCs. Prefer POSIX-friendly I/O and long long with %lld (or C++ streams).

Large events (100+ participants)

Email hello@omegaup.com well in advance so capacity can be confirmed for your date.