Asia Specific Regional Contest Rules - March 2009

Asia-Specific Regional Contest Rules
(Revision before 3/1/2009 in brown; revision afer 3/1/2009 in blue. Revision after 4/25 in pink)
（ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest 2009; Sponsored by IBM ）

(I) Mission. The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is an activity of the ACM that provides college students with an opportunity to demonstrate and sharpen their problem-solving and computing skills. The ACM/ICPC Asia Regional Contests invite Asian students to meet, to establish friendships, and to promote fair competition in programming.

(II) Fundamentals of the Rules of ICPC Regional Contests:Rules for the Asia Regional Contests are additions to the rules of ACM ICPC Regional Programming Contests and ICPC Steering Committee Policies/Procedures（For ICPC Regionals and P/P, please refer to hyperlink: http://icpc.baylor.edu/.)

(III) Additional Asia regional specific rules:

(A) Regional Contest Organization and Administration

1. The Asia Region covers all territories and countries in Asia, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Vietnam, Macau, Mongolia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Iran, etc. Students in Central Asia and in Middle East may participate Asia Contest with the approval of Asia Director.
2. Asia Regional Contests do not divide the region by political territories. A team that advances to the Contest Finals represents the team’s university, not the team’s political boundary.
3. The contest is a two-to-four-tiered competition among teams of students representing institutions of higher education. The first tier includes the Asia Regional Contests, which are held through September, October, November and early December of each year. The top-scoring team from each site of the Regional Contest automatically advances to the Contest World Finals (the second tier). A pre-regional tier is described in item 9 of this section titled "National, Provincial, Invitational, and School Level Programming Contests".
4. The Asia Regional Contest is administered under the direction of the "Asia Contests Director or Asia Director," who is charged with executing Regional Contests within a set of rules and guidelines that have been approved by the ACM ICPC Executive Director. The Asia Contests Director selects several contest sites in Asia each year to hold the Asia Regional Contests. The Asia Contests Director also appoints one Site Director to head each Contest Site Steering Committee. Site Directors are charged with responsibilities of planning, organizing and executing the Regional Contests according to ACM/ICPC Operational Guidelines.
All Asia Regional Contest hosts must have hosted National, or Provincial contests before hosting the Asia Regional Contest.
5. Asia Super Region is organized as one single region -- Asia Region. This unique regional organization in Asia promotes the cooperation of all Asian contestants, and universities from all political boundaries. The Asia Contests Director (also called Super Regional Director) also appoints Local Area Contest Directors for National, Provincial, and Invitational contests in the Asia Super Region.
6. The recommended organization of the Asia Regional Site Steering Committee for each site usually consists of the following members:
Honorary Chairs (Optional)
Chair (Regional Contest Site Director)
Co-Chairs (Asia Director is, by default, one of the Co-Chairs)
Committee Coordinator or Associate Site Director (optional)
Chief Judge and Judging Team
System (Hardware/Software) Chair(s)
Registration Chair and Publicity Chair
Activities/Operation Chair
The Steering Committee for each contest site may implement additional rules and a different committee organization pertaining to the contest site. However, the consultation with the Asia Contests Director is strongly recommended prior to the establishment of such rules or organization.
7. Each University or college in Asia can organize teams to participate in the contests at any site. However, a contestant can participate, at most, in two (2) Asian contest sites during a contest year. A contestant may not compete in Asia Regional Contests for more than five (5) years. A contestant may not compete in World Finals for more than two (2) years.
8. National, Provincial, Invitational, and School Level Programming Contests (these contests are together called Local Area contests):
(a) Each country or larger territory area may organize a national, provincial, or invitational programming contest with its winners advancing to the Regional Contest. If the area organizes such contests, the area’s contest committee decides the number of teams to participate in the Asia regional site contest.
(b) National, Provincial, and Invitational Contests under ACM – ICPC banner must obtain approval from Asia Contests Director. These contests must put registration process under ACM-ICPC registration umbrella. These contests must follow ACM-ICPC guidelines.
(c) All National, Provincial and Invitational contests will be all grouped together in an independent contest site in Asia Region titled “Asia Provincial-National contests”. They will not be organized under any particular Asia site effective from January 2009 and their winners will not be advanced to World Finals.
(d) A University or college may have a School Level Programming Contest, with its winners advancing to the Local Area Programming Contest (or Asia Regional Contests). School level programming contest using ACM-ICPC banner must also obtain permission from Asia Contests Director.
(e) A team may participate in the Asia Regional Contest, bypassing the School, provincial, national levels, with the approval of the Regional Contest Site Director.
9. Asia First Round Regional and Asia On-Site Regional:
(a) ACM - ICPC Asia Region has grown substantially in recent years. On-Site Regional Contest usually cannot accommodate large numbers of teams. It is also mandatory that each site accommodates all of qualified registrations. To accomplish such goal, it is strongly recommended that each site conducts two cycles of regional contests – Asia First Round and Asia On-Site. Each site should conduct Asia First Round Regional Contest in advance to select an appropriate number of teams for the On-Site regional contest. Those teams not selected for the On-Site Regional Contest will be ranked as honorary mentioned teams in the Regional Final Ranking. Each Contest Site Director may set up its own selection formula for teams to be advanced to On-Site Regional Contest. Contest Site Director may also modify contest rules for the First Round Regional Contest within ICPC guidelines, while On-Site Regional Contest must follow Asia Rules and ICPC Regional Contest Rules. It is also recommended that foreign teams may be exempted from First Round Regional Contest.
(b) If the total registration is low and all teams can be accommodated by On-Site Regional Contest, the First Round Regional Contest may be skipped. (The selection formula used by China sites in the Appendix 2 is a good reference for all.)
(c) Multi-provincial Online Internet Contest and National Contest hosted by Asia Regional host university are considered as Asia First Round Regional Contest if these contests are used to select teams for Asia On-Site Regional Contest. These Contests will be under the Asia Regional First Round Contest and not be grouped together with “Asia Provincial/National Contests”.
10. Rule of Eligibility Decision Tree:
(a) All contestants are urged to study the rule of the Eligibility Decision Tree in ACM - ICPC Regional Rules for the eligibility of all contestants through out the world. (http://icpc.baylor.edu/)
(b) Remarks on eligibility rule:Technically, it is possible that a team may consist of three first-year graduate students if each of them meets the rule qualification in a four-year program or university.
(c) Participation of two sites for the same year in Asia Regional Contests is considered as one-time competition under the eligibility rule. (Refer to item 7.)
11. The coach of a team must be a faculty or a designated staff member of the team’s university. A coach from outside of the team’s university will disqualify the team.
12. Because of the problem of ‘no-shows’ by teams who register and confirm participation but do not actually participate in the contest, it was decided that: If such team do not cancel their registration at least ten (10) days before the contest date, and do not show up in the contest, this team's contestants will be disqualified for all other contest sites in the same contest year.
13. Registration: The university name of a team must be already in the ICPC registration database before a team can register. The team coach should request the Contest Site Director to ask ICPC manager to enter the Team’s university name in the database if needed. This registration prerequiste applies to both Asia Regional and local contests.
Asia Regional contest registration normally begins right after World Finals in the same year. However, the Provincial-National contest registration can begin as early as January of the same year.
14. RCD meeting in World Finals. Asia Regional Directors or their representatives are required to participate the RCD (Regional Contest Directors) meeting scheduled in the World Finals Contest during the same calendar year. If a new Site Director or his/her representative does not participate in the World Finals RCD meeting, the Asia Director may cancel its hosting authorization of the same calendar year.
15. Verification of the Asia On-Site Regional Contest: The coach of each team is required to verify and complete the personal information of all contestants before the contest of the Asia On-Site Regional (Final Round Regional) contest. Without such verification, the team will not be accepted for Asia On-Site or Asia Final Round contest and therefore be disqualified.

(B) Regional Contest Winning Team, Award and World Finals Slots

1. The one winning team of each contest will automatically advance to the World Contest Finals and will receive partial travel support from ACM and its sponsors.
2. Additional wildcard berths in the World Finals may be awarded to any contest team in a site with high registration count, at the discretion of the Asia Contests Director. The winners of the local area contests, national or provincial, are not qualified for World Finals Slots unless they are also the winners of the Asia Regional Contests.
3. A university or college can have at most one qualified team that advances to the World Finals.
4. In an effort to encourage the participation of female students in Asia Regional Contests, the Asia Regional Contests Director will award each female contestant a cash award of $100 or more if (1) the team has three female contestants; and (2) the team is ranked in the top 10 of actual ranking and is the best female team in that contest site.
5. Each Contest Site Director may rank the teams approximately in the top half. The rest of the teams will be acknowledged in alphabetical order, but not ranked. The final ranking of the top half should combine the rankings of universities as well as teams. Final standings will first be ranked from the top team from each university/college. Other teams from the same college will then be ranked as ties with that of the next ranked team of another university. Each Contest Site Director may select the first 6 or more universities to award special prizes or may apply some good criteria to award teams.
6. Team Members Substitution in World Finals and in Regional Contest:The team members for the team advanced to World Finals must be identical to the members participated in the Regional Contest. No substitution or reserves will be allowed in the World Finals. Any alteration on the team will disqualify the team to the World Finals. However, Regional Contest may allow reserve team member registration and may allow the substitution of the team member in the regional contest provided that the team composition change is entered in the ICPC registration web site before the Regional Contest. Any change to the team after that regional contest is not allowed.
7. The score of each contest site for determining # of wild cards to World Finals is calculated by ICPC Executive Director. The major weights of the calculation are# of universities and # of teams registered and accepted in that contest site, especially in the Onsite Contest and also in the First Round Contest. Other factors calculated with smaller weights are registration counts of Local Area Programming contests near that contest site including National, Provincial, and Invitational programming contests.
8. Teams (host teams) from host universities of Asia Regional sites do not have preference for world final slots. If the host team’s score is very high and is very close to the qualifying line, and if there is slot available, Asia Director may at his discretion give preferences to these host teams. (The policy of host teams from China is governed by resolution of China Council in appendix 4.)
9. Asia Director will recommend the World Finals wildcard berths to ICPC Executive Director.

(C) Conduct, Scoring of the Contest, and Team # Assignments.
1. Contestants may bring their own keyboards with the approval of contest site director. The team is responsible for any trouble installing its own keyboards. Contest Site Director may reject such request.
2. Electronic dictionaries are not allowed. Paper dictionaries, however, may be allowed. Contest Site Director may alter this rule; The World Finals rule on reference materials may be different from this rule.
3. No personally owned diskettes or calculators are allowed.
4. Questions or requests written in a language other than English may be made from contestants to designated translators and then to judges. Judges will respond to contestants directly in English.
5. Notification of accepted runs may be suspended at the appropriate time (normally one hour before the end) to keep the final results confidential for the purpose of suspension. Notification of rejected runs will continue until the end of the contest.
6. It is recommended that the team numbers should be assigned randomly before the contest. Team numbers should be used in PC^2. University names should not be used in the PC^2 and should not be revealed to the judging team during the contest. The Contest Site Director is responsible for posting the matching list of team numbers and university names in the audience area within 60 minutes after the contest starts. Contest Site Directors may contact Asia Contests Director to find out an efficient way of random assignment of team numbers.

(D) Judging Team and Contest Problem Creation

1. The Chief Judge and Site Director of each contest site are responsible for organizing the judging team. No member of the judging team should be the coach of any contest team. It is highly recommended that the judging team consist of faculty from other universities and/or industry professionals. The use of an international judging team is also encouraged, if possible. The size of the judging team is recommended to be equal to the number of contest problems in the contest.
2. The Chief Judge and the Contest Site Director make a final decision in selecting the contest problems, in modifying the submitted contest programs, or in adding additional contest problems. To ensure fairness, it is highly recommended that contest problems should not be selected from faculty whose university is participating in the contest. Especially, the contest problem submitted by a team coach must not be selected.
3. The Chief Judge is encouraged to take care that there is one problem in the set that is fairly easy, and at least one or two problems are medium difficulty since the wild cards distribution formula will probably count only the teams that have solved at least one problem.
4. All contest problems in Asia Sites must be written in English only. No multiple languages are allowed in creating contest problems effective from May 1, 2009.

(E) Contest Environment

1. The contest language software will be made available by Contest Site Director to the contestants in advance of the Regional Contests. More specific details on the contest environment, including RAM and hardware configurations, software versions, and printers will be announced by the Contest Site Director and may be different from those used in World Finals.
2. Contest judging software PC Square (e.g., PC^2) will be provided from ACM-ICPC website http://www.ecs.csus.edu/pc2/pc2code.html

(F) Registration Fee
The Steering Committee of each contest site determines the registration fee of each team. In previous years, the regional registration fee ranged from US$0 to US$150 around the world.

(IV) Submitting documents.

At the end of the contest, each Regional Site Director is required to submit the following two items to ICPC web site:1. Contest Ranking: University names, problems solved, and time consumed.2. Contest Problems3. Each Regional Site Director is to submit the following items to Asia Director if requested: At least ten photos containing contestant activities, and five photos containing officer's activities.

(V) Guidelines for Travel Stipend for financially poor teams
1. In order to encourage Asian teams of financially poor universities to participate ICPC Asia contests, the Asia Contests Director prepares limited budget each year to tokenly support limited number of teams traveling to Asia contest sites from financially poor universities. All women team may also apply for such travel support. These supports are only for teams attending Asia on-site or first round Regionals contests.
2. Teams from financially poor universities may apply for such travel stipends before the Regional Contests. Forms may be available from Site Directors or Asia Contests Director. The travel stipends support checks may be given at the contest site or after the contests are over and written in US Bank checks only. The checks will be issued to the team coaches according to the data provided during registration.
3. This Travel Stipend Policy is a guideline. Asia Contests Director reserves the right to modify the guideline or not to issue any travel supports.

(VI) Industrial Sponsorships and Acknowledgement.

1. ACM/ICPC has received major sponsorship from IBM since July 1997 for World Finals events, ICPC organization and regional contest activities, ICPC web site and the development of PC^2. IBM also provides additional funds available to support part of the regional contest activities for each site.
2. The Asia Regional Contests are self-supporting for each contest site. Each Regional Contest Site Director is responsible for obtaining financial support from local industries, government entities, and universities in addition to IBM support.
3. All regional Contests must award ACM-ICPC/IBM certificates, use ICPC/IBM badges, and provide conforming ICPC/IBM T-shirts. All Regional Contests must comply with ICPC/IBM sponsoring agreements regardless of whether ICPC/IBM sponsored funding, or local IBM funding is provided.

(VII) Appendices

Appendix 1: Each regional contest site director must sign the following acknowledgement each year for confirming IBM Sponsorship:
Letter To Asia Site Directors from Asia Director
******** Beginning of Letter
Dear Asia 2009 Directors: July 1, 2009
Every year we have new hosts, new directors, and new coordinators for theAsia Regional contests. Most of the new volunteers attended the recentRCD symposium at the World Finals. Yet, the knowledgeable volunteers may not be the persons in charge of contest operations. These scenarios had caused some violations of ACM-ICPC guidelines. Some of these violations are listed as follows:
(a) IBM sponsorship was not clearly displayed. The IBM logowas not clearly printed on T-shirts, on bags, or on the contestmaterials including the regional contest web site.
(b) IBM was not being acknowledged as the primary sponsor.
As you all know, ACM-ICPC has contract with IBM as the sole sponsor of theWorld Finals, and primary sponsor of the worldwide regional contests. You may obtain additional sponsors for Asia Regional contest. Even if you have not obtained support from the local IBM office, IBM must be acknowledged as the primary sponsor for your Asia Regional Contests.
In order to prevent such violation from happening, I am asking you to sign onthe attached “Acknowledgement” on the second page of this file before Iauthorize release of the IBM funding to you. Many of you have followed theguidelines very well for all these years. Please bear with me to sign the“Acknowledgement” for fairness. Those of you have followed guidelines well and you are the one in charge of contest operation, one signature (yours) is enough. Those of you are new contest sites or have not followed guidelines, I need two signatures from you. One can be coordinator in charge of operation, and one must be either Dean, Vice President, or Director who is supervising the contest expenses. After you sign the “Acknowledgement”, please e-mail me the image. I do not need the original. Or you can fax to my electronic fax number in the US.
Thanks,
C J Hwang, ACM-ICPC Asia Director
*******Beginning of Acknowledgement
“Acknowledgement Asia 2009”I (we) understand that ACM-ICPC has contract with IBM that IBM is theWorld Sponsor and is the primary (first) sponsor for ICPC Asia Regional contests including my (our) ACM-ICPC Asia Regional Contest Site.
We will put the “ACM-ICPC Asia Regional sponsored by IBM logo” on all of ourcontest material including the web site and banners. We acknowledge that we will put IBM as the primary sponsor for our contest. The IBM and ACM-ICPC logo will be clearly displayed. It will be clearly printed on T-shirts, on bags, and on contest materials as the primary sponsor. In cases where only sponsor logos are displayed, the IBM logo will be displayed first, and be of equal size of other sponsor logos.
We acknowledge that we will use the IBM fund to purchase T-shirts and bags(optional) for the contestants, and prizes for the winners. We also acknowledge that IBM is to be recognized for the prizes purchased using IBM funds.
Contest Site: ______________________
Signature 1 (2008 Coordinator in charge of operation and banner logo decoration): ________________
Date: _________________
Signature 2 (2008 Dean, Vice President, or Director who is supervisingthe contest expenses.): ______________________
Date: __________________
******* End of Acknowledgement

Appendix 2: Formula recommended in selecting teams from Online Internet Contest to On-site Contest for ACM-ICPC China Sites (Nov 2008):
1) The team selection based on online internet contest is school-based (university/college based).
a) The school's ranking is the highest ranking team of the school;
b) About 60% of the schools of a contest site will be selected based on the internet online contest. Each of these schools will have one team selected to the on-site regional contest.
2) The team selected from the advanced school may not be the same team who obtained the highest score because the online contest is not supervised. The team advanced will be decided by the coaches of the school and by school teams themselves. If school cannot decide the team, contest site director may make decision for them.
3) If a school has been ranked in world finals during the past three years, then the school can get an additional on-site slot;
4) This year and next year's Asian regional hosts can send three teams to all sites.
5) The host universities for Provincial and inter-provincial contests can also get an additional slot if the contest has at least 10 schools and 50 teams.
6) The best women's team of provincial contest will auto advance to on-site regional contest.
7) If the school participates problem set creation, the school will not be ranked in that site, however, the school will be allowed to send more teams to other sites.
8) Contest should be held in a place which can accommodate at least 90 teams (such as the school's Indoor Stadium)

Appendix 3: Visa preparation for the Advancing Team:
The team advanced to the World Finals must obtain passport immediately and must apply visa as soon as possible. It is strongly recommended that the team must prepare the following documents for Visa application, especially to USA or to Canada:
1) Print ACM / ICPC background information from ICPC website.
2) Read all Visa information from ICPC Website.
3) Present invitation letter and support letter from ICPC and the support letter from IBM.
4) Get an official letter of support from your university for each of your party.
5) If you have a scholarship or other grant that supports you as a student, get an official letter verifying that fact.
6) Present the winning certificate.
7) Present your and your family’s financial situation. For example, you or your parents have a large amount of money in a savings account.
8) Present proof that you have traveled to other countries and you have returned to your own country.
9) Present the letters from your university regarding your financial support.
10) Present the letters from university for verifying the contestants are full-time students and will obtain their degree from the same university.
11) Present detail air travel itinerary for the trip.

Appendix 4:Special Rules for Contest Sites in China
ACM-ICPC Council China has passed several resolutions for contests in China. Asia Director had approved the following items applicable only in Mainland China.
A) Translation of some resolutions from item B below.
1) A team is not allowed to advance to World Finals from a contest site where the team’s university is a host. However, that host university may receive some priority consideration if their teams’ ranking in other site is very close to the World Finals qualifying line.
2) A team is not allowed to advance to World Finals from a contest site if the problem creation of the site is helped by a faculty from the University of that Team.
3) All Asia Regional Contest hosts must have done National or Provincial contest before hosting the Asia Regional Contest.
B) Complete list of resolutions (from 2006 to 2008 Winter) in Simplified Chinese:
ACM-ICPC中国区特别规则(2006–2008 Jan.)
1. World Finals中国区出线规则(2006 ACM-ICPC中国区Spring论坛纪要):
(a)经讨论通过了对出线规则的修改, 即承办学校只能从其他赛区获得出线名额，并且在其他赛区享有一定的优惠条件。
2. 中国区通过如下亚洲赛实施细则: (中国区指导委员会2007Summer会议纪要):
(a) 由中国科技大学承办2008年亚洲区特别赛区, 只有在近五年内未参加过全球总决赛的学校才有资格争取特别赛区的唯一一个出线名额(Asia Director may give more than one slots if registration is very large), 在近五年内曾参加过总决赛的学校也可以参赛，但不计名次。
(b) 今后申请主办亚洲区赛的条件为:
(i) 在承办亚洲区赛之前承办省赛或省际邀请赛;
(ii) 亚洲区赛应列为校级赛事, 并建议应由校级领导担负组委会主任;
(iii) (Omitted; see item D)
(c) 有关网络预赛目的为选择学校为主。
(i) 每个学校只取排序最高的队的进行排序;
(ii) 按学校排序在容量的60%的队自动有一队晋级现场赛;
(iii) & (iv) Omitted; see item C.
(d) 建议在竞赛题目中至少有一题简单题, 不可解题数小于或等于2, 题目按难易程度的大致比例为: 易20~30%, 中50%, 难30~20%
(e) 金、银、铜奖的颁奖比例为参加队数的 10%, 20% 和 30%。(Asia Director suggests ratio of 9%, 16%, and 25%)
3.中国区参加亚洲赛区的现场赛名额(2007 ACM-ICPC中国区Fall论坛纪要):经讨论, 参会代表对地区预选赛and网络预赛的择队原则进行了修改, 符合如下条件的学校可以获得额外的参赛名额：(a) 近三年内在总决赛取得名次的学校可以增加一队;
(b) 亚洲区赛承办学校可增加一队;
(c) 省赛和省际赛承办单位可在所在赛区增加一个参赛名额，原则上要求现场赛参赛学校大于或等于10, 且参赛队数大于或等于50。
(d) 在省赛(现场赛)或省际赛(现场赛)中取得女队第一名的（且总排名在前三分之一）可直接参加所在亚洲赛区的现场赛。
(e) 亚洲区赛承办单位认可的其他条件。
4. 中国区通过并经黄金雄博士批准增加如下亚洲赛实施细则:(2008 ACM-ICPC中国区Winter论坛纪要):
(a) 参与出题的学校不参加ICPC排名(不能在该赛区出线)
(b) 所有特邀队不参加任何排名不得任何奖 (特邀队不在ICPC注册系统中注册)
(c) 原则上建议在竞赛题目中至少有两题是简单题
(d) 设立优秀命题奖
(e) 比赛应集中在一个至少容纳 90 队的场地内进行(如学校的体育馆等)
(f) 竞赛数据必须提供给指导委员会但不公开
(g) 参赛费提前收费
(h) 对于违反参赛资格规定，
(i)将通报违例情况，取消该校在当年中国内地各赛区成绩(effective 2007)
(ii) 并在下一年的中国内地各赛区禁赛一年。(effective 2008)
(End of Rules)