We are reporting on lessons learned from an e-contest for students held during the current pandemic. We compare the e-contest with the 10 previous editions of the same but face-to-face contest. While apparently the competition did not suffer because of being a virtual one, some disadvantages were noted. The main conclusions are: the basic interconnectivity means arise no serious technical issue, but the interconnectivity is more limited than the face-to-face one; online jury-competitors interactivity is poorer than face-to-face interactivity; human factors, higher uncertainties in the organization process, and less time to spend in the process for the local organizers are major limiting factors; concerns on the participation and evaluation fairness are higher; involuntary gender discrimination seems lower, but persists; there are serious concerns related to privacy, including differential privacy; some peculiarities of the presented topics and of the evaluation process emerged, but it is unclear if they are related to the online nature of the competition, to the extra stress on the participants during the pandemic, to other factors, or are random. While some conclusions may be intimately related to the analyzed case, some are general enough for being worth to other online competitions.
The Online Pivot: Lessons Learned from Teaching a Text and Data Mining Course in Lockdown, Enhancing online Teaching with Pair Programming and Digital Badges
University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；University of Edinburgh Business School（爱丁堡大学商学院）
Social Behavior and Mental Health: A Snapshot Survey under COVID-19 Pandemic
University of Science and Technology Beijing（北京科技大学）；Ulster University（阿尔斯特大学）；Missouri University of Science and Technology（密苏里科技大学）；University College Cork（科克大学）
