Systems and methods for screening submissions in production competitions

• US 20070288107A1
• Filed: 05/01/2006
• Published: 12/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TopCoder, Inc. (Wipro Limited)
• Original Assignee: TopCoder, Inc. (Wipro Limited)
• Inventors: Fernandez-Ivern, Javier, Messinger, David, Hughes, John
• Granted Patent: US 10,783,458 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/91
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data

Abstract

The invention relates to a system and method for screening submissions in a production contest system. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a production competition submission from a contestant, automatically screening the submission with a screening system to verify that the submission meets predetermined requirements, and providing feedback to the contestant and a contest administrator regarding the results of whether the submission meets the predetermined requirements.

Claims

1. A method for screening submissions in a production contest system, comprising:

receiving a production competition submission from a contestant;

automatically screening the submission with a screening system upon receipt of the submission to verify that the submission meets predetermined requirements; and

providing to the contestant results of whether the submission meets the predetermined requirements.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, authenticating the contestant prior to submission.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising, registering the contestant for participation in the contest prior to submission.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined requirements comprise requirements for file names, file types, and directory structures.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the screening system comprises a pluggable framework that allows configuration of the screening system for a particular production competition.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the screening system comprises a file type rule validator.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the screening system comprises a component specification rule validator.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the screening system comprises a log file rule validator.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein the screening system comprises a UML rule validator.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the screening system comprises a source code rule validator.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein the screening system comprises a style rule validator.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the screening system comprises a personal information rule validator that determines whether a submission contains information identifying the submitter.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to the receiving step, receiving configuration information for configuring the screening system for the requirements of a production competition.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the predetermined requirements are formal requirements.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing to a screener the results of whether the submission meets the predetermined requirements.

16. The method of claim 16, further comprising conducting a substantive review of the submission by a reviewer, wherein the reviewer is different than the screener.

17. A method for conducting a computer software production contest, comprising:

configuring a screening system with information specific to the requirements of a computer software production contest, the screening system for verifying that submissions meet predetermined requirements;

communicating to contestants requirements for production of a submission;

receiving production competition submissions from some of the contestants;

automatically screening the contestants'"'"' submissions upon receipt of each submission with the screening system configured with the configuration data to verify that the submissions meet predetermined requirements; and

providing to submitting contestants results of whether their respective submissions meet the predetermined requirements.

18. A production contest system, comprising:

a receiver for receiving a production competition submission from a contestant;

a screening system for automatically screening the submission upon receipt of the submission to verify that the submission meets predetermined requirements; and

a transmitter for providing to the contestant results of whether the submission meets the predetermined requirements.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising configuration data for configuring the screening system for the requirements of the production competition.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the screening system further comprises validators, each of the validators for validating rules specified in the configuration data.