From: "=?windows-1251?Q?Velin=20K=20Tzanov?=" Subject: Re: [IOI] [IOI-announce] Syllabus Feedback accepted until 30 November 2006 Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 13:14:19 -0500 Dear Prof. Verhoeff, My name is Velin Tzanov and I am a former contestant ('01, '02) and a future member of the Scientific Committee ('09). Here is the feedback I'd like to provide on the syllabus proposal: In my opinion, the question of what is included in the syllabus right now is far less important than the question of what the rules for changing the syllabus would be. The former has only near-term consequences, while the latter has far-reaching long-term consequences. The greatest danger in a Syllabus, as you also mentioned in your paper, is that it may serve to severely restrict the progress of the IOI, in terms of the naturally evolving technical difficulty of the tasks. It is extremely important to make sure that the procedure for changing the syllabus does not prevent the proper adjustment of the difficulty level of the Olympiad in accordance with the development of the field of Computer Science (both on the high school level and in general) and in accordance with the contestants' abilities. If the authority for changing the syllabus lies exclusively in the General Assembly, then the ability of the Scientific Committee to expand the syllabus with new, relatively difficult items would be in great jeopardy. If we imagine that every team leader is rational and wants to optimize the chances for success of his/her contestants, he/she would be very likely to approve only additions of items that his/her contestants are already comfortable with, or items that require a similar skill level to what his/her contestants already have. In such case, only items of medium or lower difficulty would be able to make it through the syllabus-change approval process and in the long term the IOI would cease to be a top-level competition, as it would lose its ability to advance in accordance with the development of the field and the development of the skills of the top-level contestants. In the worst-case scenario, we would end up with a competition that "everybody can win", in which w inning the first place depends mostly on chance rather than on skill. In my opinion, the spirit of top-level, international competitions, such as the IOI, requires them to be leading the development of the high school education in their respective fields. This can only be achieved if they set the bar higher than the current average level and thus encourage those on the average level to work harder and improve. Leaving the decision-making process regarding the difficulty level of the IOI on a majority vote, in a situation where short-term goals (e.g. how to achieve optimal results on the coming contest) are likely to override long-term goals (e.g. setting the bar high, so that our educational systems can have a higher standard to shoot for), might destroy the ability of the IOI to be such a leading, highest-level, standard-setting contest. In light of the above, my proposal is to make sure that the International Scientific Committee has authority to change the syllabus without needing an explicit approval by the General Assembly. If this proposal is deemed unacceptable for some reason, a modified version would be to allow the ISC to make temporary, 2-year changes to the Syllabus, which would then require the vote of the GA to stay permanent. This would at least give the leaders and contestants time to learn the new material, thus making it much more likely that they would approve it once they are already comfortable with it. I would definitely appreciate it very much if you could please keep me in the loop of any discussions regarding the rules and mechanisms for changing the syllabus. Thank you very much! Sincerely yours, Velin Tzanov