Coordinators’ Instructions 2019

Contents
A. GDPR and Privacy
1. Policy Authentication – page 2

B. Uploading students
2. Login Screen – page 3
3. Preparing your spreadsheet – page 3
4. Add Students – page 5
5. Anonymised entries – page 7
6. Register blank users – page 7

C. Before Bebras fortnight

7. Checking everything is OK – page 8
8. Running a test – page 8
9. Making username and password slips – page 9

D. During Bebras fortnight

10. On the day of the challenge – page 10
11. Create a new student account – page 10
12. How teams work (Castors and Kits only) – page 11

E. After Bebras fortnight

13. Getting results and certificates – page 12
14. Getting answers and Review Mode – page 12

F. Types of teacher
15. Teacher user types – page 12

G. Staying in touch and getting help

16. Trouble solving – page 13
17. Keeping up to date with proceedings – page 13
18. Contact details – page 13

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A. GDPR and Privacy
1. Policy Authentication
To access the tools required to upload students, get results, etc. until you have confirmed you have read our
Privacy Policy and given us consent to email teachers at your school. These are accessed by pressing the Edit
button at the bottom of this page:

Each year we will reset these checkboxes to encourage you to re-check our policies.

You may wish to send your school's data protection officer a link to the Privacy Policy so they can see what
terms and assurances our given in our policy.

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B. Uploading Students
2. Login screen
After logging in to
challenge.bebras.uk/admin/
click on the MANAGE STUDENTS button
and then login.

On the right is what you will see when you

first log in as a coordinator.

There may be a warning message saying

there is incomplete address data. Please fill in
as many school details as you can by pressing
the Edit button.

3. Preparing your spreadsheet

We will use the English and Welsh year grade to define a student's age and which contest they should enter.
Schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland will need to use the table on the next page to convert their year
groups to the English and Welsh year integer.

Multiple spreadsheets can be uploaded and imported as you prepare them. Each spreadsheet can easily be
unimproved from this section so there is no stress involved. This means you can choose to add a single class
at a time or the whole school in one go. The system can cope with Excel spreadsheets or CSVs.

Step 1 Open a spreadsheet and set up the following 6 columns (example data is also shown):

6g
7b
8c

Information about each column is given on the next page.

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Column Notes:
Class: Your reference to help you sort your results when they are exported after the challenge.
Grade (English): It is VERY IMPORTANT to correctly specify which competition the students are
entered into by choosing the correct code integer in the Grade (English) column, Schools from Scotland
and N.I. should use the conversion table shown below:
England & Wales Northern Ireland Scotland Grade to enter Competition
(English system)
Year 2 Year 3 P2 2 Kits
Year 3 Year 4 P3 3 Kits
Year 4 Year 5 P4 4 Castors
Year 5 Year 6 P5 5 Castors
Year 6 Year 7 P6 6 Juniors
Year 7 Year 8 P7 7 Juniors
Year 8 Year 9 S1 8 Intermediates
Year 9 Year 10 S2 9 Intermediates
Year 10 Year 11 S3 10 Seniors
Year 11 Year 12 S4 11 Seniors
Year 12 Year 13 S5 12 Elite
Year 13 Year 14 S6 13 Elite

Firstname: Enter the students first name.

Lastname: Enter the students last name.
Password: If this column is left blank, the system will generate the passwords. Note carefully: The system
will generate random passwords which start with P and then have 5 numbers e.g. P39674. Alternatively you
may set your own. Please supply a different password for each student. This can easily be achieved by using
your school initials plus a 1 e.g. abc1 and then copying down as a sequence. The spreadsheet will generate
abc2, abc3, etc. (To enable export of passwords to Excel they are stored in plain text. You are advised not to
use important passwords.)
Gender: This column may be used by us for research into gender bias of the questions, etc. This will only
be done on completely anonymised data. All students data is deleted each August. Please enter only
male or female. Note that the student can see their own data so do not add a gender for students who are non-
binary or unsure of their gender as they may not like this.

Step 2 Add the data from your class lists or MIS. Make sure that you check it is still in the format required
by Bebras (e.g. search and replace M with male)

Step 3 Save your files with a sensible name ready for import.

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4. Add students
To upload your students with the pre-prepared spreadsheets follow these quick steps.
Step 1
Log in to challenge.bebras.uk/admin/.

Step 2
Click on Import Files and then Upload.

Step 3
Ensure the checkboxes match the
columns in your spreadsheet:

Step 4
Click Browse, find your prepared
file and then press Save.

NOTE The X is to remove the file. It does not mean there is a problem.

Step 5
Having uploaded your file click Import Now.

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Step 6
Check all is in order:
• Column names match table headings
• You have checked the contains headers checkbox
Then click Import.

Checking everything is OK
Click on Students - all looks fine in this example.

Use the New button to add new

students individually. (See section 11)

Click on the Export to Excel button

to see the students' passwords.

Click on a student's name to see more details and Edit those details.

Managing your files

Click on Import Files to manage all of your imports and upload more files if required.

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5. Anonymised entries
This is NOT encouraged as it will mean we cannot distribute named certificates to download. Please see the
Privacy Notice on bebras.uk to see how we handle this data and note that we do not collect students’ contact
information and never attempt to contact them. UK Bebras only ever contacts teachers and always deletes
students’ information from our databases each August. If students are eligible to appear on the Hall of
Fame, the teachers are asked to seek their students permission separately before this is added. All
information passed to and from challenge.bebras.uk by students or teachers is now handled securely through
an HTTPS connection. Nevertheless, it is understood that some schools may be required to enter students
anonymously. It is recommended that the following system is used when creating your CSVs:

Firstname column: Enter the real firstname

Lastname column: Use a custom created student ID number of your making
Username column: Do not include this column - the system will combine the Firstname and Lastname
and ensure this field is unique. You can download these later.
Password column: Do not include this column - the system will generate one.

6. Register blank users

If you don’t have time to generate a list of your students, there is also the possibility to generate so called
‘Skeleton Users’. Note: On the day, the students will have to enter their names.

Warning: This system is NOT recommended for Junior Schools because, on the day,
helping children to enter their usernames, passwords and then their names can take
40 minutes!

Step 1
Log in to the admin system and click on Skeleton Users, a screen will appear with a suggested Username
Prefix, the Number of users to create and the Grade required.
Fill in these three fields and click on Create to create that number of skeleton users. Repeat for other ages.

Step 2
To download logins, click on Export files. You will be able to export a list by clicking on Export_CSV
or Export_XLS. The file will contain usernames and passwords that can be used to take one Bebras Challenge
each.

Once the students log in they can enter their names. Those names will only be used for the certificate they
get after the challenge, we respect their privacy and will not publish anything without you knowing.

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C. Before Bebras fortnight
7. Checking everything is OK
The easiest way to do this is to let each class that is going to take part try one of the archived challenges
using their own student accounts in the room where they are going to be doing this year's challenge.
VERY IMPORTANT: Do not issue them with their usernames and passwords. This could embarrass your
students if they login to the actual challenge before they are supposed to – they will find themselves out of
time when they get to the lesson and it will look like they had tried to cheat. They do not need to login to use
the past challenges.

If the students can all take part OK then you can skip this and the next section:
1. Make sure that student accounts on your system are allowed to use javascript.
2. Make sure all of your student accounts can login to and are not blocked by any school filters from using
this address:
https://challenge.bebras.uk (where the contest is hosted)
3. Run a thorough test of each lab the competition will be sat in, in case the computers have been set up
with different permissions (or is that just my school?) If you are using iPads also run a test on those. (See
section 5.)
4. Ask your IT Manager how many different student account types they have set up and test them all!

8. Running a test
Login to a computer with a student’s account. If your school has different permissions for each age group
then it is wise to use the most restricted students accounts for testing.

Open a browser and point it to challenge.bebras.uk

Click on Challenges

Click on one of the Practice Challenge 2018 links to test.

Feel free to let your students try these themselves.

They will not need to log in.

If you want your students to do a timed past challenge

and be able to download the results, use the Quizzes facility from:
challenge.bebras.uk (Instructions are in Documents)

VERY IMPORTANT:
Do NOT issue passwords to students until the lesson when they are entering the challenge.

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9. Making username and password slips
Make sure that each of your supervising teachers has a list of students’ usernames and passwords printed out
to allocate to students on the challenge day. These can be made into slips and handed out to students:

Click on Students and then the Export to Excel button.

Hide all columns except Firstname, Surname, Username and Password columns. Increase the text size
slightly and print out. Cut all the names into thin strips so that these can be given out at the door or placed
near computers when students enter the competition room on the day.

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D. During Bebras fortnight
10. On the day of the challenge
1. Make sure students are at a computer and know their username and password. This can easily be
achieved by printing out the names and usernames and then cutting them into strips. These can be handed
to students as they come in or put near computers. (See section 6 to see how to do this.)

Participants can have a pencil, paper and calculator should they wish.

IMPORTANT: Make sure no paper with notes of any sort leaves the competition room.

2. Ask the students to point their browser to: challenge.bebras.uk

3. Check they understand the rubric and then start them off.

The time allowed is 40 minutes. The time starts when the students click the Challenges tab at the top of
the page and then press START.

4. Inform the students they are not expected to finish! The Challenge is to correctly solve as many problems
as they can in the time available.

Problem Solving:
• If the computer of a student crashes, just move the student to another computer. He or she can login on
that computer and continue with the contest.
• If an individual’s username and password does not let them in to the competition, you can quickly set up a
new account for them by logging into your admin account and following the procedure in the next section:

11. Create a new student account

First log in here: challenge.bebras.uk/admin/
Then click the New button.

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You should only fill in the Firstname, Lastname, Gender, Class and Grade.
It is best to let the system generate a unique Username and Password.

You can set up test accounts this way. If you do so, please ensure you set the surname as Test. This will make
it easy for us to filter out these results at the end of the Challenge. We recommend you do not do this but
instead sign in as a student but with your admin username and password. You can then easily delete your
attempt and try again repeatedly.

Make sure you choose the correct Grade (English) so that your students are in the correct age group.
(see Table on page 4.)

12. How teams work (Castors and Kits only)

The maximum number of students allowed in a team is 4. Three in a team is probably best.

1. Before the event enter all of your students on to the system as normal.
2. On the day the children huddle around the computer in their teams. One child logs in as normal, picks
the contest and is met with a screen like this:

3. The other team members can then login. When the team is complete someone presses Start.
The 40 minutes begin.

Note: Teams do not have to be picked until the day. This is to allow for absences. etc.

New for 2019: Only one student in each team needs to login. You will be able to add the others afterwards.
You will need to have a seating plan printed out which you amend on the day if changes need to be made.

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E. After Bebras fortnight
13. Getting results and certificates
These are usually available to download one week after the Challenge closes.
Log in to challenge.bebras.uk/admin/

Then click on Export Files and download the files shown below.

If there are problems with the certificates there will be further instructions on what to do and some blank
certificate templates to be found in Documents by this time.

14. Getting answers and Review Mode.

As well as a full set of results we also publish a full answer book. Initially this is made available to
coordinators as a confidential document. This is because publishing it can compromise other countries
competitions. It is obtainable from the Documents section of your admin site. This can be distributed to
teachers but should not be shared with students at this stage or posted on any Virtual Learning area. It
provides you and your teachers with the answers, strategies and details about how the task is related to
Computer Science and which computational thinking skills could be used to solve the problems.

In addition, after the competition and marking, the online Challenge is set to Review Mode. This enables the
students who have taken part to log back in and see their score, which tasks they got right and to have
another go at those they did not. The teacher can then use the answer book to guide the students through
this should you wish to.

F. Types of Teacher
14. Teacher user types
Coordinator (main) apply to UK Bebras through the national system and are approved by the national
administrators. They are then able to add other Coordinators in the Coordinators section with the New
button. After adding a new coordinator to the school the main coordinator can assign them to the role of
teacher or even main coordinator. The main coordinator can import students etc.

Coordinator can do everything the main coordinator can, except add and assign roles to other users.

Teacher can only run quizzes, they do not have any ability to help organise the official challenges.

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G. Staying in touch and getting help
16. Trouble solving
Unfortunately there are always going to be occasions when things do not go as smoothly as they should. This
might be due to a particular task being blocked for a school because an over zealous filter somewhere
believes it is a "shopping" or "gaming" site, or the school experienced a poor internet connection for a
period, or even a problem on our side.

If a computer crashes:
Move the student to a new one, let them login again and carry on. If you have a spare computer ready this
should cause very little lost time.

The internet goes down, fire alarm, etc:

This is why we have moved to a fortnight to allow schools to re-schedule such lessons. If the students have
started, send us a list of the usernames affected and we can reset those students' accounts so they can start
again from time zero on another occasion during the fortnight. Be very careful with this as students who do
not want their accounts wiped can get quite upset.

If a question is not working properly:

Keep a note of the question title and which students were affected, tell the students to ignore this task and
then let us know about it. We will try and fix the problem and work with you to provide appropriate
compensation to ensure that no student is disadvantaged.

Anything else:
Contact info@bebras.uk for advice at the earliest opportunity.

17. Keeping up to date with proceedings

During Bebras fortnight, and afterwards, an information blog is posted. Here you can see how many people
have taken part, if there have been any problems schools have had that we have found fixes for, and when
results and certificates are released.

Try and visit bebras.uk/coordinators.html every evening during the first week to keep up to date with what is
going on.

18. Contact details

The fastest way to get support is to send an email to info@bebras.uk. This servers are monitored 24 hours a
day during the fortnight and the email address is monitored from 8.30am to 5pm during week-days during
the fortnight. A phone number is also provided during this time but experience says that this is usually slower
than via email as I am not very fast at typing out details while on the phone!

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