See also
(This announcement was made in August 2023 - by now most of the software for students and teachers has already been rewritten - still some work needs to be done for th organiser view.)
For the past 10 years Belgium has been running Rasbeb with great succes as its contest management software for the Bebras challenge. For various reasons - see Why upgrade - we are now on the verge of rewriting that software.
As the lead developer of Rasbeb 2 I would like to take this opportunity to make an offer (and maybe ask for a little help?).
I offer free use of the Rasbeb 2 software to other countries, especially (but not exclusively) those that are in a similar situation as ours (i.e., little money, few people, not hundreds of thousands of participants, …). I am prepared to make small changes and/or additions to cater to your specific needs and can help setting up the system on your server. (See also disclaimer below.)
The software will be open source. The specifications are available at https://rasbeb2.ugent.be/. The old version (student side) can be tried out anonymously at https://bebras.ugent.be/ - unfortunately currently only in Dutch and French.
We plan to have Rasbeb 2 finished in time for the November 2024 challenge, with test versions available in the beginning of 2024.
For now, I manage writing and maintaining this software on my own (occasionally supported by a student). This is however not viable in the long run. Rasbeb would benefit a lot from having a development team of size greater than one, preferably based in more than one country. So if you want to use Rasbeb and can also spare some development time, that would be very much appreciated. Maybe Rasbeb development could even be integrated into some kind of student project?
I welcome input from other developers. Even if you cannot spare the time to look at the full specs, any comment would be useful on what to avoid and how to get certain details precisely correct. E.g, I have little experience with interactive questions (which were not available in Rasbeb 1).
Kris Coolsaet
This offer only applies to the Rasbeb software. I cannot provide you with server space, I will not help configure contest details in the application, translate or upload tasks to the system, serve as a help desk for your teachers and students, … In short, you can use our software on your own server, but you remain responsible for every other aspect of organizing the Bebras contest in your country. (I will try to iron out any bugs that turn up.)