  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.
