Optil.io: Cloud Based Platform For Solving Optimization Problems Using Crowdsourcing Approach

Abstract

The main objective of the presented research is to design a platform for continuous evaluation of optimization algorithms using crowdsourcing technique. The resulting platform, called Optil.io, runs in a cloud using platform as a service model and allows researchers from all over the world to collaboratively solve computational problems. This is the approach that has been already proved to be very successful for data mining problems by web services such as Kaggle. During our project we adapted this concept for solving computational problems that require implementation of software. To achieve this we designed the on-line judge system that receives algorithmic solutions in a form of source code from the crowd of programmers, compiles it, executes in a homogeneous run-time environment and objectively evaluates using the set of test cases. It was verified during internal experiments at the Poznan University of Technology and it is now ready to be presented to wider audience.