Rules
April 2004 Competition |
Competition Overview
To complete the ThinkQuest competition, you must:
- Enroll, create your team, and obtain
authorization from your principal, head teacher, or school
administrator (Primary Coach only).
- Build, upload, and test your website.
- Submit your website by clicking the
Submit button (Primary Coach only).
- Enter Peer Review scores. Submit your
scores by clicking the Submit button (Primary Coach only).
- Cross your fingers and wait, as the Judges make
their final decisions.
- Publish your website in the ThinkQuest
Library (Primary Coach only).
Click here for
a printable checklist of the required steps. |
Schedule
| Enrollment Opens |
April 6, 2004 |
| Website Submission Deadline |
September 21, 2004 11:59 pm (Eastern Time) |
| Peer Review Opens |
September 27, 2004 |
| Peer Review Deadline |
October 25, 2004 11:59 pm (Eastern Time) |
| Judging Opens |
November 1, 2004 |
| Judging Closed |
November 30, 2004 11:59 pm (Eastern Time) |
| Winners Announced |
December 15, 2004 |
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Divisions
The minimum age to participate is 9. The maximum age to participate
is 19. Teams choose to compete in one of the three divisions.
- Students ages 12 and under
- Students ages 15 and under
- Students ages 19 and under
You can have a mixed team with
older and younger students. The oldest student in the team
determines the division in which they the team may compete.
Please use the website submission deadline of September 21,
2004 to calculate official ages. |
Prizes
Three prizes are awarded in each of the three divisions (12
and under, 15 and under, 19 and under) along with an overall
Best of Category prize for each competition category.
Each winning team member (students and Primary Coach) will
be eligible to attend ThinkQuest Live @ OracleWorld in San
Francisco, California, USA where they meet face-to-face,
present their work to thousands of conference attendees,
participate in workshops and presentations, and meet some
of the technology industry's most influential leaders (read
about the 2003
ThinkQuest Live at OracleWorld). This trip to San Francisco
is valued at approximately $4,000 USD per winning team member
before income tax gross-up. Winners are responsible for any
applicable taxes.
Winning websites will also earn special recognition in the ThinkQuest
Library. |
Team Requirements
Teams work together to research their subject matter and create
an educational website under the leadership of a Coach. Teams
may be comprised of students and a coach from within a single
classroom, or students and coaches working together from
different countries. Multi-country teams and multi-language
websites are encouraged. Teams can have from 3 to 6 student
members and up to 2 coaches (one Primary Coach and one Assistant
Coach). (Please see below for specifics on Coach and Student Requirements.)
- Each team
must have one Primary Coach.
- Each team must submit their website
by the website submission deadline.
- Each team
will be required to participate in the Peer Review process
in order to qualify for Final Judging.
- All of the students on a
team must be the correct age for their Division as of
the website submission deadline.
- If a team's website is identified
as a prospective winner after Final Judging, a formal Winners
Affidavit will be required to confirm identity.
- Teams can choose to collaborate
online using Oracle's Think.com
environment.
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Coach Requirements
Primary Coach
- The Primary Coach must be employed by an accredited public,
private or parochial school.
- The Primary Coach must accept the Registration
Agreement.
- Before a team can submit
their completed website, an Authorized Person must validate
the Primary Coach's school employment and accept the Entry
Submission Agreement. (An Authorized Person is someone
who can legally bind your school and/or sign legal documents
on behalf of your school.)
- The Primary Coach must oversee the management of the
Assistant Coach ensuring he/she is in compliance with the
ThinkQuest Rules.
Assistant Coach
- Assistant coaches may be employees of an accredited public,
private or parochial school, parents and/or subject-matter
experts.
- The Assistant Coach must abide by these Rules for the
ThinkQuest competition.
In addition, each Primary
or Assistant Coach...
- can coach more than 1 team but no more than 10 per ThinkQuest
competition;
- must act as the point of contact for the team;
- must have an active e-mail address;
- must obtain a signed consent form from the parent/guardian
of each student member of the team (if required by local
law);
- must ensure that each team participates in the Peer Review
process;
- shall provide guidance, administration and practical
assistance to their teams.
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Student Requirements
- Each student must be between the ages of 9 and 19 as
of the website submission deadline.
- Each student must attend an accredited public, private
or parochial school. Homeschooled students may participate
so long as they are part of a team that is associated with
an accredited public, private or parochial school (i.e.,
Primary Coach is an employee of an accredited public, private
or parochial school and other team members are affiliated
with an accredited school).
- Each student is expected to make significant contributions
to the success of their project.
- Students must be responsible for
the actual design and development of their website, including
the selection, research and development of its content.
- A student may only belong to one
team.
|
Evaluation Criteria
Please review the Evaluation
Criteria thoroughly before developing your website. The
criteria were developed in coordination with the Buck Institute for Education and
will be used to evaluate sites submitted to the ThinkQuest
competition. Click here to read the Evaluation Criteria. |
Topic Categories
For the April 2004 Competition, website
topics must fit into one of the following six competition categories:
Water
Engineering
Conservation
Music
Colonialism & Conquest
Open Category
To view examples of topics that fit
into each category, click on the individual links above. Please
note that entries are constrained only to the topic
category, not to the specific topic examples.
The examples are intended only to spark your imagination! |
Website Requirements
ThinkQuest is committed to ensuring the safety and privacy
of the many young people who create and use websites in the
ThinkQuest Library. To prevent students' personal information
from being posted in the Library, websites may not contain
any of the following:
- Student last names;
- Student email addresses or personal contact information
(teacher or adult email addresses are acceptable);
- Guestbook;
- Discussion board / forum / chat.
All web teams must include a page called "About
this Project" that includes the following
information:
- Teamwork: an overview of the relationship between the
team members, such as how they met and whether they go
to the same school or not;
- Contribution of team members: a description of the roles
that each team member played during the planning, research
and production of the website;
- Role of mentor or coach: a description of the role and
contributions of the Coach(es) for the team, with particular
attention to how the Coach(es) facilitated the learning
of the student team;
- how often, when and where the team met with one another;
- if applicable, how multi-country teams were formed.
Content should represent the original work of the student
team members and should not include plagiarism or copyright
violations. All websites must include citations for all information
and images used. Sources may be listed on each page or on
a separate bibliography page. |
Languages
Website entries must be submitted in English or Spanish
as the primary language. Points will be given for translating
from either primary language to the other, or for translation
into any other language.
Although website content may contain multiple languages, file
names and directories must be in basic ASCII format (no
accents). |
Technical Requirements
Since ThinkQuest website entries should be educational in
nature, an emphasis on developing robust content is key.
Content should be built to run with a browser.
- Browser-based technologies such as Flash, Java script,
dhtml, style sheets and applets are supported.
- Server-based technologies such as PHP, Perl, SSI, Java,
and FrontPage extensions* are not supported.
Teams will have two methods for uploading files to the ThinkQuest
server: the ThinkQuest web-based file upload tool and WebDAV.
Both methods are fully explained in Help.
Teams will not be given SFTP or shell access.
*FrontPage can be used to design and build your website,
but FrontPage's server-side extensions and publishing utilities
are not supported. |
Peer Review
Teams will submit their websites into two phases of evaluation.
The first phase is Peer Review. Each team will be required
to review a number of websites submitted by their peers.
The number of websites each team will be required to review
will be announced once all websites have been submitted.
Teams will be required to review only the announced number
of websites. All sites will be distributed in random fashion.
The Peer Review system will be accessible on
September 27, 2004. The coach is responsible for ensuring
that all team members participate in the Peer Review process. Participation
in Peer Review is a requirement and your team will not be
eligible for Final Judging unless Peer Review has been completed. |
Judging
Upon completion of the Peer Review Process, the second phase
of evaluation begins. The second phase is known as "Final
Judging". An international panel of judges will determine
the overall winners of the April 2004 Competition.
The Judges will be selected and recruited
by ThinkQuest Staff and ThinkQuest Partners. Judges are
required to have a minimum of 5 years experience in the
general field of education OR must be currently employed
as a teacher. Individuals who are coaching teams enrolled
in the current competition cannot participate as Judges.
Each decision of the ThinkQuest Staff
and each decision of any of the ThinkQuest Judges, shall,
in all respects, be final and shall not be subject to review.
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Library
The ThinkQuest
Library is a robust collection of informative and useful
websites from thousands of teams that have participated in
previous ThinkQuest competitions. These ThinkQuest websites
have become educational resources for students, educators and
the general internet community around the world.
All qualified websites from the April 2004 Competition will
be added to the ThinkQuest Library as public websites on
the Internet for a one year period. Winning
websites and popular websites are displayed prominently in
the Library and will remain online longer. Sites will
be tracked for popularity and rated for usefulness. Coaches of
team websites that qualify to enter the ThinkQuest Library
will be notified via email. |
Disqualification
A team may be disqualified from participating in the April
2004 Competition if:
- There has been no timely and proper submission of the
website;
- There is a violation of any portion of these Rules, Registration Agreement,
or Website Entry
Submission Agreement;
- A team has intentionally or negligently gained unauthorized
access to, or misused, the ThinkQuest website or server
by gaining access to areas that the team does not have
the explicit right to use or for using the server for purposes
not related to the development and deployment of the ThinkQuest
competition;
- Website content exceeds the 50 mb limitation;
- A team or its members have been disqualified from prior
Competitions for failure to comply with the Rules and the
Registration Agreement or are otherwise known to have misappropriated
copyright materials or other information belonging to third
parties;
- The ThinkQuest Staff deems the content of the website
inappropriate from an educational standpoint;
- Information about a team member (i.e., personal identifiable
information) is found to be false or inaccurate;
- A team fails to complete the Peer Review process by the
deadline provided;
- A team fails to complete the Winners Affidavit.
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Modifications
ThinkQuest Staff may extend any program deadline and will post
any changes on the ThinkQuest website.
ThinkQuest is a program of the Oracle Education Foundation.
Please visit http://www.helpushelp.org/ for
more information.
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