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*Rules were updated on January 20, 2006 where indicated
below.
ThinkQuest is a project-based learning challenge in which
students and teachers from around the world collaborate
to author innovative content that will be published in the
popular ThinkQuest
Library. ThinkQuest is sponsored by the Oracle Education Foundation
("Foundation").
By participating in the ThinkQuest competition ("Competition"),
each team member accepts the conditions stated in these
Rules, agrees to be bound by the decisions of the Judges
and warrants that s/he is eligible to participate in the
Competition. |
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Schedule |
August 15, 2005
Team Enrollment opens
March 22, 2006
Preliminary Entry Submission Deadline:
3:00 pm EST
March 23, 2006
Peer Review Begins
April 19, 2006
Peer Review Deadline: 3:00 pm EST
May 10, 2006
Final Entry Submission Deadline: 3:00 pm
EST
May 11, 2006
Judging Begins
June 16, 2006 (Updated)
Judging Ends
June 21, 2006
Winners Announced
The Foundation may extend any Competition deadline upon
3 days written notice to the Primary Coach and will post
any changes on the ThinkQuest website at
http://www.thinkquest.org/.
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Competition
Requirements |
| To participate in the ThinkQuest competition, you must:
1. Enroll your team;
have the Primary Coach acknowledge agreement, on behalf
of the team, to the Competition Registration Agreement; and obtain agreement from the
Primary Coach’s principal or authorized school administrator
to the Entry Submission Agreement.
2. Submit your entry. A
completed entry ("Entry") consists of TWO items:
- The collection of website files the team has produced
and successfully uploaded to the ThinkQuest server (the
"Website"), and
- A completed online form providing requested information
about the team and its Website, accessed by logging in
to www.thinkquest.org ("Site Profile")
Peer Reviewers and Judges (see below) will evaluate the
content of both the Website and Site Profile. Teams that
do not submit an Entry by the Preliminary Entry Submission
Deadline (March 22, 2006) will be disqualified.
3. Submit Peer Review scores and feedback for other
teams.
Each team will review Entries submitted by their peers and
provide constructive feedback. Teams that do not submit
the required number of Peer Reviews by the Peer Review Deadline
(April 19, 2006) will be disqualified.
4. Read your team's Peer Review feedback and make
any final edits to your Entry.
Peer Review feedback will be distributed to each team following
the Peer Review Deadline. Teams then have the opportunity
to make additional edits to their Websites and Site Profiles
before the Final Entry Submission Deadline (May 10, 2006).
After the Final Entry Submission Deadline, teams will no
longer have access to their ThinkQuest server space or Site
Profile.
5. Cross your fingers and wait, as the Judges make
their final decisions.
An independent panel of judges ("Judges") will
select the winners. Winners will be announced on the ThinkQuest
website on June 21, 2006. Judges' scores will not be posted
or publicized.
Click here for a printable
checklist
containing all the required steps in more detail
In the event one or more teams misses a Competition deadline
due solely to a technical failure or malfunction of the
Foundation’s online submission system, computer equipment,
software programs, or user interface server (as determined
by the Foundation), then the Foundation may, but is not
obligated to, extend such deadline in its sole discretion,
upon notice to the Primary Coach of such team(s).
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Age Divisions |
For students, the minimum age to participate is 9 and
the maximum age to participate is 19. Teams choose to compete
in one of three age divisions:
- Age 12 and under
- Age 15 and under
- Age 19 and under
Teams are permitted to include older and younger student
members. The age of the oldest student
on the team will determine the age division in which the
team may compete. All of the students on a team must be
the correct age for their age division on the day of the
Final Entry Submission Deadline (May 10, 2006). |
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Team Requirements |
Team Composition:
- A team must be comprised of three to six student members
and one Primary Coach.
- A team may also include one Assistant Coach (optional).
- A team may have no more than two student members who
have been members of a winning ThinkQuest team in the
past.
- Teams may be comprised of students and coaches from
within a single classroom or from many different classrooms,
communities, or countries around the world. Multi-location
teams and multi-language Websites are encouraged.
- If information about any team member (i.e., personally
identifiable information) is found to be false or inaccurate,
the entire team will be disqualified.
Coach Requirements:
Coaches may provide guidance, administration, and practical
assistance to their teams. Coaches may help students form
teams and locate resources (human, technical, and information).
Coaches may NOT work directly on the Website.
The Primary Coach must:
- be employed by an accredited school and working in
a teaching or resource capacity (e.g., teacher, librarian,
technology coordinator, etc.)
- be at least age 21 OR the age of legal majority in his/her
country/state of citizenship, whichever is older, on the
day of the Final Entry Submission Deadline (May 10, 2006)
- accept the Competition Registration
Agreement
- have an Authorized Person validate his/her school employment
and accept the Entry Submission Agreement
on behalf of his/her school. (An “Authorized
Person” is someone with legal signing authority
for the Primary Coach's school. Generally, this is a principal,
head teacher, or other administrator.)
- obtain a signed permission form from the parent/guardian
of each student member of the team, if required by local
law. (See Coach Resources for a sample permission form)
- provide an active email address during coach enrollment,
so that s/he may act as the point of contact for the team.
(The Foundation assumes no responsibility for undeliverable
emails resulting from an invalid email address, any form
of email filtering by a user’s internet service
provider and/or email client, or insufficient space in
user’s email account.)
The Assistant Coach, if any, must:
- be at least age 20 on the day of the Final Entry Submission
Deadline (May 10, 2006) OR must have won an award in at
least two prior ThinkQuest competitions
- not be a student member of any current team
Student Requirements:
Students are responsible for the actual design and development
of their Entry, including the selection, research, and development
of its content. Each student must make significant contributions
to the success of the team and be a full participant in
the development of the Entry.
Each student must:
- be no younger than age 9 and no older than age 19 on
the day of the Final Entry Submission Deadline (May 10,
2006)
- be the correct age for his/her division on the day
of the Final Entry Submission Deadline (May 10, 2006),
as determined by the age of the oldest member on his/her
team
- be actively enrolled as a student at an accredited
school. Home-schooled students may participate so long
as they are members of a team that is associated with
an accredited school (i.e., Primary Coach is an employee
of an accredited school)
- be a member of only one team
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Evaluation
Criteria |
| Teams should review the Evaluation
Criteria thoroughly before developing their Entries. The
Evaluation Criteria were developed in coordination with the
Buck Institute for Education,
Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning,
and Sara Armstrong Consulting, and will be used to evaluate all
Competition Entries. |
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Topic Categories |
Website topics must fit into one of the following twelve
categories, which correspond to the top-level navigation
categories in the ThinkQuest Library:
To view examples of topics in each category, click on the
links above. The examples have been included only to spark
your imagination. Teams can also visit the ThinkQuest Library for more ideas.
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Entry Requirements |
Content:
- Websites previously submitted in ThinkQuest competitions
are ineligible for submission.
- Websites may not contain profanity, vulgar language,
or statements that promote hatred towards an individual,
race, or community.
- Websites may not contain any commercial advertising
that promotes the explicit sale of an item directly via
the Website.
Use of Copyrighted Materials:
Websites must be the original creation of the team and
must contain complete and accurate citations and/or permissions
for all sources used. By submitting an Entry, team members
represent that they have the unrestricted right to submit
the Website and the Website does not infringe upon any third
party's proprietary or other rights. Plagiarism or copyright
violation will result in disqualification.
For purposes of these Rules, "plagiarism" is
defined as either (a) copying or stealing another’s
words or ideas and attributing those words or ideas as your
own, or (b) any extensive copying of another person’s
work that results in the Entry not being substantially the
original work of the team members, regardless of whether
the copied work is cited.
While students are encouraged to seek guidance from coaches,
parents, friends, published sources and other collaborators
via the internet, students must do their own work and must
not permit any person (other than student members of the
team) to perform such work and must not copy the materials
(words, images, data, audio and video files, and other media)
of others, except as permitted below:
- Websites may include material that was created by another
person before January 1, 1918 so long
as an accurate citation is provided within the Website.
- Websites may include material that was created by another
person on or after January 1, 1918 so
long as written permission to quote or use such material
is obtained as required by the creator or owner of such
intellectual property AND an accurate citation is provided
within the Website. Teams must also be able to provide
a copy of such permission to the Foundation, if requested.
- Websites may include a very short quotation from materials
printed in newspapers, magazines, and books so long as
it is reasonably necessary to illustrate a point, give
appropriate credit to an author, or help users understand
a subject, AND an accurate citation is provided within
the Website.
See Coach Resources for further guidelines and assistance concerning
citations
Student Safety & Privacy:
In order to comply with the Foundation’s efforts
to prevent the publication of personal student information
in the Library, Website and Site Profile content may NOT
contain any of the following:
- Student last names
- Student email addresses or personal contact information
(generic team or coach email addresses are acceptable)
- Guestbooks
- Discussion boards / forums / chat areas
The Foundation may, in its sole discretion, remove any
such items from Entries. For more information regarding
ThinkQuest’s privacy policies, please read the Privacy Policy.
Language:
The Website and Site Profile, as well as other communications
submitted to ThinkQuest, must be in English.
Translation of the Website into additional languages is
acceptable; however, Judges will evaluate the English language
version of the Website.
Although Website content may be translated into multiple
languages, file and directory names must be in basic ASCII
format (no accents or non-Western characters).
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Technical Requirements |
| Supported Technologies:
Website content must be built to run within 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,
CGI, and FrontPage extensions* are NOT supported.
*FrontPage may be used to design and build your Website,
but FrontPage's server-side extensions and publishing utilities
are not supported.
Websites should be able to be viewed on different browsers
and platforms and at different connection speeds. Teams
are encouraged to test their Websites on a variety of machines.
Server Usage:
All final Website content must be uploaded to the ThinkQuest
server. Content cannot be hosted on an external server.
Each team will be allotted a maximum of 50 mb of
ThinkQuest server space for its Website.
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 provided SFTP or shell access.
A team will be disqualified if any member intentionally
or negligently gains unauthorized access to, or misuses,
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 Entries for the Competition.
ThinkQuest Banner (Updated):
When a team’s Website is published in the ThinkQuest
Library, the ThinkQuest banner will display on each page
of the Website. See Help
for more information. Teams are prohibited from disabling
or otherwise tampering with the banner.
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Judge Requirements |
Judges will be selected by the Foundation and ThinkQuest
Partners. (Foundation staff do NOT serve as Judges.)
- A Judge must have a minimum of five years' experience
in the general field of education OR must be currently
employed as a teacher.
- A Judge must not evaluate the Entry of a team if s/he
is related to any member of the team or otherwise feels
that s/he might be, or appear to be, biased.
- A Judge must not be enrolled as a team member in the
same Competition in which s/he is a Judge.
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Awards & Prizes |
Winners will be selected from all eligible Entries by
an independent panel of Judges on the basis of the Evaluation
Criteria. The Judges’ decisions are final on all
matters relating to the Competition.
Age Division Awards:
Judges will select one Entry for a 1st Place, 2nd Place,
3rd Place, and Honorable Mention award in each of the three
age divisions—12 and under, 15 and under, 19 and under
("Age Division Awards").
Global Perspectives Award:
Judges will select one Entry that demonstrates excellence
in Global Perspectives. The winning Entry will provide outstanding
educational value, promote a sense of global citizenship,
and help to bridge the distances between people. It will
reflect the team's use of its own diversity, as well as
other resources and perspectives ("Global Perspectives
Award").
Each team member (students, Primary Coach, and Assistant
Coach if any) whose Entry is selected for an Age Division
Award or the Global Perspectives Award will receive a prize
("Prize") The Prize includes eligibility to attend
ThinkQuest Live, a prestigious conference and awards event,
AND one of the following technology items based on the award
received:
- 1st Place: Laptop computer with approximate retail
value of $1,500 USD
- 2nd Place: Laptop computer with approximate retail
value of $1,000 USD
- 3rd Place: MP3 player with approximate retail value
of $350 USD
- Honorable Mention: MP3 player with approximate retail
value of $200 USD
- Global Perspectives Award: Digital camera with approximate
retail value of $750 USD
Best of Category Awards:
Judges will select one Entry for a Best of Category Award
in each of the 12 topic categories.
Each team member (students, Primary Coach, and Assistant
Coach if any) whose Entry is selected for a Best of Category
Award will receive a certificate. (Best of Category Award
winners will NOT be eligible to receive a Prize.)
ThinkQuest Live:
Attendance at ThinkQuest Live will include round trip coach
airfare transportation from the airport nearest the winner’s
residence (as determined by the Foundation), approximately
four nights' double occupancy hotel accommodations, and
participation in ThinkQuest Live activities. The trip to
ThinkQuest Live is valued at approximately $4,000 USD per
participant. (In addition, as part of the Prize, winners
that are United States residents will receive a cash amount
of $1,880 USD [amount may vary based on the actual value
of the trip to ThinkQuest Live] to reflect presumed United
States tax liability.)
Each student that has not reached the age of legal majority
in his/her country/state of citizenship must be accompanied
by a Chaperone (parent/legal guardian or an adult that the
parent/legal guardian has authorized in writing to act as
the student's Chaperone), who will also attend ThinkQuest
Live as a guest of the Foundation.
Conditions:
Coaches of prospective winning teams will be notified via
email. ALL members of a winning team (students,
Primary Coach, and Assistant Coach if any) will be required
to sign an affidavit of eligibility and liability release
and, where permitted, a publicity release, regardless of
whether the Prize is claimed. The ENTIRE team may
be disqualified if ANY member of the team does not submit
a valid affidavit and release to the Foundation by the stated
deadline.
Subject to the terms of the affidavit of eligibility and
liability release, winners agree to the use of their name,
likeness, and/or Prize information for promotional purposes
in any medium without additional compensation to the extent
permitted by law, with any such use with respect to minors
to be subject to prior approval of parent or legal guardian.
A tie may be declared for any of the awards. In addition,
any team is eligible to win one or more awards. Members
of teams that win two or more awards that include attendance
at ThinkQuest Live will only be eligible to attend the single
ThinkQuest Live event associated with the competition in
which they received the awards. Also, a student member of
a team that wins two or more awards that include attendance
at ThinkQuest Live will only be eligible to bring one
Chaperone, who will attend as a guest of the Foundation.
Team members that are eligible to attend ThinkQuest Live,
but elect not to attend or are unable to do so, will not
receive a cash equivalent or substitute Prize.
The actual value of the Prize depends on date, origin,
and destination. Any difference between actual value and
stated approximate value will not be awarded.
Winners are responsible for any/all applicable taxes.
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Library |
Entries may be displayed in the ThinkQuest
Library ("Library") for a minimum of one year
from June 21, 2006. However, the Foundation has sole discretion
in determining whether or not to add an Entry to the Library.
Award-winning Entries are displayed prominently in the Library
and may remain online longer, subject to the sole discretion
of the Foundation. Coaches of teams whose Entries will be
displayed in the ThinkQuest Library will be notified via
email.
The Entry Submission Agreement describes certain rights
and licenses granted to the Foundation to use the Entries
in the Library. Please visit the Entry Submission Agreement for
further information regarding these rights. |
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General Conditions |
| This offer is void where prohibited or restricted by law
and is subject to applicable federal, state, and local laws
and regulations.
The Foundation and Judges are not responsible for late,
lost, damaged, incorrect or misdirected Entries, and for
errors, omissions, interruptions, deletions, defects, or
delays in operations or transmission of information, in
each case whether arising by way of technical or other failures
or malfunctions of computer hardware, software, communications
devices, or transmission lines or data corruption, theft,
destruction, unauthorized access to or alteration of Entry
materials, loss or otherwise.
The Foundation reserves the right, at its sole
discretion, to disqualify any team member from this Competition
or any other promotion conducted now or in the future by
the Foundation or any of its affiliates if his or her fraud
or misconduct affects the integrity of the Competition.
A team may be disqualified if there is a violation of any
portion of the Rules, Competition Registration Agreement,
Entry Submission Agreement, or
Winner's Affidavit;
if any member of the team is found to be
acting in an inappropriate, disruptive or unsportsmanlike
manner or with the intent to abuse, threaten, or harass
any other person; and/or if there is any attempt by any
member of the team to deliberately damage any Website or
undermine the legitimate operation of the Competition.
The Foundation reserves the right, at its sole discretion,
to modify, cancel, terminate or suspend this Competition
should any virus, bug, technical failures, unauthorized
human intervention or other causes beyond Foundation’s
control, corrupt or affect the administration, security,
fairness or proper conduct of the Competition. In the event
of any such cancellation, termination or suspension, a notice
will be posted and the winners will be selected from among
all eligible Entries received prior to such time.
By accepting Prize, winner agrees to release the Foundation,
its directors, employees, officers, and agents, including
without limitation, its advertising and promotion agencies,
from any and all liability, loss or damages arising from
or in connection with the awarding, receipt, and/or use
or misuse of Prize or participation in any Prize-related
activities.
Each decision of the Foundation and each decision of any
of the Judges, shall, in all respects, be final, binding,
and shall not be subject to review.
These Rules, and the Competition
Registration Agreement, Entry Submission Agreement,
and Winner's
Affidavit incorporated herein, constitute the entire
agreement and understanding between the parties regarding
the subject matter hereof, and supersede and merge all prior
discussions and agreements between them relating thereto.
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