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Evaluation Criteria

Schedule

The Competition schedule is as follows:

Team Enrollment opens: August 15, 2007
Entry Submission Deadline: April 2, 2008, 7:00 PM GMT (3:00 PM EDT)
Winners Announced: May 29, 2008

The Foundation may extend any Competition deadline upon three days prior written notice to the Primary Coaches (as defined below) and will post any changes to those deadlines on the ThinkQuest website at http://www.thinkquest.org/.

Team Requirements

Team Composition:

A Team must be comprised of three to six student members and one Primary Coach (each, a “Team”).
A Team may also, at its option, include one Assistant Coach (as defined below). Teams using Think.com as a collaboration environment may be required to have additional teachers participating in the Think.com project workspace. These additional teachers are not considered members of the Team and are not eligible for any prizes unless they are also designated as the Primary Coach or the Assistant Coach for the Team.
A Team may have no more than two student members who have been on winning ThinkQuest teams in the past.
Teams may include students and coaches from a single classroom or from many different classrooms, communities, or countries.
If information about any Team member submitted to the Foundation is found to be an intentional misrepresentation, the entire Team will be disqualified.

Participants from Cuba, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and any other countries designated by the Foundation and/or the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control, may participate in the Competition, but are not eligible to win a Prize (as defined below).

Coach Requirements: Coaches may provide guidance to their Team(s), help students form Teams, and locate resources (human, technical, and information). Coaches may NOT work directly on any portion of the Website (as defined below).

The "Primary Coach" must:

be employed by and working in a teaching or resource capacity (e.g., teacher, librarian, technology coordinator, etc.) at an Eligible School. An "Eligible School" is an accredited school that is owned or operated by a government or local school board, or an accredited, non-profit, private school that is tax-exempt under U.S. Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), or the non-U.S. equivalent of a Section 501(c)(3) school;
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 Entry Submission Deadline;
provide and maintain an active email address during coach enrollment and throughout the Competition, so that he/she may act as the point of contact for the Team; and
for the Primary Coach of a winning Team, complete the Primary Coach?s Affidavit of School Eligibility attesting that his/her school is an Eligible School, prior to acceptance of any applicable prize.

The "Assistant Coach", if any, must:

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 Entry Submission Deadline, OR have won an Age Division Award (as defined below) in a prior ThinkQuest competition; and
not be a student member of any current Team.

Student Requirements: Student Team members are responsible for the design and development of their Website, including all of its content.

Each student must:

be no younger than age 9 and no older than age 19 on the day of the Entry Submission Deadline;
be a member of only one Team; and
must make significant contributions to the success of the Team and be a full participant in the development of the Website.

Age Divisions

Teams compete in one of three age divisions:

Age 12 and under
Age 15 and under
Age 19 and under

Teams are permitted to include student members of different ages. The age of the oldest student on the Team as of the Entry Submission Deadline will determine the age division in which the Team competes.

Enrollment

Primary Coach must complete the following steps to enroll a Team:

enroll as a Primary Coach (returning coaches do not need to enroll);
create a Team once Team Enrollment opens. This can be done by either logging into http://www.thinkquest.org/ or, if the Primary Coach is a member of Think.com, by logging into http://www.think.com/ and creating a ThinkQuest team;
acknowledge and agree to comply with the terms and conditions of the Primary Coach's Competition Registration Agreement;
obtain a signed permission form from the parent/legal guardian of each student member of the Team if that student is (a) under age 18, or (b) is older than age 18 but not the age of legal majority in his/her country and/or state of citizenship on the day of the Entry Submission Deadline (see Coach Resources for a sample permission form); and
obtain an executed School Entry Submission Agreement prior to the Entry Submission Deadline from the legal signing authority (i.e. principal, head teacher, etc.) at the Eligible School at which the Primary Coach is employed.

Entry Requirements

Content Location: In order to be eligible for consideration, all final Website content must be uploaded to the ThinkQuest server. No portion of Website content can be hosted on an external server, including multimedia files on services including, but not limited to, YouTube, game building servers, guestbooks, blogs, and/or other hosting services (see File Size Limit under Technical Requirements).

Objectionable Material: Websites may not contain any Objectionable material. "Objectionable" means any information in any medium or format that (as determined by the Foundation): (i) is inappropriate, offensive, libelous or defamatory, pornographic, sexually explicit, or unlawful or that encourages any of the foregoing; (ii) a reasonable person would consider harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, profane, obscene, excessively violent, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; (iii) infringes or violates any person's (living or deceased) privacy, publicity or other property rights; (iv) promotes software or services that deliver unsolicited email, including bulk e-mail, surveys, contests, "junk mail," "spam," or chain letters; (v) disrupts or interferes with the Competition or any services, system resources, accounts, servers or networks connected to or accessible through the Competition, including use of viruses, worms, corrupt files, or Trojan horses; or (vi) is subject to any restriction upon transmission under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as information pertaining to minors where no parental consent has been obtained).

Commercial Content: Websites may not contain any commercial content that promotes the sale of a product or service either directly via the Website or via hyperlinks to external sites. Commercial content includes but is not limited to logos, brand names, slogans, text, images, videos, or any type of multimedia file(s).

Previously Submitted Websites: Websites (or content from websites) previously submitted in ThinkQuest competitions are ineligible for submission.

Use of Copyrighted Materials: By submitting an Entry, Team members represent that they have the unrestricted right to submit the content and it does not infringe upon any third party's proprietary or other rights. Any content, including, but not limited to, text, images and videos, that is not the original creation of the Team must be completely and accurately cited, and if permission is necessary to use such content, the Team shall disclose how such permission was obtained. Teams may either cite sources directly on each page or use a summary "Citations" page to adequately disclose the sources and/or permissions to include content.

While Team members are encouraged to seek guidance from coaches, parents, friends, published sources and other collaborators via the internet, Team members 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; and
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 intellection property AND an accurate citation is provided within the Website. Team must also be able to provide a copy of such permission to the Foundation, if requested.

Plagiarism: The Foundation takes plagiarism very seriously. Any plagiarism or copyright violation will result in an Entry's disqualification. For purposes of these Rules, "plagiarism" means:

any copying of another person's work that results in the Entry not being substantially the original work of the Team, regardless of whether the copied work is cited;
copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit or attributing those words or ideas as one's own;
failing to put a direct quote in quotation marks;
giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation, passage, image or other content;
changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit;
use of website templates without giving credit to the original creator/owner of the template; and/or
any other behavior that the Foundation determines to be plagiarism in its sole discretion.

Personally Identifiable Information: For the protection of student Team members and to prevent Library readers from adding their own personally identifiable information, the 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); and
guestbooks, discussion boards, forums, chat areas, blogs (including links to these types of forums hosted on external websites).

The Foundation may, in its sole discretion, remove any such items from Entries. If this information cannot be removed, the Foundation will not post the Entry in the Library.

Language: The Website, Site Profile, file and directory names (required in basic ASCII format), as well as other communications submitted to ThinkQuest, must be in English. Translation of the Website into additional languages is encouraged; however, Judges will evaluate the Website based upon the English language version.

Entry Submission

Enrolled Teams that do not submit a complete entry by the Entry Submission Deadline will be disqualified. A completed entry ("Entry" or "Entries") consists of the following 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"). The Site Profile includes a checklist that must be completed by the Primary Coach. No further changes may be made to an Entry after the Site Profile is submitted.

Entries must be submitted in one of the following twelve categories. To view examples of topics in each category, click on the links below.

In the event that one or more Teams miss the Entry Submission Deadline due solely to a confirmed technical failure or malfunction of the Foundation's systems (as determined by the Foundation in its sole discretion), and that Team's Primary Coach contacts ThinkQuest support within 2 days of the Entry Submission Deadline, then the Foundation may, but is not obligated to, extend such deadline in its sole discretion, upon notice to the Primary Coach.

Technical Requirements

Supported Technologies: Websites should be able to be viewed on different Internet browsers and platforms, and at different connection speeds. Teams are encouraged to test their Websites on a variety of machines and browsers. Websites must be built to run within a browser based on the following guidelines:

browser-based technologies such as Flash, Java script, dhtml, style sheets, and applets are supported; and
server-based technologies such as PHP, Perl, SSI, Java, CGI, and FrontPage extensions* are NOT supported.

*FrontPage may be used to design and build a Team's Website, but FrontPage's server-side extensions and publishing utilities are not supported.

File Size Limit: Each Team is allotted a maximum of 50 mb of ThinkQuest server space for its Website. Teams whose Websites exceed the 50 mb at the time of the Entry Submission Deadline will be disqualified and will be notified of such disqualification.

Server Usage: A Team will be disqualified if any member 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.

Judging

An independent panel of judges ("Judges") will evaluate the Website and Site Profile, in accordance with the Evaluation Criteria, which is incorporated in and made a part of these Official Rules. Winners will be announced on the ThinkQuest website at http://www.thinkquest.org/winners/ on or about May 29, 2008. Judges' scores will not be posted or publicized. Each decision of the Foundation and each decision of any of the Judges, shall, in all respects, be final, binding, and not be subject to review.

Awards & Prizes

Age Division Awards and School Awards: For each age division, the Judges will select 1st Place, 2nd Place, and 3rd Place winners, and two Honorable Mention winners from among all eligible Entries received for such age division ("Age Division Awards"). For each team that wins an Age Division Award, the Eligible School at which that Team's Primary Coach is employed will receive a School Award ("School Award").

Global Perspectives Award: Judges will select one Entry that demonstrates excellence in Global Perspectives (as defined in the Evaluation Criteria).

Ties and Multiple Awards: A tie may be declared for any of the awards, in which case both teams will receive the applicable Prize. 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 (described below) 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 such a Team will only be eligible to bring one Chaperone (as defined below).

Prizes: Each Team member (students, Primary Coach, and Assistant Coach, if any) whose Entry is selected for an Age Division Award or Global Perspectives Award, and each Eligible School that is selected for a School Award, will receive a prize ("Prize"). The Prizes are as follows:

Age Division 1st Place: Laptop computer with approximate retail value of $1,500 USD
Age Division 2nd Place: Laptop computer with approximate retail value of $1,250 USD
Age Division 3rd Place: Laptop computer with approximate retail value of $1,000 USD
Age Division Honorable Mention: Laptop computer with approximate retail value of $750 USD
Global Perspectives Award: Digital camera with approximate retail value of $750 USD
School Award: $1,000 USD

In addition, for those Teams winning the Age Division 1st Place, 2nd Place, and 3rd Place Awards, and the Global Perspectives Award, the Prize also includes the opportunity to attend ThinkQuest Live (described below).

ThinkQuest Live: Winners will receive an opportunity to attend ThinkQuest Live. Attendance at ThinkQuest Live includes a trip for the winner and a Chaperone (as defined below), if applicable, to San Francisco, California, including:

Round trip coach class airfare transportation from the major airport nearest the winner's residence (as determined by the Foundation) (or round-trip ground transportation if winner lives within 150 miles of San Francisco, California, as determined by the Foundation);
Approximately four nights' double occupancy hotel accommodations; and
Participation in ThinkQuest Live activities (including ground transportation to and from the hotel and airport, ThinkQuest Live workshops, local excursions, meals while attending ThinkQuest Live, and attendance at the ThinkQuest Live Awards Banquet).

The trip to ThinkQuest Live has an approximate retail value of $3,030 USD per winner traveling alone, and $5,765 USD per winner traveling with a Chaperone. All expenses not included in the ThinkQuest Live trip description above (including, but not limited to, additional ground transportation, meals, food & beverages, taxes, gratuities & insurance) will be the sole responsibility of the winner. Winner must travel on dates that permit attendance at ThinkQuest Live, or the ThinkQuest Live trip may be forfeited. Additional restrictions may apply. The Foundation reserves the right to substitute Prize of equal or greater value. No other substitution or transfer of Prize permitted. The actual value of the Prize depends on dates and airport of origin. Any difference between actual value and stated approximate value will not be awarded. Winners are responsible for all applicable taxes. 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.

ThinkQuest Live Chaperones: Each winner who has not reached the age 18 OR the age of majority in his/her country/state of citizenship, whichever is older, must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian (a "Chaperone").

Additional Cash Payment for U.S. Winners: Winners that are United States residents will receive a cash payment for presumed United States tax liability. The actual value of the cash payment, as set forth below, will vary depending on the actual retail value of the Prize awarded.

Winner Only (trip plus technology item): $1,955 USD
Winner Only (trip alone): $1,426 USD
Winner Only (technology item alone): $529 USD
Winner and Chaperone (trip plus technology item): $3,242 USD
Winner and Chaperone (trip alone): $2,713 USD

Notification and Verification of Winners: Coaches of winning Teams will be notified via email. In order to accept the Prize, ALL members of a winning Team (students, Primary Coach, Assistant Coach, if any) and Eligible School will be required to sign a Winner's Affidavit of Eligibility and Liability Release, and where permitted, a publicity release, and have such release(s) notarized and/or confirmed by an apostile, if required. 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. Winners and Chaperones, if applicable, who attend ThinkQuest Live must sign a Travel Release. In addition, winners attending ThinkQuest Live with a Chaperone must submit the following:

a Chaperone's Release Form;
a Chaperone Designation Form; and
a Consent for Medical Treatment of a Minor Form, as applicable.

Conditions: If Prize is won by a Team member who has not reached the age 18 OR the age of majority in his/her country/state of citizenship, whichever is older, the Prize may be awarded in the name of a parent or legal guardian in the Foundation's sole discretion. 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.

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.

Library

Entries may be displayed in the Library following the Winner's Announcement, at the sole discretion of the Foundation. The Foundation has sole discretion in determining whether or not to add an Entry to the Library, and how long to display such Entry. Entries that contain Personally Identifiable Information that cannot be removed by the Foundation (i.e. files that cannot be edited, such as flash files, CGI script etc.) will not be displayed in the Library.

The School Entry Submission Agreement describes certain rights and licenses granted to the Foundation to use the Entries in the Library. Please visit the School Entry Submission Agreement for a complete description of these rights. By submitting an Entry, each Team member agrees that is has or will grant the Eligible School the rights necessary for the Eligible School to grant the Foundation the rights to use the Entry, in accordance with Section VIII(b) of the School Entry Submission Agreement.

Program Tools

The Foundation may make available certain software tools or other materials ("Program Tools") for use by Teams in the Competition, including but not limited to access to tools and materials available on the Think.com website. Primary Coaches are responsible for insuring that Program Tools (if any) are used by Teams in accordance with these Rules and any specific terms accompanying the Program Tools, including any applicable Software License Terms or Terms of Use for such Program Tools ("Terms"). Primary Coaches are also responsible for insuring removal of Program Tools from computer systems upon completion of the Competition and/or termination of a Team's participation in the Competition. Unless otherwise specified in writing by the Foundation or its suppliers, Program Tools may be used only for activities directly related to the Team's participation in the Competition. A team will be disqualified if any Team member modifies or reverse-engineers any software, or uses any software in a manner inconsistent with the Terms.

Certain Program Tools may not be available to participants from Cuba, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and any other countries designated by the Foundation and/or the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control. Use of Program Tools is not necessary in order to participate in the Competition or to win a Prize.

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 (a) late, lost, stolen, damaged, garbled, incomplete, incorrect or misdirected Entries, (b) 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 (c) data corruption, theft, destruction, unauthorized access to or alteration of Entry materials, loss or otherwise.

The Foundation and Judges are not responsible for electronic communications or emails which are undeliverable as a result of any form of active or passive filtering of any kind, or insufficient space in any email account to receive email messages.

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, Primary Coach's Competition Registration Agreement, or School Entry Submission Agreement; 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 disclaims any liability for damage to any computer system resulting from participation in, or accessing or downloading information in connection with, the Competition, including but not limited to the installation or use of any third party software.

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 any such event, a notice will be posted on the ThinkQuest website at http://www.thinkquest.org/ and the winners will be selected from among all eligible Entries received prior to such time.

Employees of the Foundation, Oracle USA and its subsidiaries are not eligible to participate in the Competition.

These Rules, and the Primary Coach's Competition Registration Agreement, School Entry Submission Agreement, and Evaluation Criteria, incorporated herein, constitute the entire agreement and understanding between the parties regarding the Competition, and supersede and merge all prior discussions and agreements between them relating thereto.

Last Updated: August 15, 2007


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