RULES & ELIGIBILITY

ThinkQuest New York City Rules

Important Note: The Deadline for Uploading has been extended to 5 PM on May 6, 2008.

The ThinkQuest(R) New York City Challenge
An Internet Challenge for students in grades 3 through 12
2008 Challenge Year

Introduction

1. Schedules and Deadlines
2. Team Make-up and Eligibility
3. Categories
4. Registration Process
5. Web Server Accounts
6. Submitting the Entry
7. Judging Criteria
8. Judging and Awards
9. General
10. Copyright Information
11. Disqualification
12. Changes
13. Ownership of Intellectual Property and the Rights & Duties of Parties
14. Choice of Laws and Resolution of Disputes
15. Responsible Party and Operator of the ThinkQuest Program

Introduction

ThinkQuest New York City contests provide a highly motivating opportunity for students and educators to work collaboratively in teams to learn as they create materials and teach others. ThinkQuest New York City programs challenge learners to create high quality, innovative and content-rich Web sites that are made freely available to others via the Internet at http://www.tqnyc.org .

Central to the ThinkQuest philosophy is the notion that people learn best by doing. The ThinkQuest New York City Challenge promotes this philosophy by inviting participants to explore topics, collaborate to achieve goals and develop interesting Web sites that add meaningful content to the Internet. ThinkQuest New York City team members help others as they themselves learn to value their own unique contributions and those of their teammates. The backbone of the ThinkQuest New York City experience is teamwork, as members brings their talents and desire to learn to their team. There are no fees to participate in any of the ThinkQuest Programs.

1. Schedule and Deadlines:

Registration - registration for the ThinkQuest New York City 2008 Challenge begins Thursday, November 1, 2007, and runs through, Friday, March 28, 2008.

Important Note: The Registration Deadline has been extended through April 1, 2008.

Entries - Entries for ThinkQuest New York City 2008 Challenge must be completed, and submitted no later than the entry deadline of 5:00 PM Thursday, May 1st, 2008 .

Click here to register

2. Team Make-up and Eligibility

In order to participate in the ThinkQuest New York City 2008 Challenge, applicants must be members of a team. A team consists of two to six student members and one to two coaches. All student members are expected to make significant contributions to the success of the team. Coaches help with team formation, provide guidance and encouragement, and help students establish relationships with subject experts, local industry, and/or government officials in support of their efforts. Other ways in which coaches may assist students include:


• Typing documents,
• Helping the team set up their project timeline and deadlines,
• Correcting errors in spelling, punctuation, general writing style, citations, etc.,
• Setting up and recording interviews for the team,
• Instructing students on the use of various Web authoring software,
• Critiquing site content and design, and
• Helping the team upload its entry to the ThinkQuest New York City server.

Students, however, must do the actual design and development of their Web site, including the selection, research and development of its content. One coach from each team is responsible for the timely completion and submission of forms and the registering the team. At least one coach must have an active e-mail address for regular communication with the ThinkQuest New York City staff. All announcements and updates for TQNYC teams will be sent via email to the teams designated email address as well as posted on the Web site.

Individual Eligibility

A STUDENT is eligible if he or she is a student in Grades 3 through 12 (or equivalent) on the registration deadline in:

• Any public, private or parochial school in the five boroughs of New York City.
• Any home school in New York City that meets all requirements of the jurisdiction(s) having authority over the education of its student(s).

Additionally:

A student may not be a member of more than one ThinkQuest New York City challenge team during the 2008 program year.

A team may consist of students from the same and/or different grades and/or schools.

A COACH is eligible if he or she is:

• A teacher, librarian or other employee on the professional staff of a school attended by at least one of the student team members, or a teacher at a home school attended by at least one of the student team members who is approved by the parent or guardian of each student on the team, or
• A professional staff member of a non profit organization, such as a Boys or Girls club, Community Technology Center, or similar organization, one of whose missions is to assist in the teaching of and learning by students in grades 3 through 12 and who is approved by the parent or guardian of each student on the team.

AND is

• Able to give regular help and coaching assistance to the student(s) he or she has agreed to coach, and
• Over the age of 18 on the Application deadline.

A coach may coach more than one team.

3. Categories

Teams may submit their entries in any of the five categories listed below.


1. Arts & Literature
2. Science & Mathematics
3. Social Sciences
4. Sports & Health
5. Interdisciplinary - There are no limits on this Category. An Interdisciplinary Entry might combine subjects from two of the other categories - The History of Baseball, for example. Or, it simply may not fit into any of the other categories.
4. Registration Process

Coaches and students may find team members, form a team, research and choose their entry topic, and begin the registration process at any time before the registration deadline. There is no required sequence for this process, but each team must complete the registration process between November 1, 2008, and the registration deadline. The registration form must be completed via the ThinkQuest New York City Web site. (www.tqnyc.org)

Once your team registration is approved, the team will be given an account on the ThinkQuest New York City Web server for the development and testing of its entry.

The Registration process will require:


• Information on team members, coaches, and schools,
• The Category of the proposed entry,
• A short description of the proposed entry, and
• The coach's assurance to ThinkQuest New York City that:
• She or he has either obtained a signed consent from the parent or guardian of each student member of the team (in accordance with the regulations or practices of the local school district).
• She or he, and the students and their parents or guardians, will abide, and be bound, by the ThinkQuest New York City Rules.
• A letter or email from the Principal(s) or Head(s) of School supporting the team’s participation in the Project. This must be sent by Friday, March 28, 2008.
5. Web Server Accounts

Every registered team will receive a web account on the ThinkQuest New York City server. Team accounts are limited to 25MB of storage space. Teams that require additional space may request additional space through the HelpDesk. In making a request, teams need to include both an explanation and the amount required.

ThinkQuest New York City reserves the right to remove (delete) any Entry from the server at any time. The possible reasons for removing a site include, but are not limited to, programming bugs or excessive traffic that interrupts the operation of the ThinkQuest New York City program, or inappropriate or non-educational content.

Team access to their Web server account is closed on the entry deadline (Thursday, May 1, 2008, at 5pm Eastern Time). Teams can request their account be reopened through the HelpDesk after the judging is complete.

6. Submitting the Entry

A completed entry consists of two items:


• The collection of Web pages the team has produced, and has successfully uploaded to the ThinkQuest New York City Web server, and
• A completed Final Questionnaire

When the team has completed these two entry items, its entry will be reviewed and submitted for judging and made available for use by others via the Web.

Web sites from previous program years can be updated and resubmitted. Web sites that previously won a first, second or third place division award will not be considered for additional awards.

7. Judging Criteria

Four criteria, weighted as indicated below will be used to evaluate the ThinkQuest New York City web site projects. (See TQNYC Judging Rubric)

(30 points) - Educational Value
In order to encourage teams to create entries that have significant educational value, judges will evaluate:


• The importance of the educational objectives of the Entry;
• The extent to which the Entry meets these educational objectives in (a) above; and
• The originality, innovation and artistic presentation of the Entry and its material.

(25 points) - Content Quality
In order to encourage students to create high-quality entries, the judges will evaluate:


• The quality of the content of the Entry, including the accuracy and completeness of the information and the expressiveness and clarity in communicating ideas.
• The appropriate attribution(s) of the work of others, and a complete bibliography.

(25 points) - Technical Quality
The technical quality of the Entry, including its reliability, ease-of-use, internal consistency, and its ability to perform quality checks on data submitted, and to work efficiently as the increasing numbers of students and schools use the Entry.

(20 points) - Internet Style of Learning
In order to encourage each team to create an Entry which uses computers and the Internet to enhance the users' learning experiences, the judges will evaluate the extent to which an Entry:


• Allows for active participation by others.
• Encourages others to share data, ideas, and materials that can enrich the overall value of the Entry, and that helps to create a "learning community" around the Entry, and
• Fosters interactive, participatory, collaborative "Internet style" learning that encourages users to explore the Internet's timely resources and to create new relationships that broaden the community in which they live.
8. Judging and Awards

Immediately after the Entry deadline each Entry will be reviewed and scored by the Judges based on the ThinkQuest New York City Judging Criteria. Judges will select the winning entries in each of three Divisions: (see Rubric)


• Division I: Grades 3, 4, and 5
• Division II: Grades 6, 7 and 8
• Divison III: Grades 9, 10, 11 and 12

There will be a FIRST PLACE award presented in each Division. First place award winning team members will each be presented with a notebook computer. Their coaches will receive a certificate of purchase for $1000 and their school will receive a certificate of purchase for $1000. (certificates will be provided by a local vendor of computer hardware and software).

There will be a SECOND PLACE award presented in each Division. Second place award winning team members will each be presented with a digital camera. Their coaches will receive a certificate of purchase for $500 and their school will receive a certificate of purchase for $500. (certificates will be provided by a local vendor of computer hardware and software).

There will be a THIRD PLACE award presented in each Division. Third place award winning team members will each be presented with a $250 certificate of purchase. Their coaches will receive a certificate of purchase for $250 and their school will receive a certificate of purchase for $250. (certificates will be provided by a local vendor of computer hardware and software).

SPECIAL AWARDS
Please visit this link to see any special awards for the 2007-2008 school year.

9. General

Each team member must make significant contributions to the success of the team and be a full participant in the development of the entry.

No application or entry may report upon, or otherwise deal with, (a) live vertebrate animal experimentation by the team or (b) experiments that involve human subjects.

Neither an application nor an entry may contain any statement, data, information, or assertion (whether true or false) that would defame the character of, or expose to ridicule, any living person or a person who died after December 31, 1965, except that an entry may report on, or discuss, the character of a public figure if, and only if:


1. 1.A respectable historian has written a book or produced some other important work that deals with the public figure in detail and that reports (not speculates) that such defamatory materials are truthful, and there has been no litigation challenging the truthfulness of such defamatory materials, or
2. A final decision (one that is not subject to further appeal) by a court of law or other reputable tribunal decides that such defamatory materials are truthful, and,
3. In both (1) and (2), all of the defamatory statement(s), data, information, or assertions are contained in such book, work, or decision, and the materials in the entry do not go beyond such materials in such book, work, or decision.

Thus, an entry might contain very unflattering facts - for example, that a public figure was found guilty of larceny by a Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. - if this assertion has been found by the Court to be true, if the right of the public figure, or his or her representative(s), has been exhausted or has expired, and if the team provides citations (e.g., references) to court opinion(s) and decision(s) that demonstrate such finality.

While students are encouraged to seek guidance from parents, coaches, friends, published sources and other collaborators via the Internet, the students must do their own work on the application entry and must not permit any person (other than student members of the team) to perform such work (except when properly and clearly attributed to that person) and must not copy the words or images of others, except as permitted in the section Use of Copyrighted Materials, below.

All materials in each entry must be suitable, in the opinion of the Judges, for use in schools. These materials may also be suitable for other age groups.

10. Use of Copyrighted Materials

No entry may include materials that were created by another person unless that material was created before January 1, 1918, and an accurate citation to the quoted material is included in the entry. In addition, no entry may include material that was created by another person on or after January 1, 1918 without written permission to quote such materials by the creator or owner of such intellectual property, and a copy of such permission is made available to ThinkQuest (see instructions on the ThinkQuest Web pages). The word "material" as used in this section includes text, images, and data included in the entry or otherwise published on the Internet.

Very short quotations from materials printed in newspapers, magazines, or books are permissible if reasonably necessary to illustrate a point or to give appropriate credit to an author or to help users understand a subject, and an accurate citation to the quoted material is included in the entry. No entry may include any trademarked material(s) without the written permission from the owner(s) of the trademarked material(s).

11. Disqualification

Disqualification of Applications, Entries, Participants or Teams

ThinkQuest Inc. may decide to disqualify an application or disqualify an entry if it or they are of the opinion that:


1. There has been no timely and proper submission of the a registration, the entry (including all items required by the instructions for the entry on the ThinkQuest New York City Web site), or all of the entry forms,
2. There is a lack of sufficient educational merit,
3. There is a violation of any portion of the rules, or the required forms, or
4. A team has intentionally or negligently gained unauthorized access to, or misused, the ThinkQuest New York City Web site or server by gaining access to areas that the team does not have explicit right to use or by using the server for purposes not related to the development and deployment of an entry. For example, a team will be immediately disqualified if it intentionally gains access to an area of the server other than its entry area or uses the server e-mail facility for purposes not related to the entry.

If an application or entry that is submitted on time contains an omission(s) or error(s) that violate(s) subparagraph 1., 3. and/or 4. above in a relatively unimportant or non-substantive manner, ThinkQuest Inc. may, if it or they deem it to be appropriate, send a message to the submitting team pointing out the violation(s) and giving the submitting team a designated period of time to complete or correct such application or entry.

If an entry contains materials that appear to violate any of these rules, ThinkQuest Inc. may, at its discretion, disqualify the entry in its entirety and/or remove the materials from the entry that appear to violate such rules or requirements.

Employees or close relatives of employees of ThinkQuest New York City or Advanced Network & Services, Inc. are not eligible to participate as team members or coaches in any ThinkQuest New York City program.

Finality of ThinkQuest's Decisions

All Entries will be reviewed by judges, and will be based on the Judging Criteria. Each decision of ThinkQuest and each decision of any of the Judges, with respect to any matter related to any ThinkQuest contest, shall, in all respects, be final and binding on the team member(s), his or her or their parents or guardian(s), the school(s), and the coach (es), and shall not be subject to review. ThinkQuest Inc. reserves the right to conduct personal interviews with potential award winning students. To the extent that ThinkQuest Inc. and the Judges determine that there are not enough meritorious Entries to justify making an Award or Awards, they will not make all the awards listed above.

12. Changes

Extensions of Challenge Deadlines
ThinkQuest may extend any challenge deadline, and will post any such extension on the ThinkQuest New York City Web pages.

Changes in Team Membership
If one or more members of a team should be unable to continue to participate for any reason, ThinkQuest New York City and the Contest directors shall determine what, in its or their judgment, are the appropriate steps to be taken.

13. Ownership of Intellectual Property and the Rights & Duties of Parties

An entry will remain the property of the submitting team. ThinkQuest New York City will have an irrevocable license, beginning with the submission of any entry and continuing until December 31, 2015, to make all or a portion of such entry, as it initially is or as it may be modified, improved, or enlarged by Advanced Network, available to persons or organizations desiring to use, or to make it available for the use by others. During that period, ThinkQuest New York City can also keep such entry on its Web site or distribute it in any other manner, for example, on CD-ROMs.

The team shall have no right to use any modification, improvement, or enlargement of the entry that is made by ThinkQuest New York City, and ThinkQuest New York City shall have no right to use any modification, improvement, or enlargement of the entry that is made by the team unless it is placed on the ThinkQuest New York City Web pages with the permission of ThinkQuest New York City.

ThinkQuest New York City shall have the right, but no obligation, to take actions it deems appropriate to prevent misuse of an entry. The team members, and their parent(s) and guardian(s), may take such steps or actions to prevent misuse of the entry, as submitted, as they deem appropriate.

14. Choice of Laws and Resolution of Disputes

The ThinkQuest New York City challenges, and all disputes arising out of or relating to the agreement or agreements contained in these rules, the rules specific to each challenge, and the challenges themselves, shall be governed by and interpreted under the laws of the State of New York, USA, without reference to New York's choice of law rules. Each such dispute shall, upon the request of a party, be submitted to and settled by arbitration to be conducted in Washington, D.C., pursuant to the rules then in effect of the American Arbitration Association (or at any other place or under any other form of arbitration mutually acceptable to the parties). Any award or other determination rendered shall be final and binding upon the parties to such dispute and a judgment thereon may be entered in the highest court of any forum in any country having jurisdiction. Each party shall pay for the costs of its own counsel, witnesses, other personal expenses, and its appropriate share of any costs agreed to be borne jointly.

15. Responsible Party and Operator of the ThinkQuest New York City Program

ThinkQuest, Inc., a Not-For-Profit corporation, is the operator of the ThinkQuest New York City Program and has been since this Program was begun. The corporation is located at 317 Madison Avenue, Suite 805, New York, NY 10017.