RULES

PARTICIPANTS

The DISTCO 2013 is open for K-12 students and teachers in following categories:

1- Elementary (Students in Grades K-5),

2-Junior (Students in Grades 6-8),

3-Senior (Students in Grades 9-12),

4-Teachers.

INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPANTS

DISTCO accepts international submissions. Please note that all international entries will be evaluated separately under “International Category”.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE STORIES

The language of the stories must be in English.

 TIMELINE

PARTICIPATION REQUIREMENTS AND FEES:

There is no fee involved for participating in DISTCO 2013, however student participants are required to fill out an online consent form and take a survey related to Digital Storytelling research at the time of the submission in order to be considered and eligible for judging. The survey and consent form will need be completed first in order to be able to submit Digital Stories to the system. Digital Story submissions will not be accepted until the required survey and consent form is sent through the DISTCO 2013 submission website.

No fees or consent forms are involved for teacher participants.

ELIGIBILITY AND NUMBER OF SUBMISSIONS:

Both student and teacher participants should send at least one original entry in order to be qualified for judging. Please note that categories in DISTCO are designed to accept only one entry. While student participants may send original entries up to three different categories, teacher participants may send their original entries to all available categories within the submission period. Participants submitting same Digital Story to more than one category will be disqualified.

SUBMISSION CATEGORIES:

A Digital Story can be created in variety of subjects. However when submitting Digital Stories to the DISTCO, the closest category related to the topic of the Digital Story should be selected. Following categories are available for digital story submissions in DISTCO 2013:

• Art
• Cultures/Religions
• Computers/Technology
• English Language Arts
• ESL/Foreign Languages
• Health/Medical
• Mathematics
• Music
• Personal Stories/Reflections
• Places/Travel
• Physical Education/Sports
• Pop Culture
• Science/Engineering
• Social Studies

TEAM PROJECTS:

DISTCO 2013 accepts only individual work. Team projects are not allowed.

DIGITAL STORY FORMAT:

Digital Story should  include following items:

1-An original script or a story

2-Multimedia elements such as images and sounds. Video Clips are not required.

3-A narration, preferably a voice over by the author.

VIDEO SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:

DISTCO 2013 recommends PhotoStory 3 (Download Photo Story 3 for free if you have a genuine copy of Windows) for creating Digital Stories. However, alternative programs to PhotoStory 3 (visit Tutorials page for a list of software) can be used for digital stories as long as they conform to the following requirements.

1-Video file size should not exceed 20 MB (Videos higher than 20 MB in size will be automatically rejected by the system).

2-Although the preferred lengths is 3-5 minutes, video lengths can be between 2 and 6 minutes (Videos shorter than 2 minutes or longer than 6 minutes will be accepted but may disqualify or receive low scores during the official judging)

3-For best results, your video display size should be at least (640×480) (Please see Project Saving Instructions in PhotoStory 3 for saving your project in PhotoStory 3)

4-Video file format can be .wmv, .avi, or  .mov (The digital stories submitted in other file formats will be disqualified during the official judging)

Digital stories can be submitted here after completing required steps.  When uploading your file, please be patient as longer and bigger files in size might take 2-3 minutes to upload to the system.

COPYRIGHT ISSUES:

Typically, all story (script) and multimedia elements (Images, sound clips, and videos) used for digital stories should be original work. Digital Stories prepared with original pictures taken by participants’ digital camera along with an original story is preferred by DISTCO and will receive higher scores during judging. However, when pictures from Internet will need to be used, students are required to follow copyright rules. A good step would be starting from copyright-free image/sound websites located at www.distco.org/resources.

If copyrighted images will be used or the copyright status is not known, the participants will have to properly credit/cite* the elements used in the digital story. Typically, a last slide/image can be dedicated to listing of the copyrighted material.

Participants sign a consent form at the time of submission indicating that the digital story submitted does not infringe upon or violate the rights of any third party. Furthermore, the participants release DISTCO 2013, its officers, directors, employees, sponsors, licensees and successors from any liability or claimed liability in connection with the contest submission.

*This includes listing of all multimedia (images, sound, and video) and story (script) items as taken from a specific website/source. When citing specific URLs or Web addresses for multimedia or story, you may shorten the address by including only the domain name as seen in below example.

SAMPLE CREDITS SLIDE/IMAGE

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

Digital Stories should be original work and not to be copied from any other person or person’s work unless obtained with permission.

EVALUATIONS

There are two types of evaluation methods in DISTCO 2013: Official Judging and Popular Voting.

The official judging takes place after the submissions close. Please see Timeline above for details. Official judging is done by a group of faculty members at North American College and various other universities according to the criteria in Digital Storytelling Rubric.

In order to increase the popularity of the contest, a popular voting is conducted over our Youtube channel taking place during the Evaluations period. Public can vote for Digital Stories by clicking the “Like” button during this time frame. The results will bebased on Likes only, not Views or Dislikes. In the event of a tie in the number of “Likes”, “View count” will be used for tie-brake. Lifetime “Likes or View” numbers available for public view is not going to be considered a criteria for judging. Only “Like” numbers as generated by YouTube Analytics data through the DISTCO YouTube channel will be used for judging. This report will be generated for the announced Popular Voting period (typically one month). If foul-play is determined during Popular Voting, contestants and their digital stories involved in that foul-play will be disqualified from the contest*

*Any fraud involving such as buying Youtube Likes will result in disqualification. Sudden increases in Like numbers overnight may be considered as fraud.

AWARDS

Please see a complete list of categories and AWARDS here.

In order to claim awards, students must attend DISTCO Award ceremony which will be held at North American College, Houston, TX. Please see Timeline for the date and time of this event.

Claiming Grand Prizes:

Grand Prizes can be picked up at the Award Ceremony in North American College by the winners or a designated person (The winner should give written consent to the designated person by filling out DISTCO Award Ceremony Absentee Form and submit it by its deadline). In the case of not being able to attend the ceremony at all, either the winner or the designated person, the DISTCO Award Ceremony Absentee Form should still be submitted by its deadline. Failure to submit the DISTCO Award Ceremony Absentee Form will result in unclaimed award. After the successful submission of the form, winner  or a designated person will have 15 calendar days to pick up the grand prize from North American College after the award ceremony. If the grand prizes are not picked up at the end of this period, they will be considered unclaimed.

The only exception to this rule is the out-of-state (Texas) winners. The grand prizes may be sent to “out-of-state winners” by mail* upon submission of the absentee form by its deadline date.

Claiming Category or Scholarship Awards:

Category or Scholarship Awards can be picked up at the Award Ceremony either by the winners or a designated person (The winner should give written consent to the designated person by filling out DISTCO Award Ceremony Absentee Form and submit by its deadline).

The only exception to this rule is the out-of-city (out of Houston) winners. The category and scholarship awards may be sent to these winners by mail* upon submission of the absentee form by its deadline date.

*The DISTCO is not responsible for any lost item in the mail. The participant is solely responsible for providing accurate information regarding the address and phone number when signing up to the DISTCO website. Returning users in the DISTCO website are also responsible for updating any address changes in the system. In the case of lost item or wrong address information, the DISTCO won’t be reissuing the rewards.

Absentee Forms turned in after its deadline will not be accepted.