Eligibility
The UCZ Data Jam Competition is open to all current middle and high school students (grades 6-12).
Team Advisors
Participation in the UCZ Data Jam Competition requires coordination by a responsible adult who agrees to facilitate and validate studentparticipation. Educators (grades 6-12) of all subject areas are encouraged to get their students involved. Adult advisors can be teachers, parents, guardians, or other mentors.
Registration Period
Registration for the 2025 UCZ Data Jam Competition is required, and due no later than April 4, 2025.
Project Entry Period
Project entries for the UCZ Data Jam Competition are due online by 11:59 PM EST on May 7, 2025.
Student Privacy
Student privacy is important to us. All adult team advisors will receive parental/guardian consent forms for permission of student participation and the release of limited personally identifiable student information (i.e., student name, grade level and gender, school name, hometown, photographs, video or audio files of the student, and project entry). These consent forms should be completed and signed for each participating student and returned to the student's team advisor. A unique link to a Google form will be provided to each advisor to collect consents from students’ families. Consent forms are due May 1, 2025.
Publicity & Rights
By entering a project into the UCZ Data Jam Competition, the project creator(s), parent(s)/guardian(s), and the team advisor grant to the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use all materials submitted by the student teams into the UCZ Data Jam Competition for publicity and educational purposes.
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies may post information about the UCZ Data Jam Competition in the Cary newsletter, on the Cary website, in the Cary annual report, and on the Cary and UCZ Data Jam Competition website. Project entries may be published without compensation through any or all of the above sources in whole or in part. Submitting a project entry does not guarantee it will be publicized. We will not publicize any student information without prior parental/guardian consent. Anonymized student project submissions may also be used for educational purposes as part of Cary Institute education programming
Plagiarism
Project entries cannot include plagiarized work. Plagiarism is considered the deliberate copying of someone else’s thoughts, ideas, expressions, words, artistic expressions, or scientific work without formally acknowledging its source. Plagiarism includes project entries that are comprised substantially of someone else’s work, copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit, the failure to put quotation marks around unmodified content that was copied from an outside source, and the use of photos, graphs, charts, or other images without acknowledging their source. Project entries that include plagiarized content will be eliminated from the competition. We recommend teams working together to help each other avoid plagiarism. The best way to ensure your work is original is to be creative!
This competition requires students to use information that is not their own, and thus merits increased diligence to proper source acknowledgement. Students will use data (scientific work) collected by a group of researchers. Students are also welcome to use any of the images provided on the “Datasets” page in their project entries. In order to avoid plagiarism, students should be sure to properly cite all sources of information for content that isn’t their own original work. This includes noting the data source and the sources of any images copied or modified. Citations All project entries must have a complete reference list of all resources used. Any standard citation form is permissible (APA, MLA, etc.), but the same format should be used for all citations for a given project entry.
Additional Disclaimers
- It is the responsibility of each participant and team advisor to obtain and read these rules and regulations for the UCZ Data Jam Competition.
- Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies will not be responsible for any claims, costs, liabilities, damages, expenses, or losses arising from 1) Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies’ use of project entries, 2) the participants’ involvement in the competition, 3) technical failures of any kind, including, but not limited to, computer viruses or equipment malfunctions, 4) travel to and from the teacher workshops, Data Jam Expo, and other related activities, 5) the use of prizes, and 6) any events outside Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies’ reasonable control.
- Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies reserves the right to reject any project entry for any reason and at any time, at its own discretion.
- Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies may refuse to award a prize if a winning participant does not follow proper registration and project entry procedures, or these rules and regulations.
- Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is not responsible for any technical failures that may affect participation in the UCZ Data Jam Competition.