3 Policies

3.1 Rules and Expectations

  1. Respect

    • Please observe and uphold the Golden Rule by treating others as you would like to be treated.
    • We should all be respectful of each other in all written and verbal communications, especially when providing constructive feedback during the peer review process.

  2. Responsibility

    • Take ownership of your learning and research process. You are the expert of your chosen topic.
    • We all have a shared responsibility to help each other grow through the peer review process.

  3. Resilience

    • Research is a long and arduous process, often with unforeseen obstacles and undefined paths.
    • You should persevere even in the face of adversity. Don’t let setbacks discourage you from moving ahead with your research.

3.2 AP Capstone Policy on Plagiarism and Falsification or Fabrication of Information

Please read and comply with the following policy issued by College Board (2019):

Participating teachers shall inform students of the consequences of plagiarism and instruct students to ethically use and acknowledge the ideas and work of others throughout their coursework. The student’s individual voice should be clearly evident, and the ideas of others must be acknowledged, attributed, and/or cited.

A student who fails to acknowledge the source or author of any and all information or evidence taken from the work of someone else through cita tion, attribution or reference in the body of the work, or through a bibliographic entry, will receive a score of 0 on that particular component of the AP Seminar and/or AP Research Performance Task. In AP Seminar, a team of students that fails to properly acknowledge sources or authors on the Team Multimedia Presentation will receive a group score of 0 for that component of the Team Project and Presentation.A student who incorporates falsified or fabricated information (e.g. evidence, data, sources, and/or authors) will receive a score of 0 on that particular component of the AP Seminar and/or AP Research Performance Task. In AP Seminar, a team of students that incorporates falsified or fabricated information in the Team Multimedia Presentation will receive a group score of 0 for that component of the Team Project and Presentation.

A student who incorporates falsified or fabricated information (e.g., evidence, data, sources, and/or authors) will receive a score of 0 on that particular component of the AP Seminar and/or AP Research Performance Task. In AP Seminar, a team of students that incorporates falsified or fabricated information in the Team Multimedia Presentation will receive a group score of 0 for that component of the Team Project and Presentation (p. 14).

3.3 Expert Advisors

You are allowed to seek expert advisors to provide general feedback on your research. Expert advisors may include on-campus faculty members or other experts in your field of inquiry. Please check with your AP Research teacher before contacting potential expert advisors.

For more details on policies regarding expert advisors, please refer to pages 51–52 of the AP Research Course and Exam Description. You teacher may inform you of additional school policies regarding communication with expert advisors.

3.4 Institutional Review Board (IRB)

If your research involves human subjects, you will most likely need to go through an Institutional Review Board (IRB) process to ensure compliance with research ethics. Please read page 44 of the AP Research Course and Exam Description for more information. You may go through the IRB approval process in two ways:

  1. IRB at nearby university or local science fair committee
  2. IRB committee established at your school

You may not collect any data or conduct any research involving human subjects until an IRB committee has approved your proposed research. Please see your teacher to discuss IRB options if your research will involve human subjects. [CR2a]

References

College Board. (2019). AP Capstone Implementation Guide 2019–20. https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-capstone-implementation-guide.pdf.