Explore Performance Task Questions

No.

We strongly encourage students to follow all task directions, including Written Response 2b, which helps show authenticity of the student work.

Students must acknowledge all work that is not their own through in-text citations in the written responses, and they are required to provide a list of references for prompt 2e.  We strongly encourage students to cite and reference all images used in their artifact. They can cite their references in 2b, and list their sources in 2e.

2.) Students are allowed to use company names and trademarks.

No. While students are required to provide attributions through at least three inline citations in their responses, no specific citation style is required. MLA, APA, or IEEE would be appropriate to use for the works-cited list. Students can denote inline citations and references in any manner, even if the style of inline citations used in responses does not follow an official format (e.g., MLA, APA, IEEE). You can view sample student responses to see examples.

If students are incorporating work that requires attributions into their computational artifact, students should consider the following:
If the computational artifact is a video: In addition to including a list of references within the video or as part of the written response, students can provide titled text in the video with the appropriate attribution for specific portions, or provide the attributions verbally as part of a voice over in the video if voice is included.
If the computational artifact is an image or a collection of images: In addition to including a list of references as part of the written response, students can organize the images (e.g., using a numbering system, or providing information about the placement of the images (upper left, bottom right, etc.)) and provide text as part of the image or the written response to include the appropriate attributions.

May 1 st. For example, for this academic year (2016-17), at least two of the references should be dated after May 1, 2016. This date applies for all schools with year-long and block scheduled AP courses.

In general, no.  The Beneficial and Harmful Effects are meant to be effects from the designed use of the innovation, not the unauthorized use of the innovation. 

to further clarify what was stated, hacking can be a valid effect (either harmful or beneficial) only if the purpose or primary function of the computing innovating is intended for hacking.

The effects of a computing innovation students consider as a response to this prompt should provide insight about the designed purpose of the computing innovation, not the unauthorized access or use of the computing innovation.
If the hacking of a computing innovation can occur due to the unauthorized access or use of the computing innovation, then the ability of the computing innovation to be hacked could likely be described as a concern (security or privacy?) about the computing innovation.

A:  Because the Explore Scoring Guidelines were revised to better ensure reliability in the reporting of student scores, the new scoring guidelines include 7 criteria. Please note that the performance task directions have not changed. Students are still required to respond to all the prompts in the performance task (prompts 2a-2e). A recording to a webinar explaining the new scoring guidelines can be found here.

We have also provided five new sample student responses, with accompanying scoring commentary and student performance Q & A.

No, on the Explore Task, students are not allowed to receive any help from another person while creating their task.  That includes a peer, or an adult.

A:  If it were my students, I would advise them to choose an innovation that matches this working definition: "A computing innovation is an innovation that includes a computer or program code as an integral part its functionality."
For both of the items you mention, they are not primarily about a computer or software.  When I did a quick search for articles about these innovations, there was no mention at all of how data is transformed, or about security or privacy issues. 

My advice to teachers is to focus less on the definition and focus more on the requirements for what students must describe for their innovation.
"General Requirements: This performance task requires you to select and investigate a computational innovation that: has had or has the potential to have significant beneficial and harmful effects on society, economy, or culture; consumes, produces, and/or transforms data; and raises at least one data storage concern, data privacy concern, or data security concern."

A: Yes, students are allowed to choose a computing innovation that is one of the scored samples. However, I would encourage teachers to do whatever they can to allow students to follow their own ideas and interests.  
And yes, students may choose an innovation that another student has chosen. 
Remind your students that this Performance Task is done individually, so students may not assist each other.

During the submission process, students must attest that they are submitting their own work.
For the Explore performance task: If students select a computing innovation that was discussed in class, students must find new sources and submit original responses to avoid fraud and plagiarism and cannot submit any work from practice performance tasks.

A:  Watermarks are OK.