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Terms of Service

Privacy Policy

The Privacy Policy is included in and referenced by the Terms of Service Agreement.

Information Collection & Use

Registration
In order to use the member-based functionalities of this Web site, you must first complete the registration form and create a membership account. During registration you are required to provide your email address, which (in conjunction with your password) is used to log-in to this membership account.

MSPnet is the sole owner of the contact and usage information collected on MSPnet and it will not be shared, sold or distributed. MSPnet collects personally identifiable information from our members at several different points on our Web site.

Usage Data Logging
As is true of most Web sites, we gather certain information automatically and store it for later analysis. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.

We use this information to administer the site, analyze trends, monitor traffic to improve our services, enforce terms of use and IP policies, contact you, and conduct research.

In conducting research on the site only TERC staff will have access to automatically generated data. Research reports will only refer to aggregate group data, as opposed to that of individual members, so there is minimal risk to you. For example, we might report on differences of use between PIs and teachers, or between the use of active projects vs. projects that are post funded. We may also look at sections of the site (e.g. Library vs. Showcase) that are receiving more or less traffic. We use these analyses to understand and improve the site, and to report on its impact to the National Science Foundation, other researchers/ developers/ educators, and to the MSPnet community. Your participation in this research is voluntary in that you can choose not to log-in to MSPnet.org.

Even though we analyze aggregate data, your account is associated with any and all contributions you make to the site and you are responsible for adhering to all presently published IP policies.

Cookies
A cookie is a small piece of text stored by the user's Web browser that enables site-specific functionality (such as shopping carts, logging into a member account, etc.). We use cookies to identify users as they navigate through the site (including logging into member accounts) via transient cookies (which are deleted when the browser closes) as well as persistent cookies (which are kept around by the user's Web browser, and enable the site to recognize the user in between browser sessions).

You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Web browser's "help" system; you can also reject new cookies generally, or on a site-specific basis. If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but you will not be able to log-in to your membership account, and your ability to use other areas of our site may be limited. This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by MSPnet only.

Profile
We store information that we collect through registration and the contributions you make to the community to create a "profile" of your preferences and activities, to serve the community and to enforce IP and use policies. All contributions you make on the site (that you have made viewable to the public) are also linked to your member profile and login name. Any guest to the site (logged in or not) can view your profile and the information stored there including your name, project affiliation, your professional roles, bio, expertise, and recent publications. Your email address is required, though by default will only display to other logged in site members. You may however change this setting so that your email displays only to logged in members of your MSP project (or conversely, it may be changed and made viewable to everyone - including the public). Other contact information may be provided (address, phone, URL to your website, department, title, and primary discipline), but is not required and will be viewable to guests visiting the site.

If your personally identifiable information changes you may correct or update your profile using My MSPnet. If you no longer desire to be a member or have further questions, you may send an email to contact@mspnet.org.

We do not share your profile with other third parties.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

Links to Other Sites
This Web site may contain links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by MSPnet. Please be aware that we, MSPnet, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites.

We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies only to information collected by this Web site.

Groups
MSPnet is a web site dedicated to supporting learning communities. MSPnet provides many online many tools for users to contribute and participate in the community from comments and discussion boards to the ability to contribute and share content and work collaboratively on content development projects. If you use the groups on this site, or use any of the other contributory and participatory functions, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other members of these groups, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. While discussions may be analyzed for research synthesis or discourse analysis by other members of the group, such studies must protect users' anonymity. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these groups, share in your profile, and share in the resources you contribute or otherwise disclose on the site.

Security
We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can send an email to: contact@mspnet.org

Changes in this Privacy Statement

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here or by means of a notice on our home page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact us: contact@mspnet.org

Terms of Service Agreement

The Terms of Service Agreement includes and references the Privacy Policy.

1. Definitions

"MSPnet.org" is the web address for the interactive online service ("MSPnet Website") operated by TERC consisting of information services and content provided by TERC and other third parties. "Member" refers to each person who registers on MSPnet, thereby establishing an online account affiliated with a funded MSP project. Membership is granted only to people directly associated with an MSP program.

2. General

(A) These Terms of Service ("Agreement"), which incorporates by reference other provisions applicable to use of the MSPnet website, including, but not limited to, supplemental terms and conditions referred to and incorporated by reference herein, governing the use of certain specific material contained in the MSPnet website, sets forth the terms and conditions that apply to use of the MSPnet website by a Member. By using the MSPnet website (other than to read this Agreement for the first time), a Member agrees to comply with all of the terms and conditions hereof. The right to use the MSPnet website is personal to the Member and is not transferable to any other person or entity. The Member is responsible for all use of the Member's Account (under any screen name or password) and for ensuring that all use of Member's Account complies fully with the provisions of this Agreement. The Member shall be responsible for protecting the confidentiality of the Member's password(s).

(B) The MSPnet website shall have the right at any time to change or discontinue any aspect or feature of the MSPnet website, including, but not limited to, content, hours of availability, and equipment needed for access or use.

3. Changed Terms

MSPnet shall have the right at any time to change or modify the terms and conditions applicable to a Member's use of MSPnet, or any part thereof, or to impose new conditions. Such changes, modifications, additions or deletions shall be effective immediately and will be posted on MSPnet. Any use of MSPnet by a Member after such notice shall be deemed to constitute acceptance by the Member of such changes, modifications or additions.

4. Member Conduct

(A) A Member shall use the MSPnet website for lawful purposes only. A Member shall not post or transmit through the MSPnet website any material which violates or infringes in any way upon the rights of others, which is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, vulgar, obscene, profane or otherwise objectionable, which encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any law, or which, without MSPnet's express prior approval, contains advertising or any solicitation with respect to products or services. Any conduct by a Member that in the MSPnet website's sole discretion restricts or inhibits any other Member from using or enjoying the MSPnet website will not be permitted. Member shall not use the MSPnet website to advertise or perform any commercial solicitation.

(B) The MSPnet website contains copyrighted material, trademarks and other proprietary information, including, but not limited to, text, software, photos, video, graphics, music and sound. Except as expressly provided by the copyright holder and the terms of the applicable license, a user may not modify, publish, participate in the sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit, any of the content, in whole or in part. Except as expressly permitted in the applicable license, no changes in or deletion of author attribution, trademark legend or copyright notice shall be made. The Member acknowledges that it does not acquire any ownership rights by downloading copyrighted material, except as otherwise stated in the applicable license.

(C) All contributions made by a Member to MSPnet shall be subject to the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license and this Agreement. This license is the most restrictive Creative Commons license, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the "free advertising" license because it allows others to download an author's work and share it with others as long as they mention the author and link back to the author, but they can't change it in any way or use them commercially. For more information this Creative Commons license, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Members shall not upload, post or otherwise make available on the MSPnet website any material protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary right without the express permission of the owner of the copyright, trademark or other proprietary right and the burden of determining that any material is not protected by copyright rests with Member. The Member shall be solely liable for any damage resulting from any infringement of copyrights, proprietary rights, or any other harm resulting from such a submission, and hereby agrees to indemnify, defend and hold harmless MSPnet for any and all claims, liabilities, damages and expenses arising from such infringement, including, but not limited to attorneys' fees.

5. Disclaimer of Warranty; Limitation of Liability

(A) The Member expressly agrees that use of the MSPnet website is at the Member's sole risk. Neither MSPnet, its affiliates nor any of their respective employees, agents, third party content providers or licensors warrant that the MSPnet website will be uninterrupted or error free; nor do they make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from use of the MSPnet website, or as to the accuracy, reliability or content of any information provided the through MSPnet website.

(B) The MSPnet website is provided on an "as is" basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of title or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

(C) This disclaimer of liability applies to any damages or injury caused by any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus, communication line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, alteration of, or use of record, whether for breach of contract, tortious behavior, negligence, or under any other cause of action. The Member specifically acknowledges that MSPnet is not liable for the defamatory, offensive or illegal conduct of other Members or third-parties and that risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with the Member.

(D) In no event will MSPnet be liable for any damages, including without limitation, direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages arising out of the use of or inability to use the MSPnet website. The Member hereby acknowledges that the provisions of this section shall apply to all content on the MSPnet website.

(E) In addition to the terms set forth above neither MSPnet, nor its affiliates, information providers or content partners shall be liable regardless of the cause or duration, for any errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or other defects in, or untimeliness or unauthenticity of, the information contained within the MSPnet website, or for any delay or interruption in the transmission thereof to the Member, or for any claims or losses arising from or occasioned thereby. None of the foregoing parties shall be liable for any third party claims or losses of any nature, including, but not limited to, lost profits, punitive or consequential damages.

6. Monitoring

MSPnet shall have the right, but not the obligation, to monitor the content of the MSPnet website, including groups, to determine compliance with this Agreement, the EPA and any operating rules established by MSPnet and to satisfy any law, regulation or authorized government request. MSPnet shall have the right in its sole discretion to edit, refuse to post or remove any material submitted to or posted on MSPnet. Without limiting the foregoing, MSPnet shall have the right to remove any material that MSPnet, in its sole discretion, finds to be in violation of the provisions hereof or otherwise objectionable.

7. Indemnification

The Member agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless the MSPnet website, its affiliates and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents from and against all claims and expenses, including attorneys' fees, arising out of the use of MSPnet by the Member or Member's Account.

8. Termination

Either the MSPnet website or the Member may terminate this Agreement at any time. Without limiting the foregoing, the MSPnet website shall have the right to immediately terminate the Member's Account in the event of any conduct by the Member which the MSPnet website, in its sole discretion, considers to be unacceptable, or in the event of any breach by the Member of this Agreement. The provisions of Sections 4(B), 4(C), 5, 7 and this Section 8 shall survive termination of this Agreement.

9. Privacy Policy

Registration data and certain other information about you is subject to the MSPnet Privacy Policy. For more information, see the Privacy Policy.

10. MSP Content

The MSPnet website is created and facilitated by TERC, Inc. and the site is funded by the National Science Foundation. Content that appears on MSPnet is posted by the MSP community. Opinions expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.

11. Copyrights and Copyright Agent

The MSPnet website respects the rights of all copyright holders and in this regard, the MSPnet website has adopted and implemented a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of Members who infringe the rights of copyright holders. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide MSPnet the following information required by the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 512:

(A) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;

(B) Identification of the copyright work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;

(C) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material;

(D) Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact the complaining party;

(E) A statement that the complaining party has a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and

(F) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

For copyright inquiries under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act please contact: contact@MSPnet.org

Contact Us

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our Terms of Service or Privacy Policy, please contact us: contact@mspnet.org

MSPnet TERC
2067 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02140
phone: 617-873-9600