Terms of Service

These Terms of Service govern the Sci-GaIA Online Courses service (hereinafter referred to as the 'Site') which is owned and operated by the members of the Sci-GaIA project's Consortium (hereinafter referred to as the 'Members'). You should not access or use this Site until you have carefully read and agreed to the following Terms of Service.

Use of the Site
In order to participate in Sci-GaIA Online Courses or access any online resources offered by the Site you must first carefully read and agree to these Terms of Service, Honour Code and Privacy Policy (collectively 'Terms'). BY ACCESSING AND PARTICIPATING IN THE SITE, YOU HAVE INDICATED THAT YOU HAVE READ THESE TERMS AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY AND COMPLY WITH THEM. If you do not agree to be bound by these Terms, please promptly exit the Site.
THE MEMBERS RESERVE THE RIGHT TO MODIFY THESE TERMS AT ANY TIME AND WILL PUBLISH NOTICE OF ANY MODIFICATIONS ON-LINE AT THIS SITE. BY CONTINUING TO ACCESS A SITE AFTER NOTICE OF SUCH MODIFICATIONS HAS BEEN PUBLISHED, YOU SIGNIFY YOUR AGREEMENT TO BE BOUND BY THEM.

User Age and Eligibility
Participation in the Site and Sci-GaIA Online Courses is restricted to those individuals who have registered, who are 18 years of age and over, emancipated minors, or those who possess parental or legal guardian consent, and who are fully able and competent to enter into these terms, conditions, obligations, affirmations, representations and warranties herein. By accessing the Site you affirm that you are at least 13 years old and meet the eligibility requirements. This Site is not intended for children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, do not use the Site. If you have questions about your eligibility, please contact us at courses-support@sci-gaia.eu.
Certain courses may also have additional eligibility requirements as specified in the specific course description. If you are not eligible for registration and participation or do not agree to the Terms, you may not use the Site.

Access to the Site
While portions of the Site may be available to the general public, portions of the Site are restricted to registered users who meet eligibility criteria. You agree that you will not access any registration-only portions of the Site if you do not meet the eligibility requirements. The Members are not responsible for any delay, inability or failure to access the Site due to any cause, including but not limited to acts of God, natural disasters, government orders, labour unrest, malfunction of user hardware or software, interruption in internet service, loss or corruption of data, and unanticipated suspension or cessation of service from any underlying service provider.

User Accounts
Site Registration.
In order to fully participate in all Site activities, you must authenticate yourself with an Identity Provider able to confirm your identity. We support federated authentication through the adoption of the SAML 2.0 standard.
Course Registration.
In order to participate in an online course you may be required to register in the course by selecting the course from the list of offered courses. You may be required to provide additional information at the time of registration including, without limitation, evidence of eligibility or of successful completion of prerequisite courses. You may be required to pay a fee to register in some courses. You understand and agree that all information provided by you is accurate, current and complete and that you will maintain and update your information to keep it accurate, current and complete. You acknowledge that if any information provided by you is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, we reserve the right to refuse access to the selected course or to terminate your use of the Site. You agree that you will never divulge or share access or access information to your User Account with any third party for any reason.
Course Modification or Cancellation
The Site, including the course materials, may contain errors and omissions. We reserve the right to correct errors or omissions without prior notice. We also reserve the right to cancel, discontinue, reschedule, delay, change instructors or modify any course or service. You acknowledge that the course content of the online course does not reflect the complete curriculum of a course that may be offered to students enrolled at the Members.

License to use Site Materials
Unless otherwise indicated, the Site and all its content, such as text, images, and the HTML used to generate the pages ('Material') are released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). Some content on the Site is provided by third parties, and the use of that content is subject to rules and restrictions as indicated on the Site. You agree to be bound by all such rules and restrictions.

Modifications to Site
The Members reserve the right, for any reason or no reason, in their sole discretion and without notice, to terminate, change, suspend or discontinue any aspect of the Site, including without limitation, information, data, text, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages, courses, Materials, features and/or hours of availability, and we will not be liable to you or to any third party for doing so. We may also impose rules and limits on the use of the Site or restrict your access to part, or the entire, Site without notice or penalty.

Rules for Online Conduct
You agree to use the Sites in accordance with all applicable laws. You are responsible for your own communications, including the upload, transmission and posting of information, and are responsible for the consequences of their posting on or through the Site. You further agree that you will not email or post malicious or harmful content anywhere on the Site, including without limitation the following:
Content that defames or threatens others;
Harassing statements or content that violates federal or state law;
Content that discusses illegal activities with the intent to commit them;
Content that is not your own, or infringes another's intellectual property, including, but not limited to, copyrights, trademarks or trade secrets;
Content related to partisan political activities;
Material that contains obscene (i.e. pornographic) language or images;
Advertising or any form of commercial solicitation or promotion, including links to other sites;
Content that is otherwise unlawful;
Intentionally incomplete, misleading or inaccurate content;
Violations of the Honour Code.
Copyrighted material, including without limitation software, graphics, text, photographs, sound, video and musical recordings, may not be placed on the Site without the express permission of the owner of the copyright in the material, or other legal entitlement to use the material.

Security Rules
Violations of system or network security may result in civil or criminal liability. The Members will investigate occurrences and may involve, and cooperate with, law enforcement authorities in prosecuting the use or users who are involved in such violations. You agree that you will not violate or attempt to violate the security of the Site, including without limitation:
attacking, probing, scanning or testing the vulnerability of, breaching security of, disrupting, disabling or harming the Site, or servers or networks connected to the Site
using the Site via any automated means, such as a screen-scraper or robot. This is not intended to exclude the use of assistive technology for your own use, such as screen-readers
sending any unsolicited emails to other Site Users or forging any TCP/IP packet header or any part of the header information in any email
displaying the Site within a frame on another website without consent, or place pop-up windows or other disruptive technologies over it
accessing data not intended for you or logging into a server or account you are not authorized to access
attempting to interfere with service to any user, host or network, including without limitation, via means of submitting a virus to the Site, overloading, 'flooding', 'Mailbombing' or 'Crashing'
impersonating another person or improperly allowing another to use your registration information to access the Site.

Content Disclaimer
The text and other material on the Site may include the opinion of the specific instructor and are not statements of advice, endorsement, opinion, or information of the Members. If you feel you might be offended by the content of the Site, you should not continue.
Site may also include the personal opinions and other expressions by Users who post entries on a wide range of topics. Neither the content of the forums, nor the links to other web sites, are screened, approved, reviewed or endorsed by the Members or any other related entity. The Members are not publishers of any of the content of the forums, or of any content that may be available through links to and from them.

User Content
You may be permitted to submit and distribute materials in connection with an online course ('User Content'). You represent and warrant that any material you submit to the Site, instructors or other Users is accurate and complete and will not violate or infringe the rights of any third party, including without limitation privacy, publicity, intellectual property and any other proprietary rights, such as copyright, trademark and patent rights. You represent and warrant that you have all the necessary rights and licenses to use the material and to permit use of the material by the Members and other researchers. You agree that, if a third party claims that any material you have contributed to a Site is unlawful, you will bear the burden of establishing that the material complies with all applicable laws. Although the Members do not monitor the content of the Site, they have the right to remove material from the Site, block access, or take other action with respect to the material in their sole discretion.
Grant of license. By your submission of any material in connection with this course, you hereby grant the Members an irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty free, fully transferable, worldwide license to use, disclose, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, publicly perform, publicly display and provide to other researchers any such submission. You hereby grant Users in your online course a license to use your User Content (including the right to copy, modify and distribute such content) in conjunction with their participation in the course.

User Status and Statement of Accomplishment
You agree and acknowledge that your access to the Site, participation in an online course and your agreement to these Terms do not confer any right to access or use the resources of the Members or establish any relationship with them or their instructors beyond the Site, that you are not enrolled, admitted or in attendance at any of the Members and that you are not entitled to any student or academic grievance procedures. You agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between the Members and you as a result of these Terms or your use of the Site. Subject to satisfactory performance and course completion, you may receive a Statement of Accomplishment ('Statement') signed by the instructor(s). The Members reserve the right to determine whether a Statement will be issued for the online course and the nature of the information to be provided in the Statement. You acknowledge that any Statement will not stand in the place of a course taken at any of the Members or an accredited institution or confer any academic credit, grade or degree or indicate enrollment at any of the Members. You further acknowledge that instructors of any online course are not required to participate in any attempts to get the course recognized by any educational or accredited institution.

International Use and Consent to Processing The Members control and operate this Site within Italy, and all information is collected, transmitted, processed and stored within Italy. We do not represent that materials on the Site are appropriate or available for use in other locations. Persons who choose to access the Site from other locations do so on their own initiative, and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable. You agree to comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations in connection with your use of the Site. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you agree to comply with all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from Italy or the country in which you reside. By providing any personal information to the Site, all users, fully understand and unambiguously consent to the collection, transmission processing and storage of such information in Italy and the use of such information for research by the Members and other international researchers.

Links to Other Sites
The Site may include hyperlinks to sites maintained or controlled by others. The Members are not responsible for and do not routinely screen, approve, review or endorse the contents of or use of any of the products or services that may be offered at other sites. These links do not imply Members' endorsement of or association with the linked sites. The Members are not responsible for and shall in no event be liable, directly or indirectly, to anyone for any loss or damage arising from or occasioned by the creation or use of the linked sites or the information or material accessed through those linked sites. Since we support Federated Authentication login, we may receive from the authenticator your name, email, and public profile information, and the authenticator is notified of your login to this site.
Choice of Law/Forum Selection
The Site is managed by the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania, located in Catania, Italy. You agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or any content posted to a Site, including copies and republication thereof, whether based in contract, tort, statutory or other law, will be governed by the laws of Italy, excluding its conflicts of law provisions. You further consent to the personal jurisdiction of and exclusive venue in the courts located in and serving Catania, Italy as the legal forum for any such dispute.

Disclaimer of Warranties
THIS SITE AND ANY INFORMATION, PRODUCTS OR SERVICES THEREIN ARE PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR USE OF A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NONINFRINGEMENT. THE MEMBERS DO NOT WARRANT, AND HEREBY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF ANY SITE, INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM A SITE, OR LINK TO A SITE. THE MEMBERS DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE WILL OPERATE IN AN UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE MANNER OR THAT THE SITE IS FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. USE OF INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM OR THROUGH THE SITE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, THE MEMBERS DO NOT WARRANT THAT (A) THE SITE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS OR EXPECTATIONS OR ACHIEVE THE INTENDED PURPOSES, (B) THE SITE WILL BE FREE OF OUTAGES, INTERRUPTIONS, DELAYS, SECURITY FLAWS, AND ERRORS, (C) THE INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM THE SITE WILL BE ACCURATE, COMPLETE, CURRENT, ERROR-FREE, COMPLETELY SECURE OR RELIABLE, (D) THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO TRANSMIT OR RECEIVE INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH THE SITE OR (E) THAT DEFECTS IN OR ON THE SITE WILL BE CORRECTED.

Limitation of Liability
YOU AGREE THAT THE MEMBERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGES, EITHER ACTUAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS, OR TO YOUR (OR ANY THIRD PARTY'S) USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SITE, OR TO YOUR PLACEMENT OF CONTENT ON THE SITE, OR TO YOUR RELIANCE UPON INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM OR THROUGH THE SITE. IN PARTICULAR, THE MEMBERS WILL HAVE NO LIABILTY FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, SPECIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, WHETHER FORESEEABLE OR UNFORESEEABLE, (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, CLAIMS FOR DEFAMATION, ERRORS, LOSS OF DATA, OR INTERRUPTION IN AVAILABILITY OF DATA), ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS, YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SITE, OR YOUR PLACEMENT OF CONTENT ON A SITE, OR TO YOUR RELIANCE UPON INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM OR THROUGH A SITE, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT, STATUTORY OR OTHER LAW, EVEN IF THE MEMBERS OR THEIR REPRESENTATIVES HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY SO SOME OF THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE TOTAL LIABILITY OF THE MEMBERS TO YOU FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES, AND CAUSES OF ACTION ARISING FROM THE TERMS OR YOUR USE OF THE SITE EXCEED, IN THE AGGREGATE, Euro 1.00.

Termination Rights
You agree that: the Members, in their sole discretion, may terminate your use of the Site or your participation in an online course activity, for any reason or no reason and at any time; the Members shall not have any liability to you for the termination; and that you are not entitled to any course credit or to any student or academic grievance procedures in connection with such a termination.

Consumer Notice
If you have any questions regarding services provided through the Site, you may contact courses-support@sci-gaia.eu.

Proprietary Rights
The logos, names and graphics on the Site of any of the Members or any of their affiliates, may be trademarks of that member of the Sci-GaIA Consortium or its affiliates. Use, reproduction, copying or redistribution of trademarks of the Members, without the prior written permission of the Members or their affiliates, is prohibited. All other trademarks or servicemarks appearing on the Site are the marks of their respective owners.

Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold the Members and its instructors, trustees, officers, agents, employees, and assignees, harmless from any claims, actions, demands, losses or damages, including legal fees, arising out of, resulting from or in any way related to your participation in an online course, use of a Site, placement of any content onto a Site or violation of these Terms. You further agree to fully cooperate in their defense against any such claims.

Copyright Complaints
The Members respect the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that your copyrighted work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please contact us at courses-support@sci-gaia.eu and provide the following written information: (i) an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest; (ii) a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed upon; (iii) a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Site; (iv) your address, telephone number, and email address; (v) a statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and (vi) a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

Notices
Notices to you will be made via email. Notices concerning the Site should be directed to the email address courses-support@sci-gaia.eu. The Site may also provide notices of changes to these Terms or other matters by displaying notices or links to notices to you on the Site.

General Information
Members' failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of the Terms shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of the Terms is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavour to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Terms remain in full force and effect. You may not assign the Terms or any of your rights or obligations under the Terms without Members' express prior written consent. The Terms inure to the benefit of Members' successors, assigns and licensees. The section titles in the Terms are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect