Terms and Conditions

1.     General


1.1.  The Our MK Platform (ourmk.org) is provided by The Open University. It is part of the MK:Smart project, which is funded by HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England, Catalyst Fund (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/funding/catalyst/projects/ou/)).

1.2.  In these Terms and Conditions, when it says ‘we’ or ‘us’, it means The Open University, which is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England and Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

1.3.  By using the Our MK Platform you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions, which shall take effect immediately on your first use of the Our MK Platform. If you do not wish to be bound by these Terms and Conditions, you should immediately cease use of the Our MK Platform.

1.4.  The Open University may change these Terms and Conditions from time to time by updating the document on this page and so you should check these terms regularly. Your continued use of the Our MK Platform will be deemed acceptance of any updated or amended Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree to any changes, you should immediately cease using the Our MK Platform.

1.5.  Please note that the Our MK Platform is made available to you, free of charge, as part of an on-going academic research project and that the platform and the content is still under development.  Accordingly, the Open University makes the Our MK Platform available to you “as is” and you agree that your use of the Our MK Platform is at your own risk. 

 

2.     Use of the Our MK Portal 


2.1.  You must be over the age of 16 to register for an account on the Our MK Platform. As part of the registration process, you will need to provide us with some personal details about yourself and we may use such details in accordance with our Privacy Policy – see section 8 of this document (“Privacy Policy) for more details. We will handle your personal details in accordance with the provisions of the UK’s Data Protection Act. 

2.2.  You agree that you will not use the Our MK Platform, or allow it to be used:

2.2.1. in a way that infringes the rights of third parties (including third parties’ intellectual property rights) or otherwise restricts or inhibits a third party’s use or enjoyment of the Site.  For the avoidance of doubt, prohibited behaviour includes harassing or causing distress or inconvenience to any person, transmitting obscene or offensive content or disrupting the normal flow of dialogue. You may not impersonate another person;

2.2.2. for any unlawful purpose or for the publication, linking to, issue or display of any unlawful material whether under English law, the laws of the territory in which you are based or the laws of any other place where such material can be accessed; or

2.2.3. for the publication, linking to, issue or display of any material which, in the absolute discretion of The Open University, may harm The Open University or bring The Open University into disrepute.

2.3.  We reserve the right to remove any material posted on the Our MK Platform that we consider unsuitable for any reason, at any time. 

2.4.  If you discover any content on the Our MK Platform that is inaccurate, inappropriate, unlawful, infringes the rights of a third party or in any other way breaches the provisions of clause 2.2 above, you should report such content by sending an email to enquiries@mksmart.org.

 

3.     Intellectual Property

 

3.1.  Nothing in these Terms and Conditions shall affect the ownership of:

3.1.1. any data or intellectual property that you upload on to the Our MK Platform (ownership of which shall remain with you and your third party licensees); or

3.1.2. any intellectual property in the underlying Our MK Platform (ownership of which shall remain with the OU and its third party licensees). 

3.2.  By sharing content through the Our MK Platform, you hereby:

3.2.1. warrant that you are the owner of such content or have obtained the necessary rights and licences to share such content; and

3.2.2. grant to the OU an irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use such content and make such content available to third parties on the Our MK Platform.

3.3.  Please be aware that if you disable your account we will not automatically delete content that you have submitted to the Our MK Platform.

 

4.     Content

 

4.1.  The Open University is not able to guarantee that information contained on or available via the Our MK Platform is, or will continue to be, accurate or that it is free from third party rights. You confirm that you have not relied on any such information and that the use of any information obtained from the Our MK Platform is entirely at your sole risk and responsibility.

4.2.  Information contained in or accessible via the Our MK Platform changes on a regular basis. We may make improvements or alterations at any time and without notice. If any links to another website appear on the Our MK Platform, The Open University accepts no responsibility or liability for the content of that website (whether under our control or otherwise). Any link is not intended to be, nor should be construed as, an endorsement of any kind by us.

4.3.  Should we link to other websites we will try to make it as clear as possible that you are leaving the Our MK Platform. It is your responsibility to check the terms and conditions and privacy policy on any other website that you visit.

 

5.     Service Provision

 

5.1.  We do not guarantee that:

5.1.1. use of the Our MK Platform will be compatible with all hardware and software;

5.1.2. use of the Our MK Platform will be uninterrupted or error or virus free;

5.1.3. use of the Our MK Platform will deliver any specific outcome for its users; or that

5.1.4. defects will be corrected. 

5.2.  You must take appropriate steps to ensure that you regularly check for viruses when using the Our MK Platform on any device.

5.3.  In case of downtime, defects, incompatibilities or errors, The Open University will take reasonable steps to minimise any disruption to you, but does not guarantee that any such issues will be remedied at all, or within any particular timescales. The Open University will have no responsibility for remedying any downtime, defects, incompatibilities or errors resulting from your act or omission. 

5.4.  The Open University reserves the right at any time to improve, correct or otherwise modify all or any part of the Our MK Platform (including substituting software, equipment, protocols and/or settings). The Open University will use reasonable endeavours to give you reasonable notice of any such modification, where this is reasonably practicable.

5.5.  You are not entitled, under any circumstance, to resell or otherwise make available to a third party, the whole or any part of the services provided through the Our MK Platform. 

5.6.  The Open University may at its sole discretion suspend the provision of the whole or any part of the Our MK Platform (temporarily or permanently) without liability.

 

6.     Warranties and Liability

 

6.1.  Without limiting any other provision in these Terms and Conditions, you acknowledge and agree that the Our MK Platform, and all information contained in or accessible through the Our MK Platform, is made available to you without any warranty, either express or implied, as to its fitness for a particular purpose, its satisfactory quality or merchantability, that it will not infringe any third party rights, that it will comply with any specification, that it will be free from defects, that it will be compatible with any other equipment or software or that it will be or remain available at any given moment. 

6.2.  To the extent that any advice or information is provided by a member of the OU’s staff or the MK:Smart project team, such advice is an academic opinion only, and not a commercial opinion.  You are responsible for taking your own decisions on how to use any such advice or information that may be given to you.

6.3.  You acknowledge that you are not using the Our MK Platform in reliance on any representation, warranty, or other provision except as explicitly set out in these Terms and Conditions and that any representations, warranties, and other provisions implied by statue or common law are excluded from this Agreement to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.

6.4.  You hereby agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless the OU, our affiliates and our officers, directors, employees and agents from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages, losses or expenses, including reasonable legal costs, arising out of or in any way connected with any breach by you of these Terms and Conditions.

 

7.     General

 

7.1.  These Terms and Conditions (including the privacy statement) contain all the terms and conditions applicable to your use of the Our MK Platform. Nothing contained on the Our MK Platform is intended to be, nor should be construed as an offer by us to enter into, a contractual relationship with you or anyone else except on these Terms and Conditions. 

7.2.  These Terms and Conditions, and any dispute in relation to the materials available from the Our MK Platform, are governed by English law. The English courts have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any disputes which may arise out of or in connection with the Terms and Conditions or use of the Our MK Platform.

 

8.     Privacy Policy

 

8.1.  This Privacy Policy sets out details of the information that we may collect from you and how we may use that information. This Privacy Policy should be read alongside, and in addition to, the Terms of Use of the Our MK Platform

8.2.  Please read this Privacy Policy carefully – by using the Our MK Platform, you agree to its terms (including as amended from time to time). If, for any reason, you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please stop using the Our MK Platform immediately.

8.3.  Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used have the same meaning as in the Terms of Use of the Our MK Platform

8.4.  This Privacy Policy applies only to your use of the Our MK Platform. We are not responsible for any information gathered by other users of the Our MK Platform or other linking sites linked to the Our MK Platform. We will at all times only collect and process your personal information in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and any other applicable data protection legislation. 

8.5.  We may collect, store and use certain personal information that you voluntarily disclose to us. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with the Our MK Platform. When registering we ask for your name, together with the following information that helps us in running the Our MK Platform:

  • Username
  • Email Address
  • First Name
  • Family Name
  • Age Range
  • Their Interests
  • Occupation
  • Sector
  • Education Level
  • Location
  • Motivation for using the platform
  • How long they have lived in MK
  • Why they wanted to get involved with a project
  • A brief description of you
  • Profile visibility (public/private)
  • Nickname
  • Relationship to Milton Keynes
  • How long they have had a relationship to MK
  • Milton Keynes Region
  • Milton Keynes Postcode

 

8.6.  If you contact us, we may also keep a record of that correspondence. We may also collect data relating to your visits to the Our MK Platform that cannot identify you but records your use of our resources including, for example, details of how long and how much you have used the Our MK Platform and specific data or content. We may also collect your computer’s IP address in order to help us monitor use of the Our MK Platform from your location, and for support purposes. 

8.7.  By accessing the Our MK Platform you agree that your information may be used by us and by project partners for any of the following purposes:

  • for academic purposes including, but not limited to, the publication of aggregate data in an anonymised form or the use of submitted ideas in academic papers
  • to provide, maintain, protect and improve the quality of the Our MK Platform, including by conducting anonymised market research, and to protect us and our users;
  • to provide you with a personalised experience when using the Our MK Platform;
  • to fulfil any contractual agreements between you and us (for example, when you submit project proposals);
  • to send you details (by email) of other products and services which we think may interest you, unless you opt out via your personal settings;
  • to sell sponsorship on the Website;
  • to manage your user account that you hold with us;
  • to allow you to use some features of our Our MK Platform;
  • to send you email notifications and updates about the Our MK Platform
  • to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.

 

8.8.  We may use your email address to send you updates about our platform and the MK:Smart Project (mksmart.org)

8.9.  All information is stored on our secure servers. When you register, we will ask you to choose a password which enables you to access the Our MK Platform services and content. You are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share this password with anyone. We have put in place technical and organisational security measures to prevent the loss or unauthorised access of your personal information. However, whilst we have used our best efforts to ensure the security of your data, please be aware that we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted over the Internet. 

8.10. We may disclose your information to any member of our group, our funders, partners and associated organisations. We may disclose your personal information to third parties: with your consent; if we are under a duty to disclose or share your information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms and other agreements; or to protect our rights, property, or safety, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

8.11. You can edit your personal details via your profile page whenever you wish. We maintain a procedure in order to help you confirm that your personal information remains correct and up-to-date or choose whether or not you wish to receive material from us or some of our partners.

8.12. If you have any privacy related questions or unresolved problems, you may contact us using the information provided at http://www.mksmart.org/contact/. 

8.13. The Our MK Platform may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of third parties. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept responsibility or liability of any of these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal information to these websites.

8.14. The Our MK Platform uses cookies. Cookies are small files stored on your computer’s hard drive which are used to collect your personal information. You may choose to refuse cookies but, if you do so, some of the functionality of the Our MK Platform may no longer be available to you.

8.15. We may update or amend this Privacy Policy from time to time, to comply with law or to meet our changing requirements, without notice to you. Any updates or amendments will be posted on the website. By continuing to access the Our MK Platform, you agree to be bound by the terms of these updates and amendments.

8.16. If you have any questions, comments or complaints about this Privacy Policy, please contact us using the form at http://www.mksmart.org/contact/

  

[Last Updated 18 June 2015]