About the Site

Privacy and Cookies Policy

This Privacy Policy explains the privacy practices of CourseSmart Limited and its agents (sometimes referred to here as "CourseSmart" or "we") with respect to the CourseSmart online website www.coursesmart.co.uk (the "Site"). It explains the information we collect when you sign up with or use the Site, or purchase any of the products offered on or through the Site (the "CourseSmart Service") and at other stages of your use of the CourseSmart Service. In addition, this Privacy Policy explains how we use and store that information and explains certain choices you can make about your own information.

By using the CourseSmart Service you will be deemed to have agreed to the terms of this Privacy Policy, so if you do not agree please do not use the CourseSmart Service.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the "Act"), the data controller is CourseSmart Limited of Devonshire House, 1 Devonshire Street, London W1W 5DR.

A.             Information Collection

CourseSmart collects and processes information from its users, including Personal Data i.e. information from which you may be personally identifiable, as set out in the Act, at several different points in the CourseSmart Service:

1.              Mandatory Registration and Ordering

To purchase any of the products offered or otherwise actively use the CourseSmart Service, whether as a student or [an instructor], you must first complete our registration form. During registration, you will be required to give your name, email address, academic institution information and course information ("Registration Information"). Additionally, when you place an order for access to a CourseSmart eTextbook or eResource, our order form requires additional information such as your billing address and certain financial information (including a credit card number and expiration date) ("Financial Information"). Details of transactions you carry out and fulfillment of your orders through the CourseSmart Service will also be collected and retained. Certain other information may also be requested in order to enable you to use the CourseSmart Service, such as details of your reader device type to allow CourseSmart to return technically compliant items to your device.

2.              Other Voluntary Production of Data

We may receive your Personal Data when you contact us, for example, with a question for the CourseSmart Customer Support team or when you voluntarily post in blogs, forums or other interactive elements available through the CourseSmart Service. Please take care when posting such information. You should be aware that other users will be able to see that information and may use it to send you unsolicited messages and for other purposes. We cannot control such use. To request removal of your Personal Data from any interactive elements of the CourseSmart Service please contact us at customerservice@coursesmart.co.uk and we will do our best to remove it. However, in some cases, we may not be able to remove your Personal Data, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

CourseSmart may, from time to time, request Personal Data from users via surveys, contests or other events. It will often be obvious why such information is requested, such as contact details to notify contest winners etc., but if it is not we will make this clear. Participation in these events will be voluntary and therefore, you have a choice whether or not to disclose this information and/or respond to them.

3.              Data from Third Parties

CourseSmart also may receive your Personal Data from certain third party affiliate or partner companies and from marketing or advertising companies that provide us with such information as a part of their relationship with us, for example, when we receive a list of contact details for individuals who have consented to be contacted with marketing information.

4.              Additional Information

CourseSmart uses automatic tools to monitor the consumption of eTextbooks on the CourseSmart Service by both students and instructors. This includes recording printing activity for each eTextbook where there is a restriction on the maximum number of pages that can be printed or noting the speed with which an eTextbook is being read to detect the usage of a crawling, scraping or other automatic tool or other prohibited copying or usage. Details of the usage restrictions on eTextbooks are set out on the Site and in the CourseSmart Terms of Use.

Details of users' IP addresses, whether or not the user has registered with the Site, may be collected and used to analyse trends and monitor usage of the Site and administer the CourseSmart Service.

Further non-Personal Data may be collected automatically when you access the CourseSmart Service, such as the type of browser and operating system you are using for system administration and statistical information about our users' browsing actions and patterns which does not identify an individual.

B.             Use of Collected Information

CourseSmart uses the information it collects to serve your needs as well as our own legitimate business purposes, including to enable us to provide the CourseSmart Service to you - where relevant using Registration and Financial Information for billing purposes and to complete your orders, to allow users to read their notes and make new notes within the CourseSmart Service, to track user movement and activity with regard to use of the CourseSmart Service and to provide you with technical and other customer support, for example if we have trouble processing an order. We may also use the information collected to verify your authority to use the CourseSmart Service and enforce usage restrictions, improve the content and general administration of the CourseSmart Service and provide you with notice regarding goods and services that you have purchased or may wish to purchase in the future.

The email address and other contact information provided will be used to contact you about elements of the CourseSmart Service in which you have expressed an interest, to notify winners and award prizes in connection with any contests and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

Occasionally, CourseSmart may send registered users information on products, services, and special deals as well as newsletters via email. For example, CourseSmart may identify common behaviors of both students and instructors and create targeted emails based on such smaller group activity, for example where we send a reminder invite or special offer to users who have not accessed the Site for some time.

As a registered user, you will be given the opportunity to elect not to receive such emails from CourseSmart. You may opt-out from receiving these emails from us by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by emailing us at customerservice@coursesmart.co.uk

We will not send you marketing communications unless you have opted-in to receiving them. You are able to opt-in to receiving marketing communications from CourseSmart by signing in to your account within the CourseSmart Service and checking the box found in the "Communication Preferences" of the "My Account" section.

Targeted advertising (also known as Behavioral Advertising) uses information collected on an individual's browsing behavior within the CourseSmart Service such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made. This information is then used to select which CourseSmart advertisement should be displayed to a particular individual on websites or mobile applications other than the CourseSmart Service. For example, if you have shown a preference for nursing while visiting the CourseSmart Service, you may be served an advertisement from the CourseSmart Service for nursing related programs when you visit a site other than the CourseSmart Service. The information collected is only linked to an anonymous cookie ID (alphanumeric number); it does not include any information that could be linked back to a particular person, such as their name, address or credit card number. The information used for targeted advertising either comes from the CourseSmart Service or through third party website. If you would like to opt out of such targeted advertising please email us at customerservice@coursesmart.co.uk. Please note that this will opt you out of targeted ads from the CourseSmart Service and any other participating advertisers. If you opt out, you will continue to receive online advertising from the CourseSmart Service; however, these ads may not be as relevant to you.

C.              Cookies

CourseSmart uses cookies to improve the quality of your visit to the CourseSmart Service by providing you with personalized information and features. A cookie is a small text file that we may store on your computer when you visit the CourseSmart website. Cookies perform a number of different functions and some cookies are essential to deliver the CourseSmart Service. A cookie can uniquely identify your browser and let us learn about your behaviour and usage patterns when you interact with the CourseSmart website. A cookie may also convey anonymous information about how you browsed from a partner website to the CourseSmart website. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive after you close your browser. Your browser may use persistent cookies on subsequent visits to the site. Persistent cookies can be removed by following your web browser's directions. A session cookie is temporary and is deleted after you close your browser. Cookies that are essential to provide the services you request have already been set. You can reset your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being used, but by doing so, some of the functionality of the CourseSmart website may no longer be available or may not work as expected.

We have set out a list of the cookies we use, and an explanation of how they are used below:

If you would like any more information on the cookies we use, please contact us at: customerservice@coursesmart.co.uk.

D.             Sharing Information

We may share information, including your Personal Data, for the following reasons:

1.              Provision of the CourseSmart Service

When we use or partner with certain third parties to provide specific elements of the CourseSmart Service, we will share elements of your Personal Data where this is strictly necessary for the third party to provide these services. These parties will only be allowed to use your Personal Data for the purpose of providing these services. Currently, we use the following partners to provide certain elements of the CourseSmart Service:

(i)        an outside credit card processing company in order to bill users for goods and services and process payments;

(ii)       a customer service support company which uses the information only for resolving customer service issues;

(iii)      a server host company based in Belgium which hosts the servers for the CourseSmart Service; and

(iv)      only for those customers who have elected to receive such correspondence, an email management company who sends CourseSmart approved marketing emails on our behalf.

Each of the above companies will be processing your Personal Data on CourseSmart's behalf. However, these companies are not allowed to retain, share, store or use any of your Personal Data for any secondary purposes.

2.              Information to Publishers

Certain elements of your Personal Data will be shared with publishers of the eTextbooks and eResources to enable them to notify users if a book he or she purchased or has been given access to has been discontinued. CourseSmart confirms that the reading activities of its student users are not shared further with publishers.

Publishers are given information on the reading activities of their authorised instructors to assess their own works and the academics' preferences. The types of activity on an instructor's account that will be shared with the publisher include:

(i)        if an instructor requests an online exam copy of an eTextbook to be added to their bookshelf,

(ii)       if an instructor adds an eTextbook title to their bookshelf via the instant access feature or completes the "Get More" form to renew a subscription to an unlimited access duration; or

(iii)      an instructor requests that the publisher contact them directly.

3.              Legal Compliance

Please be aware that it is possible we might be forced to disclose certain elements of your Personal Data when we believe, in good faith, that disclosure is appropriate to comply with the law and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on the CourseSmart Service, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of CourseSmart, participating publishers, users, or others. This may include exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purpose of preventing fraud, protecting intellectual property, and reducing credit risk.

4.              Merger

We may transfer your Personal Data to a successor entity upon a merger, consolidation or other corporate reorganisation in which CourseSmart participates or to a purchaser of all or substantially all of CourseSmart's assets to which the CourseSmart Service relates.

Links to Third Party Sites

The CourseSmart Service may contain links to other sites or resources over which CourseSmart does not have control ("External Web Sites"). In addition, while you are on the CourseSmart Service, you may be re-directed to an External Web Site to complete a transaction. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these External Web Sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave the CourseSmart Service, and to read the privacy statements of each and every External Web Site that collects your Personally Identifying Information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by CourseSmart with respect to your use of the CourseSmart Service. You acknowledge that CourseSmart is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and further agree that CourseSmart is not responsible for the content of such External Web Sites.

Security

We employ appropriate technological, organizational and administrative measures to protect your Personal Data from loss, unauthorised access or disclosure. For example, CourseSmart may use firewalls, password protection, secure socket layer and other security measures to help prevent unauthorised access to your Personal Data.

The security of your Personal Data is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).

Correction/Updating Personal Information

To change your CourseSmart account information (Registration Information and Financial Information etc.), log on to your CourseSmart account. Click the "My Account" tab on the top tool bar and edit your account information as needed. If you have questions or need help with making changes, please contact customer service at customerservice@coursesmart.co.uk. We recommend you keep all such information up-to-date.

Furthermore, you have the option at any time to contact customer service to request that we:

(i)        provide a copy of the Personal Data we hold relating to you (and we may make a small administrative charge for this);

(ii)       update or remove any inaccurate Personal Data we hold relating to you; and

(iii)      stop using your Personal Data for marketing purposes or to stop contacting you where we do this in accordance with your previous consent.

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services contact us at customerservice@coursesmart.co.uk. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Facebook Connect

CourseSmart provides its users with the ability to create a new account, or sign-in to an existing account using their Facebook credentials -- rather than having to establish a separate, CourseSmart username and password. If you choose to use Facebook Connect to sign in to CourseSmart, the first time you select this option you will be prompted by Facebook to allow CourseSmart the privilege of being able to post content to your Facebook Wall and to your friends' News Feeds. Facebook will also ask if you want to allow CourseSmart access to your email address. Accepting both of these requests allows you to use your Facebook credentials to access CourseSmart, and also signals your acceptance of CourseSmart's Terms of Service. If you choose to revoke these privileges from CourseSmart, you can do so at any time by accessing the Applications Settings under the Account menu in Facebook.

Notification of Changes

Due to the Internet's rapidly evolving nature, CourseSmart reserves the right to update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes to this Privacy Policy, the home page of the CourseSmart Service other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use and store it and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

This Privacy Policy was last updated April 13 2012