Whatuni General Terms

Version date: 17th September 2020

These are the terms ("Terms") for anyone using any Whatuni services (whether via our mobile Whatuni App or website (https://www.whatuni.com)) to browse for information as a Visitor or a registered user (Member), regardless of how the information is accessed (app or website).

Please read these Terms carefully before you start to use Whatuni. By using Whatuni, regardless of how you access it, you accept these Terms and agree to abide by them.

In these Terms, "Whatuni" means the digital and physical services offered by us.

Whatuni is operated by IDP Connect Limited (registered number 02471319), which has its registered office at First Floor, Bedford House, Fulham Green, 69-79 Fulham High Street, London SW6 3JW. We can be contacted by e-mail or by mail to the address set out above.

These Terms and our Privacy Notice govern your use of Whatuni including, but not limited to, the content you read, view or download from our site ("Content"), the content you upload to our site including course reviews ("User-Generated Content" or "UGC") and the content you send through to universities directly through the site ("Enquiries").

These Terms are revised and updated regularly in our sole discretion. Please check back regularly for updates; you can easily determine whether changes have been made by confirming the version date at the top of these Terms. Your continued use of Whatuni means that you agree to these Terms as revised.

1. Registration/Password

1.1 Although portions of our website may be visited by anyone, you will need to register as a user for full access to Whatuni. Registered users can access all services including making enquiries, ordering prospectus information, submitting course reviews, accessing the Whatuni App and using Whatuni to book an open day. Registration on our website and app is free of charge.

1.2 We recommend that you should be aged 16 or over to register as a user. However, you may register if you are at least 13 years of age and you have your parent or guardian’s permission to register. Anyone under 13 years of age should not register with us.

1.3 You agree that any information you provide to us about yourself at any time (including on registration) will be true, accurate, up to date and complete. You will not create accounts for the purpose of abusing the functionality of the site, the app, or on behalf of any other person. You will not attempt to pass yourself off as another user. You must not use a false e-mail address, impersonate any person or business or otherwise mislead us as to the origin of a piece of content you submit. We reserve the right to end your registered user status and access to any or all of the Whatuni services if we learn that you have provided false or misleading information. We also have the right to suspend or end your access if, in our reasonable opinion, you have failed to comply with any of these Terms.

1.4 When you register to use Whatuni, you will be asked to create a username and password. You must maintain the confidentiality of your password or other account identifiers which you choose. All activities that occur under your account are your responsibility, whether the use or misuse is with your knowledge or approval or not. If using a public computer to access Whatuni, you must not store your password and must log out from your registered account at the end of each session on Whatuni. If you suspect that someone else knows of, or is using your password, you must reset your password immediately (using the forgotten password link) and notify us by email. You agree that your account and password are personal to you and may not be used by anyone else to access Whatuni. You will not do anything which would assist anyone who is not a registered user to gain access to any services provided for registered users. We reserve the right to end your registered user status at any time if we suspect it is being used by an unauthorised person.

1.5 If you forget your password, click here and we will send you an email where you can reset it.

2. Your use of Whatuni

2.1 For the purposes of these Terms, "Content" refers to all data, text, logos, artwork, software, documents, images, videos, photographs, user generated content, information about and from learning institutions and partners and other materials you may access and download from Whatuni or social media accounts associated with Whatuni.

2.2 Whatuni and Whatuni Content is the intellectual property of IDP Connect Ltd and subject to copyright laws in the United Kingdom and around the World.

2.3 You agree that you will not use our Content:

(a) for commercial purposes, or for financial gain without our prior written consent;

(b) to send chain letters, junk mail, 'spam', business or bulk communications of any kind;

(c) to advertise a company, product or service of any educational establishment (except under the terms of a written advertiser agreement that we have entered into with you);

(d) in a way that might reasonably be expected to cause another person's computer systems and/or their communications network to be interrupted, damaged, or rendered less efficient;

(e) to obtain personal information from any users;

(f) to obtain passwords or personal identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes from other users;

(g) to attempt to impersonate another user; or

(h) to harass, threaten or intimidate any User.

2.4 If you are a visitor, you agree not to obtain unauthorised access to areas of our website reserved for registered users.

2.5 If you are aware of anything on our website which appears to infringe these Terms, you agree to contact us immediately.

2.6 You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use Whatuni will cease immediately.

3.Content

3.1 All Content and User-Generated Content (or "UGC") published on Whatuni is subject to editorial approval. We endeavour to stop any inappropriate content from being published through Whatuni, but this may not always be possible.

3.2 Any views expressed in the UGC, are the views of the person who posted, emailed, or otherwise provided the UGC to Whatuni.

3.3 By using Whatuni, you acknowledge that you may be exposed to Content and UGC that is offensive, indecent, or objectionable.

3.4 We operate a "take down and notice" procedure. If you believe that any Content and UGC is defamatory, profane, sexually or racially offensive, discriminating, harassing, threatening, obscene, pornographic, false, unreliable, misleading, or otherwise objectionable, or infringes intellectual property or other legal rights please notify us immediately. We will investigate each matter notified to us and will act at our sole discretion.

4. User-Generated Content

User-Generated Content (or UGC) is any content submitted by you on our website in the form of a review, comment, rating, image, video, or audio content, with the intention to help other Visitors and Members make informed choices about a course or a university.

4.1 By submitting such content for display on Whatuni, through the Whatuni app or through an online social media account (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) linked to, or associated with Whatuni, you grant us (IDP Connect Ltd) a non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, fully transferable, worldwide licence to use, translate, publish, transmit (and to authorise third-parties to do the same) your content in any format or media, and on any platform (whether now known or developed late) and to authorise third parties to do the same.

4.2 By submitting UGC, you agree to Whatuni making such content available on Whatuni and its affiliate websites Postgraduate Search, Hotcourses Abroad and its international sites, and Complete University Guide(CUG) via promotional emails and on social media; modifying such content including the right to sublicense these rights to third parties, and the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such content.

4.3 You are not entitled to any payments (including royalties or other compensation) related to UGC.

4.4 You are liable for the UGC you publish on Whatuni and you do so at your own discretion and risk.

4.5 You warrant that the UGC submitted to us for Whatuni:

4.6 All UGC is posted publicly. You should not post any personal, or confidential information about yourself or others. You acknowledge that you are solely responsible for any personal data, or information you choose to disclose and make publicly accessible. You acknowledge that any personal data, or information (or any other UGC) posted to publicly accessible areas may remain publicly accessible indefinitely. In line with our Privacy Notice, you do have the right to request any personal data to be deleted at any point.

4.7 You promise that all UGC posted on Whatuni is relevant, correct and true (where you state facts), or genuinely held (where you state opinions). You further acknowledge and agree that the views expressed by you and other users in that content do not necessarily reflect our views.

4.8 You promise that the UGC is lawful in every context. If we receive notice, or otherwise become aware that UGC violates current laws, as well as deleting it we may inform the violated party and/or relevant authorities of the violation. Our right to delete is entirely at our discretion and we have no obligation to tell you or explain why we delete it.

4.9 If UGC is found to be in breach of these Terms, we reserve the right to suspend or end your account to prevent you from further accessing our website as a registered user.

5. Review Collection

Whatuni reviews are collected in agreement with the following terms and those that apply across Whatuni as a whole.

House Rules

When submitting a review, YOU (the reviewer) agree to the following guidelines:

5.1 Information must not cause direct offence, be profane, vulgar or obscene and not feature words which are unlawfully threatening or harassing of any nature.

5.2. Reviews must not contain any information that violate any law or legal regulation.

5.3. Reviews must not contain content that is to be considered hateful towards an individual or a group.

5.4. Employees are not able to review their own institutions. If this occurs the review with be deleted, along with the users' account.

5.5. Reviews should be written in a calm and sensible manner, if you are upset it is good practice to wait a few hours before submitting a review.

5.6. We cannot publish legally actionable statements which are aimed towards an institution or an individual within the institution.

5.7. We support our users. If you submit a review with cause for concern it is advisable that you report the issue or the details of your review directly to the university or institution in question. You can also report concerns to a support body or if you suspect illegal activity to have taken place, to the police.

Review Usage

5.8 Reviews submitted are used to calculate the rankings of our annual Whatuni Student Choice Awards and displayed as user generated content across our site(s). Review information will be used to calculate the following categories 'University of the Year', 'Accommodation', 'Job Prospects', 'Course & Lecturers', 'Societies & Sports', 'Students' Union', 'Uni Facilities', 'Local Life', 'Student Support', 'Independent Higher Education', 'International' and 'Postgraduate'. Reviews submitted for Independent providers will only be used in relation to the following category 'Independent Higher Education'. Scores for this category are taken from the mean average of 'Overall Experience' scores provided within reviews. Scores towards 'postgraduate' and 'International' categories will be amalgamated from the overall scores submitted by students disclosing themselves as international and EU (International category) and Postgraduate students (Postgraduate category). All other scores will contribute to the following categories- 'Accommodation', 'Job Prospects', 'Course & Lecturers', 'Societies & Sports', 'Students' Union', 'Uni Facilities', 'Local Life', 'Student Support'. Institutions must reach a minimum threshold to be involved in the awards. These range across each category.

Contacting reviewees

5.9 Your email address will be used for verification purposes, to notify you if you are a prize winner and/or as proof of your identity if you ever contact us about your review. We may also get in touch if your review makes a claim about any situation that is significantly detrimental to your or others wellbeing or contains allegations. In these situations, we may contact you to encourage you to report any incidents or to seek support from the appropriate networks.

Storage

5.10 All reviews will go through an approval process to ensure their authenticity. Any reviews physically collected by our Outreach Team will be stored in a lockable cupboard.. These reviews are then typed onto our online back office system and stored securely on our database. For accountability purposes, scans of these reviews will be kept on our secure network for 3 years.

All published reviews will be anonymised after three years.

Deletion

5.11 Original physical reviews will be shredded within 3 months of scanning. Online reviews will be deleted in line with Whatuni’ s retention policy. The process for storing and deleting student reviews will be assessed annually, with relevant changes being made as needs arise.

6. Intellectual Property Rights

6.1 You agree that the Whatuni services, all Content and UGC, is protected by Intellectual Property Rights that either belong, or are licensed, to us.

6.2 You acquire no proprietary interest in our Services, or Content, provided by us or others and may not use them in any way except as expressly permitted by these Terms.

6.3 You may view, print, download or temporarily store such Content for your personal, non-commercial reference without alteration, addition or deletion. You may not otherwise copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, commercially exploit or otherwise transfer such Content. You acknowledge that you will not acquire any Intellectual Property Rights by downloading or otherwise using any such Content. Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on Whatuni must always be acknowledged.

6.4 By submitting UGC to Whatuni you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and licence to use the content as specified in section 5.

7. Our Rights

7.1 We have the right in our absolute discretion to alter, edit, remove, suspend or refuse any Content or UGC without notice, if we consider that it is objectionable or violates these Terms or for any other reason.

7.2 We may disclose Content, or UGC, that was not originally intended for public consumption to a third party, if such disclosure is necessary:

7.3 We may suspend or end your access to our website at any time if you breach any of these Terms.

8. Warranties

8.1 Our Whatuni Services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We expressly disclaim all warranties or representations of any kind, express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

8.2 We do not guarantee accuracy, relevancy or completeness of any information in, or provided on or from Whatuni. We are not responsible for any errors, or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of such information. Our Services are provided for the general information of the general public.

8.3 The content on Whatuni is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. Your use and participation in our website and services are solely at your own risk. We do not make any promise as to the results that may be obtained from the use of our Services. No advice or information obtained by you from our Whatuni shall create any warranty not expressly made in these Terms or imposed by law.

8.4 We make no warranty that our Services will meet your requirements, or that access to our Services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error free; nor

8.5 Content made available on Whatuni may represent the opinions and judgments of learning institutions or Users, such as User Generated Content (UGC). Whatuni does not endorse, nor shall they be responsible or liable, for the accuracy or reliability of any statement made on Whatuni by anyone other than authorised Whatuni employees acting in such capacity.

8.6 Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied) that the content on Whatuni is accurate, complete or up to date.

8.7 We are not responsible for websites we link to. Where we do link to other sites and resources, these are provided for your information only. Links and resources should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them. We have no control over the content of those sites or resources.

9. Limitation of Liability

Whether you are a consumer or a business user:

9.1 We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

If you are a business user:

9.2 We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.

9.3 We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:

(a) use of, or inability to use, our site; or

(b) use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site.

9.4 In particular, we will not be liable for:

(a) loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;

(b) business interruption;

(c) loss of anticipated savings;

(d) loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or

(e) any indirect or consequential loss or damage.

If you are a consumer user:

9.5 Please note that we only provide our site for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

9.6 We shall not be liable for any loss caused as a result of you using our service or viewing, reading or listening to any content available on Whatuni.

9.7 Whatuni has links to websites that are not under our control and we are not responsible in any way for any content shown on these websites.

9.8 We give no warranties of any kind concerning Whatuni. In particular, we do not warrant that Whatuni or any of its content is will be secure or is bug or virus free. You must take your own precautions (including using your own virus protection software) as we accept no responsibility for any infection by virus or by anything which has destructive properties. Whatuni accept no responsibility or liability for any interruption or delay in the services.

10. Data protection

We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Notice. To find out what personal information we collect, how we use it and what rights you have, please see our Privacy Notice.

11. Territory Statement

Please do not access Whatuni, or use the Content, from a jurisdiction where such access or use would be contrary to applicable laws, rules or regulations of any governmental authority or regulatory organisation. If you breach this provision, you will be held entirely responsible.

12. Assignment

We may assign our rights and obligations under these Terms, and upon such assignment we shall be relieved of any further obligation under these Terms. You are not permitted to assign your rights and obligations under these Terms.

13. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and any dispute shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts unless you are a consumer and:

(a) you are a resident of Northern Ireland in which case you may bring proceedings in Northern Ireland; or

(b) you are a resident of Scotland in which case you may bring proceedings in Scotland.

14. Open Day Disclaimer

When booking open days through Whatuni, please be aware that you may need to book in advance to attend an open day and that some open days have a limited number of places. In some instances, you may need to check the university website, or contact them directly by email to confirm availability or to make a booking. Open day information shown on Whatuni is correct at the time of data collection.

15. Surveys and Competitions

Whatuni may hold surveys and competitions from time to time. Participation in such a survey or competition is subject to the specific rules of the relevant survey or competition and the following general rules:

15.1 entrants must be a UK resident.

15.2 entrants must be the copyright owner of the content submitted.

15.3 a prize winner must supply their full name and UK postal address and be contactable within 14 days of the survey and competition's closing date. If a prize winner does not respond after reasonable efforts at contact have been made, we reserve the right to withdraw that winning entry and select another winner.

Other specific rules will be shown within the survey or competition itself. By taking part in a survey or competition you will be deemed to accept these rules.

During this period (July-September), Whatuni can be used to research and apply to institutions that have courses available in Clearing & Adjustment.

In preparation for Clearing & Adjustment, Whatuni and the institutions themselves remove entry courses that are no longer available. Courses are continually updated throughout this period by ourselves and institutions; Whatuni is not responsible for ensuring that courses showing on the site are still available for application via Clearing or Adjustment.