Terms/Privacy

ADRC Program Community Forum Terms of Service

Effective Date: May 22, 2024

Overview

The ADRC Program Community Forum ("Forum"), hosted on Discourse, is an online space for ADRC Program members to collaborate, share knowledge, seek help, build community, and provide feedback on NACC tools (Data Platform, ADRC Portal, etc.). The following user terms apply to all who use the Forum:

• “We,” “our,” and “us” refer to NACC
• “You” and “your” refer to you, the individual user and participant in the Forum

Also,

• The words “services” and “Forum” may be used interchangeably and refer to the functionality, user interface, and administration of the ADRC Program Community Forum.

All use of the Forum is subject to these Terms. By accepting the invitation from NACC to use the Forum, you agree to comply with all applicable NACC policies. In addition, you must monitor and control all activity conducted through your Forum account and exercise all reasonable efforts to keep all Forum passwords and login information confidential.

Confidentiality

First and foremost, NEVER post any ADRC participant data to this forum.

Do not post any content, files, images, or other data potentially containing personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), or any identification numbers that could be used to identify a specific participant. Also, do not include local API tokens in any post.

It is strictly prohibited to share content from this forum with anyone outside of the ADRC Program. Do not re-post any content on this forum to any public site, including screenshots or quotes. Doing so could result in your account being suspended and possible legal action.

Academic Integrity

You are required to adhere to your institution's policies on academic integrity when using this Forum, including but not limited to:

• Honesty: Ensure your submissions are free from any form of deception or misrepresentation and actively commit to contributing to a culture of trust, honesty, and fairness within this community forum.
• Respect for Others' Work: Properly acknowledge and cite all sources of information, ideas, and data that are not your own. Also, respect the intellectual property of others and avoid any form of plagiarism.
• Responsibility: Take full responsibility for your actions and their impact on this community.

Rules of Engagement

To use the Forum, you must follow these rules of engagement:

• Do NOT post content that violates applicable laws and government regulations, including, but not limited to, all intellectual property, data, privacy, and export control laws, and regulations promulgated by any government agencies, including HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996).
• Do NOT allow another person to use your login or post from your account or on your behalf.
• Do NOT post content that is abusive, offensive, vulgar, obscene, hateful, racist or bigoted, threatening, libelous, defamatory, or fraudulent.
• Do NOT post content that includes another person’s private or personal information, including but not limited to community forum profile information, images, personal phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, and any other personal identification numbers (e.g., Social Security, University ID).
• Do NOT post content that you do not have the required rights to under the law or under contractual, research, or fiduciary relationships (including proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships, research, or under nondisclosure agreements).
• Do NOT post spam or advertisements, including for any fee-required conference, meeting, webinar, or seminar.
• Do NOT impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent an affiliation with a person, organization, university, hospital, ADRC, or NACC.
• Do NOT interfere with or disrupt the operation or integrity of the Forum or any information, data, content, or other materials available on or through the Forum.
• Do NOT upload any potentially harmful or malicious technology, including malware, to the forum.
• Do NOT authorize, permit, enable, induce, or encourage any third party to do any of the above.

Promptly notify nacchelp@uw.eduif you become aware of or reasonably suspect any illegal or unauthorized activity or a security breach involving your account, including any loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure or use of a username, password, or account.

User Submissions and Member-Generated Content

As a user of the Forum, you may have the ability to make submissions like information, data, graphics, sounds, videos, messages, profiles and other materials and content available through the Forum. Submissions include but are not limited to all topics, tags, comments, suggestions, advice, and ideas, including those made or given on an existing or potential NACC product or program. All submissions are subject to the same licensing provisions contained herein.

Users are solely responsible for all submissions to the Forum. Submissions are not endorsed by NACC nor the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Additionally, NACC cannot guarantee the reliability of any source or the accuracy, safety, or intellectual property rights of any submissions. By posting a submission, you represent and warrant to either own or have all the intellectual property rights necessary to upload or share all content contained within such submission and that the submission does not infringe on the intellectual property rights or personal privacy of others, including ADRC members and participants.

Licenses

When you submit content to the Forum, you do not lose ownership of your submission. Rather, with each submission, you grant NACC an unlimited, irrevocable, perpetual, and royalty-free license to access, use, reproduce, display, prepare derivative works of, sublicense, perform, and distribute any submission content, feedback, suggestions, or ideas for any purpose without any obligation or compensation to you.

Moderation

The Forum is intended to be a place for users to connect, communicate, and share information, experiences, tips, and thoughts on NACC tools and services.

To ensure and foster a positive environment, NACC may designate NACC employees to act as moderators / administrators for the Forum (“Community Moderators”). NACC reserves the discretion to remove and alter any user submission to the Forum at any time, with or without notice, for violation of these Terms, the Community Forum Guidelines, the Acceptable Use Policy (in this document), or the Privacy Policy; otherwise being deemed inappropriate and/or unlawful; or for any other reason. NACC has the discretion to block users who violate these Terms or the Community Forum Guidelines from posting and/or to terminate the user’s NACC Community Forum account.

Intellectual Property Rights

NACC takes the intellectual property rights of others seriously and requires that you do the same. If you own a copyright or have authority to act on behalf of a copyright owner and want to report a claim that a third party is infringing that material on or through the Forum, please contact nacchelp@uw.edu.

Disclaimer of Warranties

The Community Forum and all related components and information are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis without any warranties of any kind and NACC expressly disclaims any and all warranties, whether express or implied, including the implied warranties of non-infringement. You acknowledge that NACC does not warrant that the services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free.

Limitation of Liability

Neither NACC, nor any of its directors, employees, or affiliates shall be liable to you or any third-party for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages arising from or relating to your participation in the Forum, including, without limitation, lost revenue, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data, or other intangible losses however caused, whether in contract, tort or under any other theory of liability, and whether or not the party has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Indemnification

You will defend and indemnify NACC and its affiliates, and their respective directors, employees, and contractors, from and against any claim by a third party arising from or related to: (a) your use or attempted use of the Forum in violation of these Terms, (b) your violation of any law or the rights of any third party, or (c) any submissions you post to the Forum, including without limitation any claim of infringement, misappropriation, or violation of any intellectual property, privacy, or other rights.

Modifications

As our work evolves, we may change these Terms and other policies relating to the Forum without prior notice. Any material revisions to these Terms will become effective on the date we publish the change. If you use the services after the effective date of any changes, that use will constitute your acceptance of the revised terms and conditions.

Severability

These Terms will be enforced to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law. If any provision of the Terms is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be contrary to law, the provision will be modified by the court and interpreted so as best to accomplish the objectives of the original provision to the fullest extent permitted by law, and the remaining provisions of these Terms will remain in effect.

Governing Law

These Terms constitute a binding agreement, and failure to comply with these Terms may result in the loss of your account and/or legal action. Relevant local government shall have exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate any dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement.

Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy sets out a list of acceptable and unacceptable conduct for these services. If we believe a violation of the policy is deliberate, repeated or presents a credible risk of harm to other users, the services, or any third parties, we may suspend or terminate your access.

Do:

• Comply with all User Terms of Service, including the terms of this Acceptable Use Policy;
• Comply with all applicable laws and governmental regulations, including, but not limited to, all local, state, and federal intellectual property, data, and privacy laws;
• Use reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized access to or use of the services;
• Keep passwords and all other login information confidential;
• Monitor and control all activity conducted through your account in connection with the services;
• Promptly notify NACC if you become aware of or reasonably suspect any illegal or unauthorized activity or a security breach involving your accounts or teams, including any loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure or use of a username, password, or account;
• Ensure that your email address is up to date in the NACC Directory and that the same email address is associated with your Discourse profile and remains current and valid.

Do Not:

• Permit any third party that is not an Authorized User to access or use a username or password for the services;
• Share, transfer or otherwise provide access to an account designated for you to another person;
• Use the services to store or transmit any data that may infringe upon or misappropriate someone else’s privacy, trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property, or that may be tortious or unlawful;
• Upload to, or transmit from, the services any data, file, software, or link that contains or redirects to a virus, Trojan horse, worm, or other harmful component or a technology that unlawfully accesses or downloads content or information stored within the services or on the hardware of NACC or any third party;
• Attempt to reverse engineer, decompile, hack, disable, interfere with, disassemble, modify, copy, translate, or disrupt the features, functionality, integrity, or performance of the services (including any mechanism used to restrict or control the functionality of the Services), any third party use of the services, or any third party data contained therein (except to the extent such restrictions are prohibited by applicable law);
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the services or related systems or networks or to defeat, avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or otherwise circumvent any software protection or monitoring mechanisms of the Services;
• Engage in activity that incites, supports, graphically describes, or encourages self-harm, violence, or hatred against individuals or groups, including violence against animals;
• Impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, an ADRC or NACC employee, an “Administrator”, an “Owner”, or any other Authorized User, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person, organization, hospital, university, ADRC, NACC, or other entity;
• Send unsolicited communications, promotions, advertisements, or spam;
• Engage in, promote, solicit, facilitate, or encourage illegal activity;
• Place any paid advertisements;
• Send altered, deceptive, or false source-identifying information, including "spoofing" or "phishing";
• Use the services for personal purposes, as the Forum is intended for use only by members of the ADRC Program for professional purposes;
• Access or use the services on behalf of, or for the benefit of, any Patent Assertion Entity;
• Use contact or other user information obtained from the services (including email addresses) to contact other Users outside of the services without their express permission or authority or to create or distribute mailing lists or other collections of contact or user profile information for Users for use outside of the services;
• Authorize, permit, enable, induce, or encourage any third party to do any of the above.

ADRC Program Community Forum Privacy Policy

Effective Date: May 22, 2024

Information Collected on the ADRC Program Community Forum

Discourse (the company that provides the Forum platform) gathers data on your participation in the Forum, including reading, posting, commenting, and evaluating the content shared on the Forum.

When you accept NACC’s invitation to join Discourse, it enables you to set up an account and verify your e-mail address using an email containing a unique link. If that verification link is visited, Discourse tracks that you own/control that e-mail address.

When you establish your account and start posting topics, Discourse (not NACC) records the IP address that the post originated from and may retain server logs, which include the IP address of every request to its server.

NACC’s Use of Your Information

NACC collects metrics about the overall use of the Forum site to continually improve the Forum experience. Metrics are aggregated and anonymized and might include the number of participants, number of topics added or commented on, feedback, issues, lists of popular or trending topics, moderation time, use of tags, etc.

Discourse’s Use of Your Information

Discourse collects information about your Forum participation to:

• Personalize your experience.
• Improve Discourse site and improve customer service.
• Send emails to share information with you about changes to site functionality, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.
• Send notifications based on the settings in your profile.

How Discourse Protects Your Information

Discourse has implemented a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information.

How NACC Protects Your Information

NACC does not share personal information about any user of the Forum without express written approval.

Furthermore, the ADRC Community Forum on Discourse is not open to the public; only ADRC Program members registered in the NACC Directory are invited to participate in the Community Forum. If any member moves to another ADRC, they are updated in the NACC Directory and in the Community Forum. If a member leaves the ADRC Program altogether, their Discourse account will be terminated.

Discourse’s Use of Cookies

Discourse uses cookies* to understand and save your preferences for future visits and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that it can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. NACC has no control over the use of cookies by this site.

*Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you have enabled cookies). These cookies enable the Discourse site to recognize your browser and, if you have a registered account, associate it with your registered account.

Sharing Your Information with Third Parties

Discourse states that it does not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personally identifiable information to third parties. This does not include trusted third parties who assist Discourse in operating its site, conducting its business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. It may also release your information when it believes release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce its site policies, or protect its or others’ rights, property, or safety. However, Discourse may provide non-personally identifiable visitor information to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

NACC does not disclose any personal information gathered on this Forum but may include aggregate anonymized data on Forum usage to the NIA or other entity.

Third-Party Links

Discourse may include or offer third-party products or services on the Forum site. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. Discourse, therefore, states that it has no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, Discourse seeks to protect the integrity of its site and welcomes any feedback about these sites.

NACC may occasionally include third-party links to no-fee educational opportunities if they are relevant to the ADRC Program.

An Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through the Forum site and not to information collected offline.

Your Consent

By using this Forum site, you consent to this Privacy Policy.

Modifications to the Privacy Policy

Any changes to this Privacy Policy will be posted to this page.