Terms and Conditions

Overview

English @ SUNY Geneseo is a network of websites administered by the Department of English at SUNY Geneseo. It has two broad purposes: (1) to facilitate intellectual conversation and collaboration among faculty, students, and staff at SUNY Geneseo across course sections, whole courses, and a variety of shared interests, and (2) to provide a platform for publishing individual and collaborative work by SUNY Geneseo faculty, students, and staff.

By registering an account at sunygeneseoenglish.org, you consent to abide by the terms and conditions set forth below. These terms and conditions may be modified at any time; please check them periodically for changes. Your continued use of the network after such changes are made constitutes your acceptance of the changes.

Accounts

Any SUNY Geneseo student, faculty member, or staff member may register for an account on the network. A geneseo.edu domain email address is normally required.

Membership in the network is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in this document. Members who fail to abide by these terms and conditions will have their accounts terminated.

Limitations

English @ SUNY Geneseo is administered by faculty and student volunteers. The administrators make no warranty that the network will function properly and without interruption, or against the loss of content that you post to the network. It is strongly recommended that you keep a personal copy of any content that you contribute to any site on the network, including blog posts, forum posts, documents, and comments.

Moderation

All participation in the network is subject to moderation by the network’s administrators.

The presence of content in the network does not constitute endorsement of such content by SUNY Geneseo or the network’s administrators. In using the network, you may encounter content that is inaccurate, offensive, indecent, or objectionable.  Neither SUNY Geneseo nor the network’s administrators assume responsibility for content posted to the network or for the impact of such content on you.

If you encounter content that violates the "member responsibilities" enumerated below, you should report the abuse immediately to contact@sunygeneseoenglish.org.

Member rights

As a member of the network, you are the exclusive owner of content that you contribute to it, subject to the following exceptions:

  • By posting public content to the network (content that is visible to others and that is not password-protected), you grant the network’s administrators a nonexclusive right to reproduce that content for the purpose of exhibiting the network and its functionality to third parties – for example, at an academic conference, in an academic paper, or on a website intended to provide information about the network.
  • On sites in the network that have additional, more restrictive terms and conditions, your rights may be more limited. For example, on a site that serves as the platform for a collaborative project, the terms and conditions may stipulate that your contributions to the project are the property of the project team as a whole.

Member responsibilities

All members

You agree

  • not to post, upload, or distribute any user comments or other content that is unlawful or that a reasonable person could deem to be objectionable, offensive, indecent, pornographic, invasive of another’s privacy, harassing, threatening, embarrassing, distressing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or otherwise inappropriate
  • not to violate the copyright of any individual by posting content that you do not have the right to distribute
  • not to use the network for any illegal purpose, or in violation of any local, state, national, or international law, including, without limitation, laws governing intellectual property and other proprietary rights, and data protection and privacy

Faculty and staff

You agree

  • not to require any student to post public content on the network (i.e., content that is visible to anyone other than you and the student) as a condition of participation in any credit-bearing class or other activity at SUNY Geneseo
  • not to attach a grade or other quantitative evaluation of content posted to the network by a student in such a manner that it can be viewed by anyone other than you and the student

Best practice

In general, you agree to honor the spirit of civil conversation and collaboration that the network was created to promote. In responding to comments and other content posted by members of the network, the best way to honor this spirit is to address the content itself, not the creator of it.

An animating principle of the network is the idea that many students seek an audience for their ideas and other creative content beyond the classroom. However, not all students seek such an audience. Faculty and staff who use the network in conjunction with their classes should respect this difference. The best way to do so is to give any student who does not wish to share content publicly the option, without penalty, to share such content with the instructor alone by placing the content behind a password.