Journalism Now
General Terms & Conditions of courses
1. THESE TERMS
1.1. What these terms cover. These are the terms and conditions on which we supply products to you by electronic means.
1.2. Why you should read them. Please read these terms carefully before you accept your place on a Course (as defined below). These terms tell you who we are, how we will provide products to you, how you and we may change or end the contract, what to do if there is a problem and other important information. If you think that there is a mistake in these terms, please contact us to discuss.
2. DEFINITIONS
2.1. "Course": means an online distance learning course run by Thomson Foundation;
"Course Confirmation": means a confirmation of your place on the Course, issued to you by us and setting out important information in respect of your Course;
"Customer" or "you": means the purchaser of a Course;
"Materials": means the materials, including any documentation, learning guides, etc., together with all revisions and updates made by us, which may be in any format and which are supplied by us to you for the purposes of the Course;
"Price": means the price of the Course;
"Services" means those support services provided by tutors to the Customer including, amongst other things, teaching, mentoring, assessment and/or instruction;
"Thomson Foundation" or "us"/"we": means the Thomson Foundation, full details of our name, physical address and telephone numbers are provided on the website.
3. HOW TO CONTACT US
3.1. If we have to contact you we will do so by telephone or by writing to you at the email address or postal address you provided to us in your application.
3.2. When we use the words "writing" or "written" in these terms, this includes emails.
4. HOW IS A CONTRACT MADE WITH US?
4.1. Applications to enrol on a Course are done through the Thomson Foundation website at www.thomsonfoundation.org.
4.2. Subject to availability, you will be able to enrol directly into the course by using the online payment method. Alternatively, you will be able to apply for a place using one of the application forms on the website.
4.3. Course Confirmation. You may accept our offer by paying the Price in accordance with clause 16. You will enter into a contract with us when we issue a Course Confirmation.
4.4. Changing your mind. You have 14 days after receipt of the Course Confirmation, or, if earlier, until you access our online platform on Edcast to change your mind and cancel your place on the Course and receive a full refund.
5. OUR RIGHTS TO MAKE CHANGES
5.1. We make every effort to ensure that the information provided to you in respect of Courses being offered is as accurate and as up-to-date as possible. However, programmes of study are continually reviewed and there may well be some changes made to Courses between the time of publication of Course information and the time you start the Course.
5.2. Significant changes to a Course: Where significant changes are made to a Course or a Course is discontinued, applicants are informed of this as soon as possible via email, preferably before accepting the offer of a place, so that opportunity is given to consider an alternative Course or a course elsewhere. If a decision to significantly change or discontinue a Course is made after you have accepted an offer of a place and paid the Price, we will make every effort to offer a relevant alternative and if this is not acceptable to you will offer you a full refund of the Price.
5.3. Minor changes to the Course after accepting your offer. We may make changes to a Course after you have accepted your place or during the delivery of the Course. Such changes may be necessary for example, as a result of updates in research on a subject topic or to address a security threat. We may also make minor updates or require you to update digital content, provided that the digital content shall always match the description of it that we provided to you before you bought it.
6. PROVIDING THE COURSE AND MATERIALS
6.1. We will make the Course available to you as soon as we issue Course Confirmation.
6.2. You will have access to the Course, and we will supply any related services and digital content to you until either the services are completed or the subscription to the Course (as detailed in the stated in the description of the Course on our website / Course Confirmation) expires or you end the contract as described in clause 7 or we end the contract by written notice to you as described in clause 14.
6.3. We are not responsible for delays outside our control. If our supply of the Course or any part of the Course is delayed by an event outside our control then we will contact you as soon as possible to let you know and we will take steps to minimise the effect of the delay. Provided we do this we will not be liable for delays caused by the event, but if there is a risk of substantial delay you may contact us to end the contract and receive a refund for part of the Course you have paid for and not received.
6.4. What will happen if you do not give required information to us. We may need certain information from you so that we can supply the Course or Materials to you, for example, your email address to issue a log-in to our learning management system. We will contact you in writing to ask for this information. If you do not give us this information within a reasonable time of us asking for it, or if you give us incomplete or incorrect information, we may either end the contract (and clause 14.2 will apply) or make an additional charge of a reasonable sum to compensate us for any extra work that is required as a result. We will not be responsible for supplying the Course or Materials late or not supplying any part of them if this is caused by you not giving us the information we need within a reasonable time of us asking for it.
6.5. Reasons we may suspend the supply of the Course or Materials to you. We may have to suspend the supply of a Course or Materials to:
a. deal with technical problems or make minor technical changes;
b. update the Course or Materials to reflect changes in relevant laws and regulatory requirements;
c. make changes to the Course or Materials as requested by you or notified by us to you (see clause 5).
7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
7.1. The Course and the Materials, including (but not limited to) text, content, software, video, music, sound, graphics, photographs, illustrations, artwork, photographs, names, logos, trade marks and other material (“Content”) is protected by copyrights, trade marks and/or other proprietary rights. The Content includes both content owned or controlled by Thomson Foundation and content owned or controlled by third parties and licensed to Thomson Foundation. All individual articles, reports, and other elements making up the Course and Materials may be copyright works. You agree to abide by all additional copyright notices or restrictions contained in the Materials. You may not use any of Thomson Foundation’s trade marks or trade names without Thomson Foundation‘s consent and you acknowledge that you have no ownership rights in and to any of those names and marks. You agree to notify Thomson Foundation in writing promptly upon becoming aware of any unauthorised access to or use of the Course and the Materials by any party or of any claim that the Course and the Materials or any of the contents of the Course and the Materials infringes any copyright, trade mark, or other contractual, statutory or common law rights of any party.
8. LICENCE AND DOWNLOAD RIGHTS
8.1. Access to the Course and Materials is provided on a temporary basis and you acknowledge that you acquire no rights or licences in or to the Course and Materials and/or the Content other than the limited right to use the Course and Materials in accordance with these terms and to download on the terms set out in this section. If you are provided with a user identification code, password or other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential and you must not disclose it to any third party. We have the right to disable any user identification code or password if in our opinion you have failed to comply with any of these terms.
8.2. In consideration of payment of the Price, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use and copy the Materials for the purpose of private study. This licence shall terminate when you have completed the Course or when your contract with us comes to an end (whichever is sooner).
8.3. Other than as set out in this section (or provided by applicable law) you may not copy, reproduce, recompile, decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, distribute, publish, display, perform, modify, upload, create derivative works from, transmit, or in any other way exploit any part of the Course and/or downloadable Materials.
8.4. Additionally, you may not offer for sale or sell, make available or distribute over any other medium (including distribution by over-the-air television or radio broadcast or distribution on a computer network) the Content or any part thereof. You may not make any part of the Course and/or Materials available as part of another website, whether by hyperlink framing on the internet or otherwise. The Course and/or Materials and the information contained therein may not be used to construct a database of any kind, nor may the Course and/or Materials be stored (in their entirety or in any part) in databases for access by you or any third party or to distribute any database websites containing all or part of the Course and/or Materials.
9. NO WARRANTY
9.1. The Course and Materials are provided “as is” excluding any warranties and conditions of any kind, either express or implied, to the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable law including (but not limited to) the exclusion of warranties and conditions as to title, merchantability, satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement of proprietary or third party rights. Thomson Foundation further accepts no responsibility or liability for functions contained in the Course and makes no warranties that the Course will operate uninterrupted or error-free or that defects will be corrected. Please note that some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties or implied conditions, so some or all of the above exclusions may not apply to you.
9.2. Thomson Foundation does not warrant that the Course and/or any digital Materials are compatible with your computer equipment or that the Course and/or any digital Materials are free of errors. You should ensure that you have installed up to date virus checking software prior to running the Course and/or any digital Materials on your computer and Thomson Foundation is not liable for any damage you may suffer as a result of such destructive features that may infect your computer or data due to your use of the Course or your downloading any digital Materials.
9.3. Thomson Foundation shall not be held responsible for Content provided by third parties.
9.4. These terms do not affect your statutory rights or your legal rights as a consumer.
10. NO RELIANCE
While Thomson Foundation has endeavoured to ensure the accuracy of the information accessed via the Course, Thomson Foundation does not guarantee or give any warranty as to the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of any information or material in the Course or Materials. Thomson Foundation therefore disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the Course and/or Materials.
11. LINKED MATERIALS
Websites or pages to which the Course and/or Materials is linked are for information only and have not been reviewed by Thomson Foundation. Thomson Foundation has no responsibility for the content of the websites or pages linked or linking to the Course and/or Materials, and Thomson Foundation accepts no responsibility or liability for any losses or penalties whatsoever that may be incurred as a result of any linking to any location on any linked websites.
12. YOUR RIGHTS TO END THE CONTRACT
12.1. You can always end your contract with us. Your rights when you end the contract will depend on what you have bought, whether there is anything wrong with it, how we are performing and when you decide to end the contract:
a. If what you have bought is faulty or misdescribed you may have a legal right to end the contract (or to get the product repaired or replaced or a service re-performed or to get some or all of your money back), see clause 15;
b. If you want to end the contract because of something we have done or have told you we are going to do, see clause 12.2;
c. If you have just changed your mind about the product, see clause 12.3. You may be able to get a refund if you are within the cooling-off period;
d. In all other cases (if we are not at fault and there is no right to change your mind), see clause 12.4.
12.2. Ending the contract because of something we have done or are going to do. If you are ending a contract for a reason set out at (a) to (e) below the contract will end immediately and we will refund you the Price in full. The reasons are:
a. we have told you about an upcoming change to the Course or Materials or these terms which you do not agree to (see clause 5.2.);
b. we have told you about an error in the Price or description of the Course and you do not wish to proceed;
c. there is a risk that supply of the Course may be significantly delayed because of events outside our control;
d. we have suspended supply of the Course or Materials for technical reasons, or notify you we are going to suspend them for technical reasons, in each case for a period of more than three months; or
e. you have a legal right to end the contract because of something we have done wrong.
12.3. Exercising your right to change your mind (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013). For most products bought online you have a legal right to change your mind within 14 days and receive a refund. These rights, under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, are explained in more detail in these terms.
12.4. Ending the contract where we are not at fault and there is no right to change your mind. Even if we are not at fault and you do not have a right to change your mind (see clause 12.1), you can still end the contract before it is completed, but you will not receive any refund in this case.
13. HOW TO END THE CONTRACT WITH US (INCLUDING IF YOU HAVE CHANGED YOUR MIND)
Tell us you want to end the contract. To end the contract with us, please let us know by emailing us at enquiries@thomsonfoundation.org. Please provide your name, registered email address and course and explain the reasons for your request.
13.1. When your refund will be made. If you are exercising your right to change your mind then we will refund you Price by the method you used for payment. Your refund will be made within 14 days of your telling us you have changed your mind
14. OUR RIGHTS TO END THE CONTRACT IF YOU BREAK IT
14.1. We may end the contract if you break it. We may end the contract for a Course at any time by writing to you if:
a. you do not make any payment to us when it is due and you still do not make payment within 14 days of us reminding you that payment is due;
b. you do not, within a reasonable time of us asking for it, provide us with information that is necessary for us to provide the Course, for example, your email address
14.2. No refund if you break the contract. If we end the contract in the situations set out in clause 14.1 we will not refund you any money you have paid for the Course.
15. IF THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THE COURSE OR MATERIALS
15.1. How to tell us about problems. If you have any questions or complaints about the Course please contact support at support@edcast.com as a first resort and enquiries@thomsonfoundation.org if the problem is not resolved.
15.2. Summary of your legal rights. We are under a legal duty to supply products that are in conformity with this contract. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says digital content must be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality:
• if your digital content is faulty, you're entitled to a repair or a replacement.
• if the fault can't be fixed, or if it hasn't been fixed within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, you can get some or all of your money back
• if you can show the fault has damaged your device and we haven't used reasonable care and skill, you may be entitled to a repair or compensation
16. PRICE AND PAYMENT
16.1. Where to find the Price. The Price will be the price indicated on our website.
When you must pay and how you must pay. You must pay for the course to get access to it.
17. OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR LOSS OR DAMAGE SUFFERED BY YOU
17.1. We are responsible to you for foreseeable loss and damage caused by us. If we fail to comply with these terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking this contract or our failing to use reasonable care and skill, but we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time the contract was made, both we and you knew it might happen, for example, if you discussed it with us during the sales process.
17.2. 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; for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; for breach of your legal rights in relation to the products as summarised at clause 15.2 and for defective products under the Consumer Protection Act 1987.
17.3. When we are liable for damage to your property.
17.4. If defective digital content which we have supplied damages a device or digital content belonging to you and this is caused by our failure to use reasonable care and skill we will either repair the damage or pay you compensation. However, we will not be liable for damage caused by any virus or hacking of the digital course content (not caused by our failure to use reasonable care and skill) or any damage which you could have avoided by following our advice to apply an update offered to you free of charge or for damage which was caused by you failing to correctly follow installation instructions or to have in place the minimum system requirements advised by us.
17.5. We are not liable for business losses. We only supply the products for domestic and private use. If you use the products for any commercial, business or re-sale purpose we will have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
18. HOW WE MAY USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
18.1. How we will use your personal information. We will use the personal information you provide to us:
a. to supply the Course and Materials to you;
b. to process your payment for the Course and
c. to improve our services
18.2. We will only give your personal information to third parties where the law either requires or allows us to do so.
19. OTHER IMPORTANT TERMS
19.1. We may transfer this agreement to someone else. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. .
19.2. You need our consent to transfer your rights to someone else. You may only transfer your rights or your obligations under these terms to another person if we agree to this in writing. Nobody else has any rights under this contract (except someone you pass your guarantee on to). This contract is between you and us. No other person shall have any rights to enforce any of its terms. Neither of us will need to get the agreement of any other person in order to end the contract or make any changes to these terms.
19.3. If a court finds part of this contract illegal, the rest will continue in force. Each of the paragraphs of these terms operates separately. If any court or relevant authority decides that any of them are unlawful, the remaining paragraphs will remain in full force and effect.
19.4. Even if we delay in enforcing this contract, we can still enforce it later. If we do not insist immediately that you do anything you are required to do under these terms, or if we delay in taking steps against you in respect of your breaking this contract, that will not mean that you do not have to do those things and it will not prevent us taking steps against you at a later date. For example, if you miss a payment and we do not chase you but we continue to provide the products, we can still require you to make the payment at a later date.
19.5. Which laws apply to this contract and where you may bring legal proceedings. These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales and you can bring legal proceedings in respect of the Course in the courts of England and Wales.
EU Online Dispute Resolution Service (ODR)/ Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR): please note we are required by law to provide a link from our website to the EU ODR Platform - http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/index_en.htm. Please also note that we are not obliged to use ADR should you have a complaint with us. If you do have a complaint with us which we cannot resolve using our internal complaints handling procedures we will contact you by letter or email about whether we are prepared to submit to ADR. Our email address for the purposes of ODR/ADR is: enquiries@thomsonfoundation.org.
