Privacy Notices

As this site has been created by/for the School of Education at Durham University, and because of the nature of the audience/participants, we will primarily be using the Durham University Privacy Policy for Visitors. You can view the full policy here: Privacy Notice for Visitors

 

Where a participant is also a current student at Durham University, they must also be aware of the Privacy Notice for Students, although there may be limited application of it here.

 

In addition to these Privacy Notices, please note that we may also use your contact information to inform you of upcoming events or CPD opportunities that are arranged by (or in conjunction with) Durham University. This communication will be limited and you can opt out by using the Contact form and selecting the "Communication opt out" option in the "Reason for message" dropdown. And whilst it is covered by the Privacy Notices (above) we will never share any information about you with external companies or institutions except where required to do so by law enforcement agencies in the performance of their duties.

Forum Etiquette

 

DO

• Know that you are personally responsible for the content you publish online and be mindful that what you publish may be public for a long time – protect yours and your organisation's privacy and reputation and don’t act in any way that might harm this.
• Identify yourself—name and, when relevant, role—when you discuss your organisation online. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of that organisation.
• Respect copyright, IP, fair use and financial disclosure laws.
• Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective. Your school or institution is best represented by its people and what you publish may reflect on that.
• Use social media to establish expertise and positive reputation. Active use of blogging, micro-blogging, discussion forums, etc. can be good for your visibility in your field and show yourself as an engaging participant in academic and other debate.
• Use social networking for informal discussions and collaboration with distant colleagues, and for interacting with those working in your field.
• When responding to institution- specific queries, redirect enquirers to the institutional website as the official, definitive source of information. Please direct enquiries to specific pages on the website or to the email address of a person or department that can help.
• Be open about who you are when making factual corrections or other contributions. If you are confident about the content of your contributions – identify yourself and even provide reliable references/links to further information. If you are not confident about the content; then it should not be posted.
• Remember your professional voice (friendly, approachable, authoritative). The tone should be conversational and warm: keep the tone friendly and accessible and write in the first person wherever possible.
• Become a useful member of any online community you join or create: if you only ever use social media to promote your own activities you run the risk of alienating your target audiences.
• Make the commitment to respond promptly. Social media is all about timely interaction: don't set something going if you're not going to take part; if you respond, be prepared for follow-up interaction.
• Report posts that seem objectionable, inflamatory or illegal.

 

DON'T

• Don't put anything online that you wouldn't feel comfortable with seeing in a newspaper.
• Don't disclose any personal information beyond your name, specialism(s) and role. Your personal privacy and identity should be protected.
• Don't disclose any personal information about others. Their privacy should also be protected.
• Don't identify another person as being a member of your institution/organisation – until they have identified themselves in that position. It is not your choice to build another person’s online identity.
• Don't provide confidential information or other sensitive matters publicly. Remember: News spreads quickly on the internet and mistakes are difficult to fix.
• Don't discuss topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory – such as politics and religion.
• Do not take part in any activity that may be illegal or questionable.
• Don't use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, or engage in any conduct that would not be acceptable in a workplace or wider society.
• Don't pick or get involved in fights, be the first to admit to your own mistakes. Contact the site administrators if you have an issue that you feel you cannot resolve.
• Don’t wade into potentially heated and controversial discussions. It's usually far better for our community to defend our reputation than for individuals to appear defensive and/or confrontational.
• Don’t establish a presence on a social media site and then leave it unused. It is usually better to close your account if you are not going to use it.
• Don’t spread yourself too thinly. You can reasonably only maintain a full presence on one or two areas of discussion.
• Don’t bombard (spam) social media sites with promotional messages. Where it is appropriate to directly promote yourself or a course/product; be aware that blatant self-promotion is likely to alienate more users than it wins over.
• Don’t masquerade as someone else or use alternative online identities to support or promote your views and/or arguments.

Penalties

At the discretion of the Forum administrators the following actions may be performed for breaches of etiquette or rules within the Forums. Whilst we have provided a general overview of Forum Etiquette (above) there is no definitive list of reasons for these penalties, but the idea is that any reasons will fall outside of a loose heading of "Be nice to each other".

1. Comment/warning added to your post or reply.
2. Deletion of an offending post or thread.
3. Temporary suspension of your Forum activity.
4. Permanent deletion of your account.
5. Reporting of illegal content and/or threatening behaviours to the relavant authorities.