Privacy Policy  

Privacy Policy Statement for SciCrunch.org Websites

The SciCrunch platform is dedicated to protecting personal information and will make every reasonable effort to handle collected information appropriately. All information collected, as well as related requests, will be handled as carefully and efficiently as possible. As used in this policy, “we” and “us” includes the staff, vendors and independent contractors involved with the projects supporting the SciCrunch.org platform. “SciCrunch Sites” includes the following: the web pages and content on the SciCrunch.org websites, and the tools, software, services, web forms, registration system, and any other means through which we interact with you. We endeavor to comply with all laws and regulations that apply to the gathering and use of personal information, including but not limited to US privacy laws and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

YOUR USE OF AND INTERACTION WITH THE SCICRUNCH SITES CONSTITUTES YOUR UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE PRACTICES DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY, AS THEY MAY BE MODIFIED FROM TIME TO TIME. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH AND ACCEPT ALL OF THE PRACTICES DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY, DO NOT USE THE SCICRUNCH SITES AND DO NOT PROVIDE OR SUBMIT ANY PERSONALLY-IDENTIFYING INFORMATION BY MEANS OF OR WHILE USING THE SCICRUNCH SITES. BY PROVIDING PERSONAL INFORMATION TO US, YOU CONSENT TO OUR COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY.

INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT

Personal Information

In some circumstances, we may request personal information from you, including but not limited to things such as your name, e-mail address, institutional name, telephone number, and ORCID iD. Your response to these inquiries is strictly voluntary. In general, you can visit most SciCrunch Sites and utilize most services without divulging any personal information. If you wish to access private communities on the SciCrunch Sites, access personalized services on the SciCrunch Sites, request an API key for access to programmatic services, or access any other customized or secured offering through the SciCrunch Sites, we will require you to provide the above types of information for the purposes of operating the SciCrunch Sites, providing our services, ensuring the security of our sites and services, and communicating with you. Likewise, when you register on a SciCrunch Site for updates or to receive other types of notifications from us, we will ask for your email address at a minimum to enable us to send you the information you have requested.

Domain and Technical Information

Additionally, by means of your interactions with the SciCrunch Sites, we may collect, have access to, store and use your computer’s IP address, the URL/domain name of any referring website, the time and date of your visit to the SciCrunch Sites, and certain information known as “clickstream data” to enable us to understand how people interact with the SciCrunch Sites, to analyze data for trends and statistics, to help diagnose and solve issues with the SciCrunch Sites and our technologies, products, and services, and to optimize the performance of the SciCrunch Sites.

Use of Cookies

Some pages on this site may use "cookies," which are small files that the site places on your hard drive for identification purposes. These files are used for site registration and customization the next time you visit us. You should note that cookies cannot read data off of your hard drive.We use cookies so you don’t have to log in each time you visit any of our web pages. From time to time, we use software tools to play back user sessions for purposes of assessing our customers’ interactions with our software, and these sessions may be linked to your user account. If you do not want cookies stored on your computer, you may be able to adjust your browser settings prevent this, but note that by not accepting cookies, some pages may not fully function and you may not be able to access certain information on the SciCrunch Sites.

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HOW WE MAY USE AND DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION

Use by SciCrunch.org

SciCrunch.org uses your personal information as described above, and to customize your experience on the SciCrunch Sites and to facilitate our interactions with you, if any. Except as where necessary to provide services to you, we do not typically take note of your personal information; the information is mainly stored on or by our computers, computer networks, servers, tools, and systems, as described above. In some cases, the applications or user interfaces you encounter while on our sites are managed by third parties (e.g. ORCiD), who may require that you provide your personal information and who have assured us of their compliance with applicable laws.

Third Party Providers Used by SciCrunch.org

As described above, the SciCrunch Sites utilize third party providers. The following section describes our use of some of these third party providers:

Github:(github.com) to maintain our code repositories and allow for the submission of requests and suggestions as Github issues and also to enable community contributions to parts of the SciCrunch code base.

Google Analytics:(analytics.google.com) to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.

Google reCAPTCHA:(www.google.com/recaptcha) uses an advanced risk analysis engine and adaptive CAPTCHAs to keep automated software from engaging in abusive activities on the SciCrunch Sites.

MailChimp:(mailchimp.com) to deliver our newsletter. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter.

Mailgun:(mailgun.com) provides services that enable the SciCrunch Sites to send email to users. These emails include, but are not limited to, account setup and management requests, user subscribed notifications, and system messages.

ORCiD: (orcid.org) provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration with the SciCrunch Sites, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities (e.g. resources you have created and registered with the SciCrunch Sites) ensuring that your work is recognized. The SciCrunch Sites also use ORCiD identifier to personalize certain services based on your publication history provided by ORCiD.

Zendesk:(zendesk.com) to provide ticketing services for the SciCrunch Sites. Submitting email to one of our support email addresses or sending a message through the SciCrunch Sites will result in a ticket managed via ZenDesk services.

Infrastructure Services:The SciCrunch Sites utilize cloud providers to host some of the services we provide. These include Amazon AWS (aws.amazon.com), MongoDB (mongodb.com), and Elasticsearch (elastic.co)

No Sale or Leasing of Your Information

We treat your information as private and confidential, and we will not disclose your data to third parties without your express permission or unless required by law, or deemed necessary to protect and defend our rights or property or those of others. We do not collect information or create individual profiles with the information you provide for commercial marketing.

Links to Third Party Websites

If, in your interactions with the SciCrunch Sites, you are linked or directed to, or click on, a third party website, we cannot control what information you may provide to that party or on/at that website, or how that party may use or disclose any information you may provide to them. As such, we urge that you exercise caution before providing them with your personal information.

Consent to Receive Email Communications

Except in countries or jurisdictions where it is not be permitted by law, we may from time to time send you email communications regarding our business, products or services in response to your use of the SciCrunch Sites. By providing your email address, you consent to receive such communications, but you may opt out of receiving such communications by contacting us at privacy@scicrunch.org. If you have registered for an account on the SciCrunch Sites we may send you email regarding your account and any notifications you have subscribed to. You may manage these notifications in the “My Account” section of the SciCrunch sites. You can unsubscribe to general mailings at any time of the day or night by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails.

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CHILDREN’S ONLINE PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT

We endeavor to adhere to the provisions of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA"). We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under the age of thirteen (13). If you are under the age of thirteen (13), please do not submit any Personal Data through the SciCrunch Sites. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children's Internet usage and to help enforce our Privacy Policy by instructing their children never to provide Personal Data through the SciCrunch Sites without their permission. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Data to us through the SciCrunch Sites without parental permission, please contact us (privacy@scicrunch.org) and we will endeavor to remove that information.

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HOW TO CONTACT US REGARDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

If you wish to discuss what personal information we may have pertaining to you, or the handling or potential disclosure of the same, or you wish to withdraw consent regarding these matters, you may contact us at privacy@scicrunch.org, and we will promptly address your inquiry.

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INTERNATIONAL PRIVACY LAWS

If you are visiting the SciCrunch Sites from outside the United States, please be aware that you are sending information (including Personal Data) to the United States where our servers are located. That information may then be transferred within the United States or back out of the United States to other countries outside of your country of residence, depending on the type of information and how it is stored by us. These countries (including the United States) may not necessarily have data protection laws as comprehensive or protective as those in your country of residence; however, our collection, storage and use of your Personal Data will at all times continue to be governed by this Privacy Policy.

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CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

This statement may change from time to time, so please check back periodically. Each version of this Privacy Policy will be identified by its effective date. If you have any concerns about how your information is being used or questions about our Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us (privacy@scicrunch.org).

The Privacy Statement posted on this site was updated on May 24, 2018, (Version 2.0)

The initial Privacy Statement was created on or about April 10, 2009, (Version 1.0)

This Privacy Statement was originally adapted from the PLoS Privacy Policy which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License