Canvas User Agreement
Terms of Service Agreement
Last updated: Dec 28, 2015
1. Acceptance
By using the HKUST Learning Management System (“LMS”, “Service”) provided by Instructure, Inc. (“Service Provider”) and managed by HKUST LMS Administrator (“Administrator”, “We”, ‘Us”), you (“User”, “Users”) are agreeing to be bound by the following terms and conditions (“Terms of Service”).
2. User restriction
Users are not allowed to:
- use the Service, for non-educational purposes, to store or transmit infringing, unsolicited marketing emails, libelous, obscene, deceptive, defamatory, pornographic, racist, sexual, hateful, or otherwise objectionable, unlawful or tortious material, or any other material in violation of a third-party right;
- use the Service to harm or impersonate any person, or for any commercial purpose;
- interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Service;
- attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or their related systems or networks;
- reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell or exploit any portion of the Service; or
- reverse engineer the Service.
3. Privacy
We pledge to comply with the requirements of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (PDPO) for personal data privacy protection. In doing so, we will ensure compliance by our staff with the strictest standards of security and confidentiality.
4. Information collected and how it is used
We collect information, including personal data as defined under PDPO, when you sign up for a user account, participate in HKUST Canvas course sites and participate in other teaching and learning tools used by HKUST and with data connections to the Canvas system. We also collect certain usage information about student performance and patterns of learning. In addition, we track information indicating, among other things, which pages of a course site were visited, the order in which they were visited, when they were visited, which hyperlinks and other user interface controls were used, which videos were watched and in what way, etc. If you do not provide the required personal data, we may not be able to provide the Service to you. All of this data (including personal data) is collected for teaching and learning purposes for students, teaching staff and the institution as part of learning analytics feedback to students and teachers and as research for educational improvement. The data may be transferred or disclosed to our service providers (including data processing, administrative, telecommunication, computer or other service providers) for the sole purpose of providing you with the Service.
You have the right to access and/or correct your personal data and please contact ispdpo@ust.hk for any such request. We reserve our right to charge you a reasonable fee for processing a data access request.
5. Feedback
The Administrator or the Service Provider may contact each User for the sole purpose of seeking aggregate anonymous feedback regarding performance of the Service and suggestions for improvements. User, hereby grants the Administrator and Service Provider an irrevocable, royalty-free perpetual license to all feedback and suggestions regarding the Service solely to improve the Service provided that there shall not be any public attribution of such feedback or suggestion without the User’s specific consent in each case.
The Administrator or the Service Provider may also create, use, and disclose de-identified and aggregated data based upon personal information records for its own purposes provided that such creation, use and disclosure are in accordance with all applicable privacy laws, including without limitation the PDPO.
6. Suspension of service
The Administrator or the Service Provider may immediately suspend the Service and remove applicable User Content if it in good faith believes that, as part of using the Service, User may have violated a law or a restriction in this Agreement. The Administrator or the Service Provider may try to contact User in advance, but it is not required to do so.
7. Indemnity
If a third-party claims against the Administrator or the Service Provider that any part of the User Content infringes or violates a patent, copyright or other right, the User will defend the Administrator or the Service Provider against that claim at User’s expense and pay all costs, damages, and attorney's fees, that a court finally awards or that are included in a settlement approved by User.
8. Disclaimer of warranty
The Service is provided “As Is”, “As Available” and without any warranty of any kind. We are not liable to you or any other person for damages of any kind.
9. Changes to these Terms and Service
We reserve the right to modify or replace any part of this Agreement at any time, effective upon the date of the change. We’ll notify you about the changes through email, inbox or announcement from the LMS.