Terms of Use

Definitions used

For the purposes of these “Terms of Use”, the following definitions shall apply:

  • “Platform”: www.klascement.net and all of its components;
  • “Database”: the collection of works, data or other independent elements that are systematically or methodically arranged and individually accessible by electronic means or otherwise;
  • “Information”: any data located on the Platform that may have been uploaded by a Registered User, including but not limited to: photographs, images, videos, teaching documents, links to educational sites, software, drawings, text, etc;
  • “Use”: viewing, downloading and/or uploading Information on the Platform, as well as, but not limited to, posting and sending messages;
  • “Visitor”: any person who uses the Platform without registering;
  • “Registered User”: any person who uses (or causes to be used) the Platform and has previously registered with the Platform for this purpose;
  • “(the) Department”: Departement Onderwijs en Vorming van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, located at Koning Albert II-laan 15 in 1210 Brussels;
  • “KlasCement Team”: the employees of the Department who are responsible for the management and development of the Platform.

Introduction

The Department owns and manages the Platform and is responsible for its development. These Terms of Use describe the conditions under which the Department grants access to the Platform and under which the services offered can be used.

Please read these Terms of Use carefully before consulting the Platform or using it in any way.

In order to be able to use the wide range of services offered on the Platform (see Art. 1), you must register as a Registered User; to do so, you must expressly agree to these Terms of Use. In the event that you do not agree to these Terms of Use, and/or you do not understand their scope or meaning, we request that you do not continue to browse and/or use the Platform, discontinue the registration process, and leave the Platform as soon as possible.

1. Purpose and Offer of the Platform

The purpose of the Platform is to provide a tool for teachers to search for Information. The Platform wants to offer a simple, personalized and fast method to easily search for and use Information through a closed network, as well as to allow Registered Users to add and update Information themselves. Furthermore, the Department provides a database facility (searchable member list and tutor database) that allows Registered Users to share expertise and connect with colleagues.

1.1. Finding and sharing information

Through the Platform, a Registered User can:

  • conduct personalised searches;
  • inspire with tailored information;
  • share information with others;
  • save useful information in a personal profile.

Your first name and surname are displayed with every addition of Information you make to the Platform or when you upload content to the Platform so that both the Department and Registered Users know which Registered User added the Information or is the author of certain content.

1.2. Networking

Through the Platform, a Registered User can:

  • share personal information and expertise through his/her profile;
  • share information about an organisation via organisation page;
  • search for, follow and personally contact other users;
  • enter into dialogue with other users by means of messages, reactions and in the ‘staffroom’, amongst other things.

Without prejudice to the above, the following rules of conduct apply:

  • You may not post material that:
    • is illegal, harmful, contrary to public order or morality, insulting, vulgar, hateful, sexually oriented;
    • infringes on privacy;
    • contains viruses, bugs or other malware;
    • is otherwise unacceptable or infringes on the intellectual and/or other rights of third parties.
  • It is also prohibited to spam or flood, i.e. post the same or similar messages repeatedly, nor to use it for advertising purposes.
  • When engaging in a dialogue, always make sure to stay on topic and only post messages that are relevant to the discussion at hand and do not detract from its quality.
  • Also, impersonation of persons, whether Registered Users or not, is not allowed.

The Department reserves the right to remove or edit any postings that do not comply with the Terms of Use.

The page ‘training course organisations’ gives an overview of organisations that offer professionalisation to teachers, principals and other educational staff. This page fits in with the concept of demand-driven continuing education: based on a needs assessment, you or a colleague contact an organisation that has expertise in a particular subject, and agree on the development of the in-service training route (objectives, number of sessions, place and date, etc.) with that organisation.

This list does not include every organisation that offers continuing training on the free market. You will only find those training course organisations that have registered with KlasCement and indicated themselves to have a professionalisation offer. KlasCement does not issue quality labels to the organisations listed.

For each organisation, you will find contact information and a description of the offering. This information is provided by the organisation itself. KlasCement does not check the content, but does a limited verification when an organisation registers. KlasCement reserves the right to reject the registration of an organisation when it turns out to be illegal and/or when the organisation has no link with education. When there is a suspicion of a legality problem or careless management or the activities are not compatible with the attainment targets and/or with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the Child, the organisation can be excluded without prior notice.

You can search for the name of the organisation, by theme and by province. You can get help in choosing an organisation via the viewer guide.

2. Use of the Platform

2.1. Obligations of Visitors and Registered Users

Each Visitor and/or Registered User declares and guarantees:

  • to always use the Platform with due care and attention;
  • not to use the Platform in a manner contrary to the Terms of Use;
  • to avoid using the Platform in a way that he would damage the content of the Platform, make unauthorised modifications, cause functional impairment or temporary or permanent unavailability of the Platform, upload viruses or harmful files, or contribute to any incident that could cause damage to the Department, the KlasCement Team or third parties;
  • not to use the Platform for illegal purposes, breach of morality or with the aim of causing damage to the reputation of the Department, the KlasCement Team or that of third parties;
  • not to use the Platform for political propaganda, commercial activities of or unfair competition between schools, in accordance with the standards of prudent management in education;
  • to provide his/her registration and personal data correctly and not to share his/her registration data with third parties in any way and to treat it as strictly personal;
  • that any profile picture is a recognisable photo of him/herself;
  • to have reached the age of 18 years or to reach it in the current year;
  • not to be a pupil in compulsory education;
  • in case of a Registered User: to choose a safe and strong password;
  • not to transmit information containing unwanted material, viruses or advertisements.

Communication between Registered Users should take place only for constructive purposes and not with the intention of harming, hurting, discrediting, threatening or insulting other Registered Members.

If the Department suspects that you have violated the Terms of Use or any other obligation arising from the other provisions of these Terms of Use, the Department may, without prior notice, temporarily or permanently deny you access to and use of the Platform.

2.2. Content

You acknowledge and accept that you are personally and solely responsible for all actions carried out with your user account on the Platform. As a Visitor or Registered User, you agree that the use of the Platform or Information is entirely at your own risk. The Department acts merely as manager of the Platform and in this regard merely facilitates the possibility of a Registered User or Visitor using the Information.

The Platform and all Information included therein is available “as is”, that is to say in its current state, with possible inaccuracies and errors, and without any guarantees being given in this regard by the Department and its occasional collaborators, who work in the name and on behalf of the Department and who (help) manage the Platform.

Despite all efforts made, errors and mistakes may occur and the Information made available may be incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate or not up to date. However, the Department cannot guarantee that the Platform and the Information made available is up-to-date and error-free at all times and in all circumstances, nor that they are suitable for a particular purpose. For these reasons, you should not blindly trust the Information included.

Therefore, the Department cannot be held liable for any direct or indirect disadvantage or damage that you may suffer as a result of incorrect, inaccurate or faulty Information or as a result of a lack of clarity on the Platform.

If a problem is identified with certain Information, the Department will take all reasonable measures it considers useful and necessary to resolve it. In case of doubt, it is best to contact the party from whom the Information originated (as far as this can be inferred), in order to verify the reliability and quality of the Information.

Each Visitor and/or Registered User acknowledges that the downloading or uploading of Information or the obtaining of Information by any other means through the use of the Platform is entirely their own responsibility. You are solely and without limitation responsible for any losses, work interruptions, damage to programs or other data on the computer system, or to your equipment or programs resulting from the downloading or uploading of Information or from any other use of this Platform.

Each Visitor and/or Registered User agrees to defend, indemnify and hold the Department and the KlasCement Team harmless from and against any and all claims, proceedings, judgements, damages, costs, fees, demands, and demands made by any third party relating to the infringement or alleged infringement of any intellectual property right or of any other right of a third party, and each Visitor and/or Registered User shall be liable for all costs resulting therefrom, including any litigation costs.

The Department shall at all times limit its liability to an amount of € 2,500, and any claims for damages shall be brought within one year of the harmful event occurring. The Department and/or the KlasCement Team shall under no circumstances be liable for indirect damage, consequential damage, criminal penalties or loss of profit, nor can it be held liable for the Use that a Visitor or Registered User makes of the Information provided.

It is possible that the Platform contains links to external web pages of third parties. These links are provided for information purposes only or for your convenience, and do not imply any endorsement of the external site or its content by the Department, nor do they imply that the Department approves or recommends these external sites.

The Department cannot guarantee that these websites comply with a privacy policy in accordance with Belgian legislation.

The Department has no influence over the contents of those websites and/or pages and therefore cannot under any circumstances be held liable for the contents of such websites or the accuracy of the information they contain, nor can it provide any guarantee in that respect.

The Department therefore accepts no liability for direct or indirect damage resulting from consulting or using such external websites and their content.

2.4. Operation of the Platform

The Department will do its utmost to make the Platform available without interruption and to secure it by all reasonable means. Furthermore, the Department will make every reasonable effort to limit as much as possible any inconveniences caused by technical errors. However, the Department cannot exclude the possibility that erroneous technical manoeuvres or unauthorised interventions may take place, or that so-called viruses or other forms of malware may be introduced. Therefore, the Department cannot guarantee that access to the Platform will not be interrupted in any way, or that you will not be hindered in any other way.

The Information added by Registered Users is reviewed by a team of moderators according to moderation criteria and metadata (e.g. by title, description, subject, level of education) according to a set protocol. The Department reserves the right not to publish or to remove, in whole or in part, content that does not comply with the moderation criteria, on its own initiative or following a reasoned notification from third parties. The user whose content is refused will be informed of the reasons for this and will be able to file an objection. The Department will decide whether the objection is justified or not.

For the reasons mentioned above, neither the Department nor the KlasCement Team can be held responsible for such errors, functional failures, incidents and problems that may result from any access and/or use of the Platform and any resulting damage.

The Department reserves the right to interrupt access to the Platform at any time and without prior warning for the following reasons, amongst others, but without being limited to: the detection or suppression of possible cases of abuse and/or fraud, or the rectification of technical or operational faults, or in the event of an injunction by a court of law for alleged infringement of the (intellectual) rights of third parties or having actual knowledge of such infringement, or in the event of the Department ceasing its activities, etc. Such interruptions are essential in order to carry out modifications and improvements to the Platform, as well as to ensure regular technical maintenance and updating of the content.

In no event shall you hold the Department or the KlasCement Team liable for any damages resulting from such interruptions.

3. Intellectual Property Rights

You accept and acknowledge that the Platform and the Information are protected by the intellectual rights of the Department or of third parties and that these must be respected at all times.

3.1. Uploading of content

When uploading content to the Platform as a Registered User you are expected to:

  1. confirm that you are not infringing any third party intellectual property rights or portrait rights;
  2. indicate under which Creative Commons licence you offer the content: depending on your answers to questions, a Creative Commons licence will be proposed ‘tailor made’ and you will add it to the content.

That way, it will be clear to third parties what they may or may not do with the content you offer, without having to ask your prior permission.

The questions relating to copyright and portrait rights must be answered truthfully, and you acknowledge and accept that failure to do so may result in the infringement of intellectual property rights in the content or information you upload, for which you will be liable. You acknowledge that, in such a case, you will have applied a Creative Commons licence to the content or information without having had the opportunity to do so in a legally valid manner and that, in so doing, you may mislead other Registered Users, the Department and third parties, with the result that they may in turn violate, entirely in good faith, the intellectual rights concerned. In such a case, you shall be liable to indemnify such other Registered Users and third parties in addition to your general duty of indemnity to the Department. Upon notification of intellectual property rights abuse, the content or information will be removed pending further investigation.

For more information on Creative Commons, please visit the following web page: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en.

If you unsubscribe as a Registered User, your personal data contained in your user profile (account) will be deleted. However, Information that you have added to the Platform and that is not contained in your User Profile will continue to be offered on the Platform. Please note: in this case, your name will still appear on the learning resources or content that you have provided in order to work in accordance with copyright law.

3.2. Reuse of Information

Under copyright law, you may not, in principle, re-use Information offered on the Platform without the permission of the copyright holder. However, specific exceptions to copyright apply to the reuse of Information within the framework of the ‘normal’ (non-commercial) activities of education.

The exception means (provided certain exceptions are met) that you may reproduce or reuse copyrighted works without asking permission of the copyright holder, provided the source is acknowledged.

Concretely in the context of KlasCement this means that you as a Registered User are granted a non-exclusive right to use the Platform for non-commercial educational purposes and that:

  • information may be re-used (e.g. to illustrate course material), distributed or passed on for non-commercial educational purposes, provided the source is acknowledged (and reference is made to the Creative Commons licence);
  • information may not be reused for commercial purposes or sale.

As a rule of thumb, each Registered User should determine on his/her own authority and responsibility to what extent the Information may be reproduced and/or publicly communicated. Concretely, as a Registered User you have to verify whether the Information is protected by intellectual rights and whether you are allowed to use it (e.g. whether the Information is released through a free licensing model, such as the Creative Commons).

The Registered User is responsible for ensuring that the Information is not used in a manner contrary to the rights of the holder of the intellectual property rights concerned or the applicability of any exceptions or limitations to those rights. Neither the Department nor the KlasCement Team will determine on your behalf who are the right holders or add any source citations.

3.3. Databases

The Department is the producer of the Database(s) on the Platform. The ownership of and intellectual rights to the Database(s) themselves lie with the Department.

The ownership and intellectual property rights to the content of the Database(s) rest with the owner(s) of the content in question. The contents of this Database(s) may be protected by applicable copyright or other intellectual property laws and treaties, and must be used in accordance with the rules set forth above.

Reproduction and/or communication to the public of the Database(s) is prohibited, unless such reproduction is intended for use in administrative or judicial proceedings and concerns only a part of the Database(s).

Each permitted use of the Database and the Information it contains also implies that you must always clearly and visibly state the source of the Information. This means that, in addition to stating the source of the Information, you must also state the name of the producer and the name of the Database(s).

Except as stated above, you may not copy, modify, translate, sell, rent, lend, communicate to the public, or create derivative works from the Platform (by any means or on any medium), in whole or in part, without the prior express authorisation of the Department (or the author concerned, which may be a Registered User).

More information on intellectual property rights (and more specifically on copyright) can be found on the Platform: KlasCement and Education.

4. General

Confidentiality

Any Information that you submit to the Department, including data or reactions concerning the content of this Platform, will be considered public.

Personal data

All personal data that you provide to the Department when registering on the Platform will be treated and/or processed in accordance with our Privacy Statement.

Non-rescission clause

The failure of the Department to enforce any provision of these Terms of Use at any time or for any period, or the failure of the Department to exercise any right under these Terms of Use, shall not be construed as a waiver of that provision or of its rights and shall not in any way affect the right of the Department to enforce or exercise that provision at any time.

Validity of the Terms of Use

The invalidity of one or more provisions of these Terms of Use shall not affect the validity, applicability or binding nature of the remaining provisions. If one or more provisions are deemed or declared invalid on the basis of a law, regulation or final decision of a competent court, the other provisions shall retain their unaltered force and scope. The invalid provision will then be replaced by a new provision which will aim to achieve the original objectives of the invalid provision as far as possible.

Applicable law and competent courts

These Terms of Use are governed exclusively by Belgian law. The Visitor and/or Registered User agrees that only the courts and tribunals of Brussels are competent to take cognisance of any dispute concerning the application or interpretation of the Terms of Use to the exclusion of any other courts.

Modifications to the Platform and/or Terms of Use

The Department has the right to modify the Platform and the Information at any time, and to have them removed, either temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, the Department has the right to amend, update or modify the provisions of the Terms of Use. It is your responsibility to regularly review the terms, conditions, notices and any additional terms. Your continued use of the Platform after the effective date of the changes shall indicate your express agreement with and acceptance of the changes.

Furthermore, the Department disclaims any liability for any harmful consequences that may result from the changes made to the content of the Platform or the Terms of Use.

Contact

For questions and/or comments: Feedback or Contact.