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About NEEDSOverviewNEEDS — The National Engineering Education Delivery System is a digital library of learning resources for engineering education. NEEDS provides web-based access to a database of learning resources where the user (whether they be learners or instructors) can search for, locate, download, and comment on resources to aid their learning or teaching process. In addition NEEDS supports a multi-tier evaluation system from our national award competition with sponsors from industry to user-based reviews of individual learning resources. Further information can be found by viewing our Publications and Presentations or by contacting the NEEDS Team at: NEEDS Headquarters Site Policies: Terms of Use for NEEDS Web Site and Digital LibraryBY VISITING OR USING ANY OF THE NEEDS DIGITAL LIBRARY OR ANY PAGE OF THE NEEDS WEB SITE(S) INCLUDING SITES UNDER DEVELOPMENT, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS OF USE AND THAT SUCH AGREEMENT CONSTITUTES A BINDING CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND NEEDS. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS OF USE, PLEASE DO NOT VISIT OR USE ANY OF THE NEEDS DIGITAL LIBRARY OR ANY PAGE OF THE NEEDS WEB SITE. Introduction NEEDS and/or its partners (together referred to as "NEEDS") operate this digital library and web site and associated web pages. For the purposes of these Terms of Use, NEEDS refers to this as the "NEEDS Digital Library." NEEDS offers you access to the NEEDS Digital Library in exchange for your agreement to accept and comply with these terms, conditions, and notices stated here and as may be modified by NEEDS from time to time. NEEDS refers to these terms, conditions and notices, whether modified or unmodified, as the "Agreement" or as the "Terms of Use" or as the "Site Policies". NEEDS reserves the rights to modify in its sole discrition this Agreement without providing notification. You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Agreement. BY VISITING OR USING ANY PART OF THE NEEDS DIGITAL LIBRARY, YOU ARE AGREEING TO THESE TERMS OF USE, AND YOU ARE AGREEING THAT THIS IS A BINDING CONTRACT BETWEEN NEEDS AND YOU. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS OF USE, PLEASE DO NOT VISIT OR USE ANY PART OF THE NEEDS DIGITAL LIBRARY. General Use and Limitations of General Use of the NEEDS Digital Library Except where we specify otherwise, NEEDS offers you access to the NEEDS Digital Library solely for your personal and non-commercial uses. You promise that you will not use the NEEDS Digital Library, in whole or in part, for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms of Use or for any purposes other than those that are personal, non-commercial and educational. You agree that you will not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, frame in another Web page, use on any other web site, transfer or sell any information, software, lists of users, databases or other lists, products or services provided through or obtained from the NEEDS Digital Library. This means, among other activities, that agree not to engage in the practices of "screen scraping," "database scraping," or any other activity with the purpose of obtaining lists of users or other information. You agree that you will not use the NEEDS Digital Library in any manner which could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the NEEDS Digital Library or interfere with any other party's use and enjoyment of the NEEDS Digital Library. You may not obtain or attempt to obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available or provided for through the NEEDS Digital Library. If and when requested by NEEDS you agree to provide true, accurate and complete user information and to refrain from impersonating or falsely representing your affiliation with any person or entity. Except with the written permission of NEEDS, you agree that you will not access or attempt to access password protected, secure or non-public areas of the NEEDS Digital Library. Unauthorized individuals attempting to access prohibited areas of the NEEDS Digital Library may be subject to prosecution. Except with the written permission of NEEDS, you agree that you will not create links from any web site or web page to any page within the NEEDS Digital Library with the exception of the NEEDS Digital Library homepage. The origin of any such link to the NEEDS Digital Library homepage must be accompanied by a clear and prominent attribution indicating that the link is connected to the NEEDS Digital Library homepage. For example, prominently positioning the "NEEDS" name and mark such that there is clear association between the name and mark and the destination of the link is acceptable. However, you agree that you will not juxtapose the "NEEDS" name and mark and the link with your name or any other material(s) in a manner which might give rise to any erroneous conclusion that there is any affiliation or association between NEEDS, on the one hand, and you or any other person or entity, on the other hand. You agree that if NEEDS, in its sole and unfettered discretion, requests in writing that you remove any link or links to the NEEDS Digital Library, you will promptly do so. You agree that if you create any link to the NEEDS Digital Library that you will not employ any technology that results in the placement of content from the NEEDS Digital Library in a frame and/or a reduced pop-up window and/or any other display mechanism that changes the NEEDS Digital Library from how they would appear if a user typed in their URL to a typical browser line. You agree that NEEDS may in its sole discretion and at any time terminate your access to and use of the NEEDS Digital Library, or any part thereof, with or without notice. Terms and Conditions for Copying, Distributing and Modifying Except where otherwise specified, you may copy and re-distribute but not modify the catalog record to learning resources contained in the NEEDS Digital Library provided that the catalog record be accompanied by the NEEDS mark and that the catalog record contains a hypertext link back to NEEDS. Unless by written permission from NEEDS, you agree that you will not store the catalog record or any subset of the catalog record of learning resources contained in the NEEDS Digital Library by any means, digital or otherwise, except for personal, non-commercial, educational purposes. No Warranty There is no warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Except when otherwise stated in writing by the copyright holders and/or other parties, NEEDS offers the NEEDS Digital Library "as-is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk of use of the NEEDS Digital Library is with you. Should the NEEDS Digital ibrary prove faulty, inaccurate, or otherwise unacceptable, you assume the cost of all necessary repair or correction. Privacy policyNEEDS has created this privacy policy in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this Web site: www.needs.org. You may also view our W3C Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) compliant privacy policy. NEEDS gathers three types of information about users: data that users provide through user registration, tracking information derived from use of the system and standard web server usage log information. Such information enables us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to help us better understand our users. Currently, the only situation in which NEEDS divulges information about an individual user to a third party is to inform authors of materials within NEEDS about usage and downloads of their items -- and then, only with the user's express consent. This site contains links to other sites. NEEDS is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites. Usage Tracking NEEDS tracks user traffic patterns throughout our site through standard web server logs and through an extended usage tracking system. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our Web site. NEEDS logs the user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser). At this time we anticipate using this information in aggregate to develop overall usage statistics. NEEDS has developed an extended usage tracking system that logs all actions within NEEDS. We examine search queries, results of queries, downloads, etc. to better understand our users. At this time we anticipate using this information in aggregate to understand usage pattern, search patterns, and to inform cataloging efforts. If a user registers to access a "service," we have the ability to correlate the user's actions with data about the individual user. We do this in order to provide better service to our users and to better understand our users. User Registration There are multiple levels of "user" within NEEDS. Each of which requires progressively more information. Our site's registration form requires users to give us contact information (like their name and email address). The customer's contact information is used to contact the user when necessary. Users may opt-out of receiving future mailings; see the choice/opt-out section below. To access a "service" the user is required to register and supply a username (we use a valid email address as a username), password, first name and last name. The user may optionally provide phone, fax, institution, address, personal URL, and image URL. The first name, phone, fax, institution and address optional fields allow NEEDS to contact the user. At this time we do not anticipate providing this information to third parties. The personal URL and image URL will be displayed in some of the "services" to allow the user to personalize comments, etc. To "Add a Comment", the user is required to be registered. However, the user may choose to use nickname/handle that will be displayed with the comment in place of their real contact info. To "catalog" courseware within NEEDS the user is required to register and supply a username (we use a valid email address as a username), last name, first name, and phone number. The user is then sent a password via email to the username (email address). We do this in order to verify the ability to contact the submitter of the courseware in case of problems. The user may optionally enter additional information. This information may be shared with a third party. At this time we only anticipate providing this information to a third party if there is a question as to whether the submitter was empowered to submit the courseware to NEEDS. Public Forums This site makes chat rooms, forums, message boards, and/or news groups available to its users. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information. Use of the information NEEDS uses any information given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users. Choice/Opt-Out NEEDS gives users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:
This site allows users to send email to webmaster@needs.org to mark their information in our database so as to not receive future electronic newsletters or to no longer receive our service (to be marked as inactive). Correct/Update This site gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided.
Contacting the Web SiteIf you have any questions about this privacy policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web Site, please contact us by email at: webmaster@needs.org, or by postal mail at: NEEDS Headquarters
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