Procedures and code of conduct

Version 1.0

 

Introduction 

The online CPD platform is a tool that intends to integrate the Continuous Professional Development initiatives in the realm of the European School system (that is, the Office of the Secretary-General, the European Schools, and the Accredited European Schools). 

Initially intended primarily for educational staff, it should also become a common entry hub for any training opportunities made available for all the staff of the European School system (Administrative, Ancillary and Technical staff). 

The intentional use of an Open-source tool to host these initiatives is aimed at guaranteeing that personal information and data are managed and maintained in a centralized manner clearly in line with the regulations of the EU institutions. Also, the educational materials and learning resources created, uploaded, or maintained through the platform will not depend on the possible lock-up of a commercial solution.  

While the tool allows to guarantee both criteria, it is also necessary that all users of the platform adhere to certain operational procedures that will prevent any unintended use of the platform regarding data protection matters as well as intellectual property rights. 

The intention of OSGES is to use whenever possible Creative-Commons licenses for the resources created in-house. However, certain materials may be copyrighted or have restrictions of use or dissemination: 

  • based on the specific agreements or contractual requirements of the creator or provider of such contents or  

  • based on specific requirements from the data protection point of view.  

Extensive technical measures have been put into place to create a safe and secure environment for all users. However, to be able to manage an operational environment for the intended use of the platform, there are certain aspects that fall under the exclusive control of the final users, who in any case can be considered responsible of their own acts to the extent of the existing regulations. 

Each participant of the platform, according to his/her role (which grants specific capabilities and rights of access to certain content or information) must comply with the procedural requirements established in this document and understand that each person is responsible and liable for the inadequate use of the platform, its data, or the resources used or uploaded to the platform.  

The platform's use involves access to resources and interactions with other participants in learning spaces, professional communities, social environments, or workshops. Under certain conditions, participants can provide contents, upload files, link to external resources, communicate with other members of the platform, comment on other participants proposals or interventions in forums, chats, synchronous activities, and other circumstances.  

Appropriate and professional participation and interactions are expected from all users as the goals of the use of this platform include the improvement of the professional skills, the sharing of best practices, the creation of professional networks and, eventually, offering the best possible learning environment to all pupils of the European Schools. 

If you do not agree with the operational procedures suggested and the terms and conditions established in this document, you are hereby invited to withdraw from the use of the platform and refrain from accessing its resources.  

Access to the platform can also be denied by OSGES in case any kind of inappropriate use of the platform is detected by any of the participants or supervising roles. The procedure for denying access to existing users is also explained and described in this document. 

For the administration and managerial roles, a specific committee composed by management (Deputy Secretary-General, HoU PEDA, HoU ICT), within the OSGES will be directly in charge of monitoring the activity of the designated personnel. 

Finally, for potential unlawful activities that may result in specific liability, the actions will be adopted according to the laws or regulations in place for the European Union / Belgian area. 

Code of Conduct 

This code of conduct has been drawn up to ensure that users of this service know what is expected of them, and what they can expect from others when using the platform. What follows applies to user interactions on the platform within courses, events or communities, whether open or restricted. 

The mission of the platform is to provide an environment to develop continuous professional development activities, mainly for the staff of the European Schools network. In doing so, the environment should make sure that all participants, publishers, instructors or regular visitors feel safe and comfortable while using the platform. 

By agreeing to use the platform, each user declares that: 

  • He or she will register for one account only, unless expressly permitted to register for additional accounts by the platform administrators (i.e.: for accesing the platform with different roles). 

  • He or she will ensure that participation that aims at the completion of activities in the platform will be their own work (except for assignments that explicitly permit collaboration), especially when submitting answers to tasks, quizzes, tests or other assigments aimed at measuring knowledge or comprehension of teaching resources. 

  • He or she will not make solutions to the platform assignments that are aimed at measuring knowledge or comprehension of teaching materials available to anyone else (except to the extent an assignment explicitly permits sharing solutions). This includes both solutions created by the user him/herself or any solutions provided by the course staff or others. 

  • He or she will not engage in any other activities that may dishonestly improve individual results or hurt the results of others. 

By using the platform, users specifically agree to refrain from any and all of the behaviours outlined below: 

  • sharing illegal content or content that promotes illegal activities with or without the intent to commit such activities, contains credible threats or organises or seeks to organise acts of real-world violence, or creates a genuine risk of physical injury or property damage, credibly threatens people or public safety, or organizes or encourages harm.  

  • partaking in abusive or otherwise inappropriate behaviour seeking to harm other users of the platform.  

  • uploading or sharing any content that violates intellectual property, privacy or other rights, or that you do not otherwise have the right to share. Please note that specific content offerings may have additional rules and requirements.  

  • misappropriating content that you did not create as your own, or otherwise infringing on another user´s intellectual property or other rights. Users are required at all times to attribute used or quoted materials to the original copyright owner.  

  • spamming others by sharing irrelevant or inappropriate advertising or promotional content.  

  • carrying out any other behaviour that can be seen to be harmful to the interests of the users of the platform or otherwise violates these terms.  

  • doing anything that violates local, state, national, or international law or breaches any of the user’s contractual obligations or fiduciary duties.  

  • sharing their password, letting anyone access the user account, or doing anything that might put the account at risk.  

  • attempting to access any other user's account.  

  • reproducing, transfering, selling, reselling, or otherwise misusing any content, unless specifically authorised to do so.  

  • accessing, tampering with, or using non-public areas of the platform, unless specifically authorised to do so.  

  • breaking or attempting to break or circumvent authentication or security measures or otherwise test the vulnerability of the platform or networks upon which it operates, unless specifically authorised to do so.  

  • trying to reverse engineer any portion of our Services or platform..  

  • trying to interfere with any user, host, or network, for example by sending a virus, overloading, or mail-bombing.  

  • using the platform to distribute malware.  

  • using the platform or any of its functionalities for anything other than for completing online courses or for pedagogical purposes.  

  • impersonating or misrepresenting their affiliation with any person or entity.  

  • encouraging or helping anyone do any of the items mentioned above. 

Where necessary, the platform administrators reserve the right to remove or edit inappropriate content or activity identified by or reported to us, and/or suspend, disable, or terminate a user's access to all or part of the platform at any time and without prior notice. 

Appropriate use of the platform  

"Appropriate use of the platform" means that the participant uses its resources in the way they have been designed and intended for. Also, that his/her interactions with the rest of users are appropriate in the same manner. 

Basically, the user logs into the platform with his/her own credentials (that are kept safely preventing their use from other people), accesses or requests access to the contents that are provided for his/her profile, participates actively in the selected training opportunities or communities of practice, interacts with the rest of the participants in a polite manner and complies with the general common sense professional rules of community usage that inspire the European School system vision and mission. 

What can be considered inappropriate use of the platform? 

Inappropriate use of the platform consists of ways of interacting with it, deliberately or not, with intents out of the realm of the goals for which the platform is intended for.  

Some non-exhaustive examples of inappropriate use of the platform are mentioned above (see “Code of conduct”) and others are listed below and are expected not to happen for the benefit of the entire community. 

  • Attempting to log onto the platform or gain access to spaces, data, or resources the user has not permission to enter or obtain. 

  • Download, collect or disseminate resources that are identified as protected by copyright or intellectual property laws (beyond the provisions of the regulations related to fair or appropriate use). 

  • Upload or share resources that are not legally permitted to share, that could be considered offensive, that contain images or data that are protected by data protection regulations / copyright limitations or any other type of incorrect sharing purposes. 

  • Provide or share links or access to external resources that could be unlawful, harmful, offensive, or inappropriate for educational or widespread use. 

  • Capture screenshots, photos, or videos / streaming sources of other participants of contents not authorized by the platform resources and policies. 

  • Interact aggressively, bullying, threatening or harassingly towards other members of the community / platform or in any way that could be commonly considered offensive. 

  • Act in a fraudulent or deceitful manner. 

  • Promote ideas, behaviors or contents that could be unlawful, harmful, offensive, or contrary to the principles of Human Rights, European values, or the European Schools common vision. 

In general, any interaction with the platform or the platform users that is unlawful or represents a threat to the integrity of people, resources or technical procedures is considered inappropriate. 

 

General definitions for all users 

As a user of the platform, you have permission to view, access or download several resources, to view basic personal or professional data from other participants, to provide content created by you or by others, and you can interact with other members of the platform or the communities of practice in which you are enrolled. 

It is expected to be a commitment from all users: 

  • to interact with other participants in a polite and professional manner;  

  • to use the platform in a professional way for the purposes it has been designed; 

  • to avoid or prevent: 

  • the collection or the dissemination of protected resources or the personal and professional data you may have access to;  

  • the provision of inappropriate contents (unlawful, harmful, copyrighted, etc.) Regarding copyrighted contents, inappropriate use beyond the fair use or exceptions provided by EU regulations to this type of material);  

  • using software or other tools to gain access to data, resources or information that is limited or protected within the platform;  

  • using materials that might have been copied or plagiarized or represent any type of academic offense, specifically in the fulfillment of tasks or assignments;  

  • using the platform for spam, marketing or promotion of marketing schemes; 

  • utilizing any way of data mining of the resources or the data available in the platform. 

Some courses or spaces may promote the use of peer-assessment procedures as an intended methodology. In these cases, it is expected from all participants to give active, positive, and assertive feedback, provide useful input to the rest of participants, and avoid critical or negative reviews, specially made public by any means. The rule of "treat others as you would like to be treated" should be useful for understanding the limits of the use of this methodology in the platform environment. 

Procedures for course facilitators, tutors, trainers, or other similar roles 

As a course facilitator, a tutor, a trainer, or any other person with similar roles in the platform you may have access to restricted resources and specific data from the users or participants of a specific area or space within the platform. You may also be able to delegate roles for specific items within the leaning spaces (forum administrators or curators, for example). You will also evaluate and assess assignments or tasks, provide feedback to the participants, and monitor the use of the platform resources within the realm of the space in which you have that role, as well as monitor the participants interaction within forums or similar communication tools. 

It is expected a professional behavior from these roles as models for the rest of educational professionals that are a part of the system, as well as to the rest of the participants who may have other responsibilities within the European Schools ecosystem.  

Some attitudes that could describe a good model for this role imply being proactive and providing expectations to the participants, promoting active participation, giving input and feedback in an assertive manner, sending reminders for work completion and setting specific relevant dates and realistic deadlines in the calendar, monitoring actively the participants interactions, and taking responsibility for the people to whom you may have delegated some tasks within the space, course, or professional community.  

If any inappropriate use of the platform like the ones described above in the previous sections is detected, this type of role is the first line of response to stop and avoid further problems regarding the activity.  

In case the potential infractions might be beyond your control, escalate your concern to the next person in charge of the space/course, to the platform administrators or the data protection officers depending on the type of problem that has been identified.  

Prevention is the best way of action in all cases, so any proactive action is always better than potential reactions to problems found afterwards. Setting clear goals and expectations, sending reminders, maintaining an open communication with participants, and actively monitoring all the activity within your realm (on your own or together with similar roles or managers of the specific space / course) are best practices to be considered. 

Specific procedures for content creators, course managers or users with delegated administrative rights 

As users with elevated access rights, all procedures mentioned for previous roles apply.  

These roles have specific responsibilities within the realm of the delegated access rights obtained, namely (but not limited to): 

  • All the contents provided under the realm of the delegated access must be compliant with the requirements of good practice (respect privacy terms, intellectual property rights, lawful and fair use of protected contents, etc.). 

  • All the interactions of participants to which these profiles have access to must be actively monitored to guarantee the correctness and professionalism required from all users. It is important to act proactively for prevention purposes. 

  • Monitoring delegated permissions to other users on any specific area of the course, space or subdomain of the platform is necessary. 

  • The access to specific data (grades, assessments, etc.) must be used within the corresponding policies. 

  • These profiles are the second line of response to any questions, concerns or issues affecting the spaces / courses for which they are responsible. 

Administrators' commitment to fair use 

The administrator profiles of the platform have access to all areas and most of the information and data provided by the rest of the users (except to the information that has already been technically protected and anonymized by the platform itself). 

The administrators are responsible for guaranteeing that all the premises established for all the roles already mentioned can work smoothly and successfully. They must act equally preventively and so will monitor the correct use of the platform and the roles to whom restricted access or privileges have been delegated to.  

They are also responsible for communicating with sufficient time any actions that may prevent users accessing the platform (maintenance, upgrades, etc.).  

Finally, administrators must maintain special confidentiality norms on any information or data they have access to. Also, they are obligated to communicate to OSGES management any data breach, security problem or specific issue and create and update reports about the use of the platform and impact of the platform in the CPD procedures, informing the management of the OSGES in the best feasible way about the progress of this initiative. 

Arbitration procedures 

Whenever possible, when a potential infringement of the site rules or commonly accepted agreements is detected (obviously if it is not unlawful or requires an immediate appropriate action for any reason, in which case the necessary steps will be taken), discrepancies about the incorrect use of the platform should be managed using arbitration or mediation procedures. 

Clear communication with the users involved, reminders of the terms and conditions, deletion, or denial of access to specific contents that might have been inappropriately provided by users are the tools to be used when this type of "light" issues are found. 

Mediation is also recommended for user interactions that are likely to become unprofessional or unacceptable before they escalate. 

When this procedure is not sufficient to avoid recurrent potential infractions, other measures will be adopted in accordance with the procedures established in the following section. 

Procedures for data breaches or serious infractions detected 

Existing procedures are in place for data breaches at the ES system level. These procedures are expected to be used if necessary. 

Denying the access to the platform to specific new or existing users 

New external users who refuse to accept the terms of use will be denied access to the platform. The access to the platform for external users is voluntary, so these users must commit themselves to comply with the specific requirements for the platform access. 

Light issues of existing users regarding the platform's use that do not impact personal data, intellectual property rights or unlawful actions will be solved through arbitration or mediation procedures as described in the corresponding section when possible. 

A minimum incident will not imply removal of right of access to the platform unless it could be judged unlawful. 

Recurrent incidents with the same user or group of users will result in warning to the incumbent parties. 

In the event of a maximum of three warnings have been delivered to the same user, removal of access to the platform will be performed using the corresponding technical measures available. 

Removal of access will also be performed whenever requested by authorities.

 
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