Birmingham City University ChatLive
Rules of Use and Netiquette

ChatLive offers you the opportunity to talk online with a range of experts, counsellors, advisers, employers, course tutors and other students throughout the year.

About our ChatLive service
In order to use our ChatLive service, you will need to register and submit your personal profile details. All information collected via the chatroom will be used in accordance with our Privacy Statement.

About your live chat messages

• Our chatrooms are for you to chat online with a range of experts and receive answers to your questions.
• Keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant.
• We're committed to providing an atmosphere in which constructive and mature dialogue takes place.
• Be respectful to other users and those who moderate or facilitate online communications.
• No swearing or abusive language.
• Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.
• Avoid writing EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS.
• No advertising or spam.
• No HTML or computer script.
• Do not include URLs to unsuitable sites – unsuitable includes sexually explicit, racist or sites with other potentially offensive material and those which promote illegal activities or infringe copyright.
• Communicate in English. Messages containing languages other than English will not be responded to.
• Do not impersonate others. Impersonating someone else is unacceptable.
• Adopting an inappropriate chat nickname (one that is vulgar, offensive, etc.) is also unacceptable.
• For your own personal safety, we do not allow you to post your personal details such as phone numbers, email addresses, or information about your family or workplace.
• Post only messages related to the topic of the chatroom session. If you post a message, which is not related to the chatroom topic, it will not be responded to.
• Any messages that are in breach of these guidelines will not be responded to. Users who persistently misuse the chatroom will be banned.
• ChatLive transcripts remain available in the online archive for 12 months before being automatically deleted.

Birmingham City University reserves the right to:-

• Modify or reject any message which does not abide by these guidelines or for any other reason at any time.
• Modify the spelling, grammar and ambiguous words and terms without affecting the meaning of the comments.
• Publish a reply if necessary on behalf of the organisation or any of their partners in respect of any comments.

About your ChatLive account

• We will collect personal information about you when you register for ChatLive. For more information about how we use this data see our Privacy statement.
• All accounts must be registered with a valid email address that you access regularly so that moderation emails can be sent to you.
• You may have action taken against you if you use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting a service or annoying others.

About the law

• You may not submit any defamatory or illegal messages of any nature in our online chatrooms. Posting a message with the intention of committing an illegal act is strictly prohibited.
• You must not violate, plagiarise, or infringe on the rights of third parties including copyright, trademark, trade secrets, privacy, personal, publicity, or proprietary rights.

Non-compliance with our Terms of Use

• If you fail to abide by these Terms of Use you will receive a formal warning by email. This warning may include a temporary suspension of your ability to participate in our chatroom services. If after this warning you continue to breach theses Terms, you will be permanently prohibited from using our services.
• Chatrooms are generally moderated, and Birmingham City University reserves the right to delete any messages, at any time, for any reason.

About your privacy

• Birmingham City University will not publish or provide your email address or personal data to anyone. Our secure registration process requires you to supply us with your email and personal profile details, but we will only use this information to validate your access to our chatroom systems and for client monitoring purposes.
• Only Birmingham City University staff will have access to client data and this is never divulged to a third party, without your written permission.
• From time to time, Birmingham City University staff may contact you in order to obtain feedback on the quality of our chatroom systems.
• Your comments are kept confidential. We may use your comments to improve our services.
• There may be occasions when Birmingham City University will need to contact you via email to respond to your feedback or comments.
• Birmingham City University follows recommendations listed in the 1998 Data Protection Act.
• Birmingham City University does not allow you to send messages to individual users. *All messages posted in our chatrooms are viewable by all users. Therefore, 1-to-1 conversations cannot take place within a public chatroom.