Full policy

Terms of Use for the Open Learning and Teaching Platform “learnins” provided by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

February 2024

By registering, you accept the following Terms of Use. Your registration creates a contractual relationship between you and the GIZ, which enables you to use the learnins learning platform. This contract grants you usage rights of the learninsplatform that cannot be transferred to another person.

1. Subject of the contract
The subject of the contract is the access to and the use of the learning platform learnins. learnins is a learning platform operated by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Access to its content is only possible for registered persons. This learning platform offers courses for further education and exchange possibilities between the registered persons or between the registered persons and the team admins.

2. Context
The platform learnins is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of project partners worldwide. ---provides digital learning content in the context of international cooperation jointly with its partner organisations. The learning opportunities are intended to support learners in gaining competences in various subject areas and thereby improve their employability.

3. Costs
This service of learnins.org is a paid service that is supported by the partner project. Individual use and billing is not possible.

4. Technical specifications
The system environment consists of a database in which courses, user data, the programme code and uploaded files are stored. Access to these backend systems is exclusively granted to the system administrators of learnins. Users without administrative rights can access the data and material only via the frontend functions of the platform.

5. Access / registration
An initial registration is mandatory before being able to access learnins. This registration can be done by the project manager or as self-registration upon request (with the exception of the guest course). The self-registration on the platform will include the surname, first name, language, gender, country, age range and email address of the user. 

The self-registration can only be completed by confirming the email address in an email sent by the project team upon approval to the email address specified by the user. This email contains an activation link. By clicking on the link, the user account is activated and further data is requested to complete the user profile. A password must be entered and confirmed. The consent to the Terms of Use is necessary for the completion of the self-registration and is also stored. Upon consent, the offer of learnins can be accessed. By registering and accepting the corresponding checkbox, these Terms of Use are accepted. Accounts without confirmation will be deleted.

6. Use of the Information and Privacy
Access to learnins is only possible for registered users. Registration takes place by people responsible for a particular course area. Data within courses is only visible to enrolled students, people responsible for a particular course area and to administrative staff of learnins for management purposes. Personal data will be treated with upmost care, in accordance with GDPR, and not be forwarded to third parties. (See Data Privacy Policy)

a) Personal data within the user profile
During self-registration, users choose their own username and password. It is also necessary to provide first name and last name and a valid email address. Real names are mandatory. To provide the services of learnins, the user profile of learnins requires personal data.

As soon as users start the registration process, all data, provided or generated by virtue of the registration process, is processed. Personal data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual (contrary to legal entities). Different pieces of information, which are collected can lead to the identification of a particular person. This also constitutes personal data. All personal data falls under the strict provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulations, including the German Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DS-GVO), the German Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG) and all other generally applicable regulations and legislation. These provisions provide a strict framework for storing and processing personal data and preventing the misuse, including unauthorised access, unauthorised transfer of data to third parties or any other unauthorised processing.

To enable the user to make the best possible use of the course content and also to fulfil the purpose of learnins of offering digital learning opportunities, the email address is furthermore used to send the user information on courses, as well as other offers from learnins and its partner institutions. This information is only shared if the offers are compatible with the goal of providing digital learning content in the context of international cooperation. Users have the possibility to object to this use at any time by sending an email to support@learnins.org.

In order to register on learnins and to make the best use of the platform and its services, the following personal data is required:

Gender
Appropriate addressing of users as well as anonymised analysis options in terms of gender

Name (first name surname)
Personalised form of addressing users as well as issuing personalised certificates

Year of birth
Verification of legal age of maturity

Email address
Contact, notifications and security purposes (e.g., confirmation of registration, course progress, reminders, multifactor authentication, new course offers, further information about learnins and partner programs)

Country
Customised course offerings depending on the country

Language
Customised course offerings depending on the language

b) Other personal data
All actions undertaken while using the platform will be stored in a way that allows tracing back which account contributed the posts or answers or undertook certain actions. This information can be related to a real person if the real name is provided in the user profile. Furthermore, log data will be stored. These include the IP number of the computer, which was used to contribute posts, replies or other actions as well as the username and the time when the action was undertaken. 

c) Visibility of personal data
After registration, users can revise their profile at any time and edit the data provided during the registration. Registered users can also use a profile picture for their profile, which is visible to other users. The personal data provided can only be viewed by site administrators from the learnins team and from category user managers for their own category. A category is a virtual learning space with courses on the platform that is only visible to users who are registered for that category. Staff in this category cannot see or manage any other category either. All other users can only access their own profile. Users can post comments in course-specific forums and ask questions to the persons responsible for their course. It may be possible to draw conclusions about the real person in that case. All posts published by users in course forums are saved in such a way that the authoring users can be traced back. The contributions can be viewed by other users who also attend the course, course administrators and learnins administrators. Persons responsible for a specific course can edit or delete every posting at any time, e.g., if students violate the Terms of Use. Every posting contains the registered name of the author. All entries made by users in forums remain available even after the end of the contract between this user and GIZ GmbH, given that these are not deleted before based on the reasons mentioned above.

d) Reports, Log Data and its security
Log data for the last 24 months is visible to persons only on course level, for those responsible for courses (”course managers”, “course instructors”) and for those responsible for categories (“category manager”). Additionally, learnins team administrators have access to the database to trace back which user contributed certain posts or undertook certain actions in case of improper use or use of abusive language. Other users do not have access to this data.
Based on log data several reports are computed that are visible for persons responsible for courses in the corresponding course in anonymized format.

e) Detailed description of roles and rights

Site Administrators (learnins team and service provider)

Administrators own all rights on the website in all courses. Only members of the learnins team from GIZ and the service provider of the technical infrastructure may obtain this role. They have the right to view and access all user data on the site.

Persons responsible for courses outside of the learnins team

Category Manager
Users assigned to this role are responsible for managing all courses within a specific category and have extensive rights to access courses in their category, to enrol or unenrol learners and to view and modify details in a course. Since this involves the right to access private data, the holder of the Category Manager role needs to agree to learnins’s data privacy requirements and complete an official data protection course. The role of Category Manager involves that the user in this position can assign the roles to users as well as create, configure and delete courses within a category. 

Course Creator
Within a category the Course Creator can set up new courses and view hidden courses from the category. A user assigned to this role can add or edit content within a specific course.

Course Manager
Within the course they are assigned to Course Managers can create, change and configure the course and its activities, watch the learners’ progress and grade their assignments. They can also assign Course Instructors and Course Designers and enrol users via invitation link and user bulk enrol.

Tutor
The tutor (e.g. external subject matter experts) can manage and add content to courses 

Non-editing Tutor
The Tutor serves as an assistant to the Course Manager or Tutor and has moderation and grading rights within his or her course but cannot edit or add its content.

Learner
The learner role is assigned to all users after registration. Course administrators can decide whether students can register themselves in a course, are enrolled manually or whether they need an enrolment key. Learners can read content and download material within a course, contribute in forums and activities if specified by the persons responsible for their course.

f) Reports
Persons responsible for their course can monitor the learning progress by extracting standard reports. The standard reports provide the following information:

Course activity
General information on how often which activities were undertaken and which contents were viewed.

Individual activity
For a given material or activity, e.g., a forum, persons responsible for a course can see who of the learners accessed it and how often they used it. They can also review assessments.

7. Course content and responsibility
It is prohibited to disclose, share or sell any personal data of other users to third parties without explicit prior consent of the user.

By agreeing to this contract, users consent to keep the personal data of other users confidential. Users also consent to follow all legal provisions and especially the regulations for data protection.

GIZ reserves the right to terminate, cancel or postpone a course at any time as well as modifying the course format and content. Additionally, GIZ reserves the right to terminate the digital services of the learnins platform given a prior notification to the users of the platform.

The learnins platform as well as all offered services, content and files may only be used for training and education purposes without any commercial, private, religious or political use. Content underlying the Creative Commons license is excluded from this provision.

It is prohibited to post any content, files or data that violate legislations. This particularly applies to racist, violence-promoting, abusive and pornographic content or any other content that violates existing legislations. If users post links to external websites, it is their responsibility to check that the content on the external website does not violate this provision.

The use of the platform for the provision or exchange of copyrighted content, such as images, audio or video material, is prohibited. Furthermore, any links to external websites with illegal content are prohibited. In principle, any use of published material protected by copyright requires the permission of the respective copyright holder. If a user disregards the rights of third parties within the scope of the use of the learnins learning platform, she/he must fulfil the injunctive relief or claims for damages asserted by these third parties.

Any user who uploads, transfers or otherwise uses third party materials or materials on the platform learnins ensures that such material is either free of rights of third parties or that the use is approved accordingly or otherwise permissible. This applies in particular to teaching material published by the learning platform learnins.

As a service provider, the GIZ is responsible for its own information according to §§ 7, Abs.1 und 2 TMG, which it makes available for use. According to §§ 8 TMG, there is no responsibility for the information provided by participants in the courses offered on the learnins learning platform or for the content provided by other providers to which reference is made via hyperlinks.

Users undertake to be liable for damages caused by them, indemnify GIZ against all claims arising from the infringement of the rights of third parties and reimburse GIZ for all costs incurred in this context for legal defense measures or due to sanctions imposed by state authorities.

As soon as users culpably breach legal obligations and provisions enshrined in laws or in these terms of use, they shall be liable in accordance with the generally applicable statutory provisions.

GIZ reserves the right to exclude users from access to the learnins learning platform in the event of serious violations of the terms of use stated here. In this case, the contract with users will be terminated and they will not be able to conclude a new contract for a period of five years.

8. Update of terms of service
The users will be informed about updates of the terms and conditions via a notification in the learnins platform.

9. Deletion of accounts and data
Users can terminate their access to the learnins platform at any time by sending a deletion request to the support@learnins.org or deleting their profile via the profile page. Upon account deletion, the contract with GIZ also terminates. Furthermore, after 13 months of inactivity, users will be sent a notification. If the users remain inactive for an additional period of 6 months after the first notification, the account and the contract will be terminated. By ending the contractual relationship, the account of the user will be deleted and the user cannot access the learnins platform anymore. As a consequence, courses that the user has started but not yet completed will not be available to the user anymore.

Full policy

Privacy Policy Data Protection Policy

February 2024

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is responsible for processing your personal data collected through the use of the learnins platform.

The learnins platform collects, stores and uses your data to offer its services. Any data that can be directly or indirectly linked to your person is treated as personal data. This data privacy policy outlines how learnins uses your personal data.

Address:

Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 36 + 40, 53113 Bonn
Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1–5, 65760 Eschborn

Contact:

support@learnins.org

Introduction and Definition

Personal data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. Collecting different pieces of information can lead to the identification of a particular person. Hence, this constitutes personal data.

Personal data is a major concern for all of us using digital services, and demands special protection. Therefore, we are disclosing the type of data that we collect and how we are using this data.

Purpose of data processing and legislative basis

Registration

We start collecting and processing personal data once you sign up for the learnins platform. We require a set of personal data to offer the services of learnins. This set includes your name, your gender, your email address, your language preferences and your country. To optimize our learning offering, we also ask you for your highest level of education and your employment status. However, offering this information is voluntary.

In addition, you can upload a profile picture. We will publish your picture only with your explicit consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time without providing a reason.

Learning with learnins

While using learnins, we will collect and analyse data about your learning progress, your course history, your assessments as well as your certificates and badges. We cannot offer the services of learnins without collecting this data.

You can post messages in a forum and give feedback and ratings to courses. Additionally, you can send and receive messages from other learners and tutors. Should you use these services, the platform will store the communications as part of your record.

If you require support, we will also store your issued support requests. Collecting these issues helps us to make technical improvements on the platform and reduce the need for support.

Usage data

While using learnins, we also collect additional data that we analyse anonymously. Anonymous data cannot be tracked down to individual users. We analyse anonymous data to improve the usability of our service, e.g., by analysing the device data or the operating system.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files. Cookies are stored on the device of a user when a certain web page is visited. Cookies allow the unique identification of a browser upon repeated visits to a web page.

We use cookies for the log-in to the learnins platform. Certain elements of our website require the unique identification of a browser across various web pages. If cookies are disabled, the log-in to platform might not work. Other functions of the platform might also not work to the full extent. Additionally, we use cookies to optimise the usability of the platform. 

Retraction of consent for data processing

You can retract your consent to our processing of your personal data at any time. If you wish to retract your consent, simply send us an email support@learnins.org with your name. You do not have to state a reason for your retraction, but you may be asked to prove your identity.

Data transfer and guarantee

learnins users with the roles and respective permissions of ”course managers”, “course instructors”, “course creators” and “course designers” (as well as team leads, called “category managers”) have restricted access to your personal data. They can access data that is required for the implementation of the course that they manage.

We do not transmit your personal data to any third party.

Data retention

We store your data just for the time period that we require to offer you the services of the learnins platform. (See retention policy)

If you have not used your learnins account for the last 13 months, your account will be anonymized and all personal information relevant to data protection removed.

If you delete your account on learnins, we keep your data for an additional 13 months unless there is a diverging legislation. As an exception, certificates acquired through learnins will be kept for three years. After this period, your personal data will automatically be purged from our systems unless legislation requires us to keep your data for a diverging period.

Affected rights

You can request an overview of all data that we have collected from you at any time. You can also ask how we use your data. If your data should be incorrect, you can request a correction of your data. If you delete your account on learnins, you can also request the immediate deletion of your personal data form our system. You can also object to the processing of your personal data if you don’t want us to use your data anymore, but this may affect your learning experience on learnins.

During the processing of your request for transparency, revocation or deletion you can request the restriction of your data processing. In this case, we store your data for the purpose of processing of your request.

You can contact our data protection officer if you have questions concerning your data or the data protection policy of the learnins platform. You can reach the data protection officer via support@learnins.org

Right of appeal

Please contact our data protection officer if you have any complaint or question. Furthermore, you can log a complaint at the respective data protection inspectorate. The applicable data protection inspectorate is the Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit (BfDI).