List of active policies

Full policy

1. About the Online Classroom

i) This online classroom is owned and managed by Professional Writing Academy Ltd (Henleaze Business Centre, Harbury Road, Bristol, BS9 4PN). We use it to run a range of online courses and training, including for our partners Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, Graham Bartlett Police Advisor and Jericho Writers.

ii) When we talk about ‘we’ in these terms and conditions, we mean us (Professional Writing Academy Ltd).

2. About Your Training

i) All course and service information is correct at the time of publication. We reserve the right to make changes to the advertised course or service, including, but not limited to, course content, tutors and timings, for any reason at any time. 

ii) If we do make a change we'll aim to provide as much notice as possible, and will always try to replace tutors with someone of equal experience and standing.

3. Your Online Classroom Account and its Security 

i) You'll need to give us your correct name and email address so we can set up your online classroom account. We'll give you a username and password and you'll need to change the password the first time you log in to the classroom. For security, you must keep your login details confidential and not share them with anyone.

ii) You're responsible for any and all use of your account. You must tell us immediately if your account is used without your permission or if you become aware of any breach of security.

4. Availability of the Online Classroom

i) We aim to keep the online classroom open 24/7/365 except for routine updates or maintenance. When these are planned we'll post a notice on the classroom home page.

ii) The classroom, and everything in it, including course materials, forums, chatrooms and private messaging areas, are provided ‘as is' without warranty of any kind.

iii) While we aim to make the classroom available, accurate and secure, we cannot guarantee that it will be error-free, run uninterrupted, that defects will be corrected, or that the site or its server will be free of viruses or other harmful components. You use the online classroom solely at your own risk.

5. Using the Online Classroom

i) You must not use any robot, spider, crawling, scraping, or other automated device, process or means to access the online classroom. You must not use any device, software, routine, or take any action that interferes with the proper working of the site.

ii) We provide forums, chatrooms and messaging to support your learning, networking and socialising with other people in the online classroom. You are responsible for any and all content that you share on your personal profile and on the forums, chatrooms, messaging and anywhere else in the online classroom. We have a code of conduct to help you, which you must follow at all times (see  Conduct section below).

iii) Because the online classroom is a place to experiment with and explore ideas, we do not want to censor anyone's work. So by using the classroom you understand and agree that despite our guidance on conduct you may be exposed to content that you may consider offensive, indecent or objectionable.

iv) We may monitor and review any content shared in the online classroom and have the right to pre-screen, refuse, move or remove any content at any time, at our sole discretion. This includes, but is not limited to, any content that violates these terms and conditions.

v) If you have any questions or concerns about any content shared in the online classroom, please raise them with your moderator  (see Questions, Concerns and Complaints section below).

vi) Professional Writing Academy cannot control or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, usefulness, integrity or quality of any content shared by other people in the classroom. This means that we are not liable in any way for any such content, including any errors or omissions, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any content shared in the classroom.

6. Emails Sent From the Forums

i) Whenever you post your work to one of the online classroom forums a copy of your post is emailed to everyone in your course group, including tutors, guest tutors, moderators, and our classroom administrators. These posts will often contain a learner’s written work and, as such, the copyright of individual forum posts belongs to the person who wrote them (see Copyright and IP section below). You are not permitted to reproduce, record, copy, distribute or share those emails in any format at any time during or after your course or service.

ii) By posting to the forums, you agree and accept that your posts will be emailed to your course group. Professional Writing Academy has no control over what happens to such posts after they have left the online classroom and we cannot control or guarantee that they will not be copied, shared or distributed by the recipient(s). We therefore ask everyone who uses the online classroom to respect the work of others and not share it in any way.

iii) If you wish to stop receiving forum emails you can update your message settings in your profile. However, your posts will continue to be emailed to your course group, even if you opt out of receiving emails yourself.

7. Copyright and IP

Our Copyright

i) All classroom, course and service materials, whether provided via the online classroom, by email, phone or post, are owned by or licensed to Professional Writing Academy or used with permission, and are protected by UK and international copyright, trademarks, database rights and/or other intellectual property rights.

This includes, but is not limited to, podcasts, videos, written lectures, notes and transcripts, quizzes, forum content and discussions, images, graphics and photographs, as well as the design, logos, layout and appearance of the classroom.

ii) You may use all provided materials during your course or service, but you are not permitted to reproduce, record, copy, distribute or share them in any format at any time during or after your course or service.

Your Copyright

iii) You retain copyright of any work you produce during your course. You warrant and indemnify to Professional Writing Academy that any such work shall be your own and shall not infringe the copyright ( or any other intellectual property right) of any third party. This warranty shall survive any cancellation or termination of the course.

iv) Professional Writing Academy does not assert ownership rights over the content you post, transmit, or otherwise make available for inclusion on the forums, chatrooms, messaging or anywhere within the classroom. We may want to use comments you've made in discussions to help provide, promote or advertise our courses and services. By using the online classroom, you give us permission to do that at any time, even after the course or service has ended. However, we will check with you before we do this.

Copyright of Work Produced by Third Parties

v) We have a Further Education Licence from The Copyrighting Licensing Agency Ltd. This licence allows us to photocopy, scan or make digital copies of extracts from books, journals and periodicals, magazines, law reports, ebooks, e-journals and some websites, for the benefit of our students and staff in connection with the course or service that you are taking. 

We have an ERA Licence to make recordings or copies of TV and radio programmes and online or on-demand services for educational use.

We make accessible copies of extracts available for the benefit of disabled persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled.

The copyright of these materials belongs to their original author(s). As such, you may use the copied materials we provide during your course or service, but you are not permitted to reproduce, record, copy, distribute or share them in any format at any time during or after your course or service.

8. Partner and Third-party Sites

i) Professional Writing Academy partners with a range of other websites by sharing some content. All partner websites are covered by these terms and conditions.

ii) We may include references or links to third-party sites. Professional Writing Academy has no control over third-party sites or the content within them. This means that we cannot guarantee that those sites, or their content, are secure, accurate, legal or inoffensive, and we take no responsibility for any damages or losses whatsoever resulting from your use of the online classroom or partner sites to obtain search results or to link to third-party sites. Your use of third-party sites is solely at your own risk.

9. Conduct

i) We're proud to run professional and friendly courses and services designed to inspire and support your learning and creativity. To make sure they remain a productive learning opportunity for everyone, and ensure that everyone's voice can be heard, we expect you to be respectful and thoughtful at all times in the online classroom, and not behave in any way that may cause offence or needless anxiety to anyone using the classroom, including students, tutors, moderators, administrators and guests.

ii) You must not use any part of the online classroom (forums, chatrooms, personal profiles, webinars, Zoom sessions) to bully, intimidate, coerce, demean or behave in any way designed to provoke other users. Behaviour may be considered threatening or harassing if it personally attacks someone or persistently directs comments at someone.

iii) You must not use any part of the online classroom (forums, chatrooms, personal profiles, webinars, Zoom sessions) to make discriminatory contributions about a person or group based on their personal characteristics, including sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment status, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity status, age, disability, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief.

iv) You must not use any part of the online classroom (forums, chatrooms, personal profiles, webinars. Zoom sessions) to make contributions that incite hatred or are illegal (that slander, defame, libel, encourage crime, breach a court order or put children at risk) or encourage others to act illegally.

v) If your work includes any sensitive content that other people may find upsetting or offensive, you should include a warning when you share that work anywhere within the classroom.

vi) All classroom discussions during the course or service are private and confidential. You agree to keep confidential any information and/or material, which is divulged by other students, tutors, moderators, administrators and guests (either written, online or oral) both during and after the course or service.

vii) You agree not to make any audio or visual recordings of the sessions (whether delivered through the online classroom, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, phone or other messaging service), the work of tutors, moderators, guest speakers or of other students.

10. Booking Conditions

i) You must be 18 or older to book and/or take part in any course or service. Or we must have the written permission of your parent or guardian.

ii) Your place on a course or service is not confirmed until we receive your non-refundable deposit, full payment, or first payment if we've agreed that you can pay by instalments.

iii) If we don't receive the balance owed by the course or service start date, or as otherwise agreed, we reserve the right to offer the place to someone else and your deposit will be forfeit. You are only guaranteed a place for the sessions you have paid for.

11. Deposits

i) Paying a non-refundable deposit secures your booking and means that you are committing to the course or service for its full duration. As such, you are liable to pay the full fees before the course or service starts, or as otherwise agreed.

12. Payment Plans and Subscriptions

i) By placing an order through our website, you warrant that you are legally capable of entering into binding contracts and that this contract is binding on and enforceable against you. 

ii) We reserve the right to offer or decline payment agreements at our discretion. You will be billed on a recurring and periodic basis (such as weekly or monthly), depending on the plan you agree to. 

iii) By choosing to pay for your course in instalments or as a subscription, you hereby commit to making all payments. It is your responsibility to ensure your payment details are up to date and that payment can be made on the due dates. 

iv) We reserve the right to cancel access to your course or workshop should payment fail. 

v) When you make a purchase with us, you agree that we can send you emails to communicate about our services and offers.

13. Transfers

i) At our discretion, you may be able to transfer your booking to another course, workshop or service of the same cost and duration, subject to availability.

ii) We'll consider transfers up to two weeks before the course or service starts, and any payment made will be allocated to the new course or service you choose. If you ask to transfer a booking after this time, we may do so only if we have already received the full course fee from you and we are able to confirm another booking to replace yours.

iii) If either of these conditions is not met, we will unfortunately have to treat your booking as cancelled and shall retain the full fee as forfeit.

14. Cancellation

i) We accept cancellations up to six weeks before your course, workshop or service starts and we'll refund the full cost.

ii) If you need to cancel less than six weeks before your course or service starts, we'll do our best to find someone to replace you. If we succeed, we'll return the balance of your payment less a 10% admin charge. If we can't find a replacement, we reserve the right to keep the full amount you've paid.

iii) If you leave the course or service after it has started, you'll still have to pay the full fees. We may make exceptions to this in extreme circumstances and at our discretion.

iv) We rarely need to cancel a course or service, but if we do we'll give you as much notice as possible and we'll either offer you an alternative course or service of the same standing, or return all fees paid, but shall not pay any other costs.

15. Attending Your Course or Service

i) By booking a place on a course, workshop or service you commit to attending all the sessions to the best of your ability. We ask you to do this because:

• It's not practical for someone else to take your place on a course if you cancel after it's started.

• Attending all sessions means you'll get the most benefit from your learning.

ii) Unfortunately, we cannot automatically offer refunds or exchanges if you miss a course or service session due to illness or any other reason, but we may give you the option of joining another course or service at a later date.

16. Indemnification

i) You will defend, indemnify, and hold Professional Writing Academy, our affiliates and agents harmless from:

• Your access to and use of the online classroom

• Your violation of any of these terms and conditions

• Your violation of any third-party right, including any copyright, trademark, trade secret, or privacy right of any content in the online classroom.

ii) This indemnification will continue after your course or service, and your use of the online classroom, has ended.

17. Limitation of Liability

i) In no event will Professional Writing Academy, our affiliates or agents be liable for any indirect, consequential, special, incidental or punitive damages arising out of your access to, or use of, the online classroom or its contents, including any co-branded site, whether in a contract action or based on negligence, or other tort action, or any other claim whatsoever, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damage.

18. Violating these Terms and Conditions

i) If you violate any of these terms and conditions we may suspend your access to the online classroom. If this happens, you will not be entitled to a refund. Depending on the violation, you may be investigated and appropriate legal action may be taken, including civil, criminal and injunctive redress.

Questions, Concerns and Complaints

We're dedicated to providing a positive learning experience. If you have a question about the way we provide your course or service, or if something goes wrong, please tell us so that we can continue to improve.

How to ask a question or tell us if you have a concern

If you have a question or concern about your course or service, please email either your tutor or moderator, who will be able to answer most questions and address most concerns. If they cannot immediately answer your question, they may need to discuss it with the wider Professional Writing Academy team (or partner organisation, if appropriate). All such conversations are held in confidence.

How to make a complaint

First, please raise your complaint with your moderator via email, who will do their best to resolve it. If, after that, you want to take your complaint further, please email us at info@profwritingacademy.com We'll do our best to reply within two working days, even if that's just to acknowledge your message, and we aim to respond to your complaint within 10 working days.

Managing your information

If you want us to remove you from our mailing list(s), you can do this at any time by emailing us at info@profwritingacademy.com or selecting the ‘unsubscribe' option in any email newsletters.

You have the right to know what personal data we hold on you, including asking us to:

• Correct any errors in the data we hold

• Restrict how we use your data

• Delete your data

• Send you a copy of your data

If you want to speak to us about the personal data we hold, please put your request in writing by either:

• Emailing us at info@profwritingacademy.com

• Writing to us at Professional Writing Academy, Henleaze Business Centre, Harbury Road, Bristol BS9 4PN

We'll review your request and reply within 30 days.

Full policy

Welcome to the Online Classroom

Before you start learning with us, we'd like you to read and sign our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. This is to help keep you and everyone who uses the classroom safe, and ensure a productive and supportive learning experience.

Who We Are

The Professional Writing Academy Ltd uses this website to host and deliver a range of online courses and services on behalf of ourselves and our partners (Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, Graham Bartlett Police Advisor, Jericho Writers).

We, and our partners, are committed to making sure your privacy is protected. If we ask you to provide information by which you can be identified when using the online classroom(s), then we will only use it in accordance with this privacy statement.

Types of Information

We may store your:

• Name.
• Email address.
• Phone number.
• Postal address.
• Personal information you add to your profile, including images, bio, links to your website, social media channels, or other third party sites you may have chosen to share.
• Details of the course(s) you are enrolled on.
• Details of your interaction with the online course materials, including which pages you have read, videos watched, podcasts listened to, quizzes and questionnaires completed, forums you have posted to, whether you have completed sessions, and so on.
• Anything you share within the online classroom, including:
  • Work you upload to any classroom forums, in any format, including text or images pasted within a forum post, Word, .rtf, .PDF, .jpeg, .png, or other downloadable/portable files.
  • Forum discussions you start.
  • Comments and replies you make on any forums.
  • Transcripts of live chats you have taken part in.
  • Responses to quizzes, questionnaires and any online exams.
  • Contributions to recorded live sessions on Zoom.
  
  

  How Do We Get Your Information?

  Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you because you have enquired about, applied for, bought or signed up to a course, workshop, event, mentoring or alumni service.

  What Information Can Other People See?

  Your course tutor, moderator and the team responsible for managing the online classroom (at PWA and in a partner organisation) can see any information you share in the classroom, including everything listed above.

  Online classroom guests, who may join the course to take part in a live session as part of your learning, will only see your name and profile image (if you've added one).

  Other people in your course group can see your name and any information you choose to add to your personal profile. They will also be able to see your forum posts and comments, and contributions to live chat and Zoom sessions. This is so you can get to know each other and to facilitate group learning.

  The others in your group cannot see any of your quiz or questionnaire responses, including any results. They cannot see or track your progress on your course (ie they will not know which pages you've read, which videos you've watched, and so on).

  Your email address is not shared with anyone in your course group unless you change your profile settings to make it visible, or if you choose to share it with your group on a forum post, live chat discussion or in any other way. For privacy, we recommend that you do not share your email with anyone other than a tutor or moderator and that you use the forums and live chats within the online classroom instead.

  
  

  What We Do with the Information

  We use the information you give us to deliver your online learning experience or event, understand your needs and provide you with a better service. The information we store may be used for:

  • Internal record keeping.
  • Improving our products and services.
  • Contacting you about:
    • Further courses or services, from us or our partners, that we feel may be of interest to you based on the course(s) you have already taken.
    • Opportunities that may interest you, including discounts on other courses and services, competitions, events, news and other training options.

  If an employer, bursary provider or academic partner has paid for your course as part of your continuing professional development (CPD), training or education, they may ask us to tell them about your progress. This may include telling them whether or not you completed the course, including a summary of your activity (sessions and exercises completed, frequency of engagement with the online classroom, and so on). We will not share with them details of any messages you've sent to other people on the course, including forum posts and comments, transcripts from live discussions you've taken part in, or any work or images you've uploaded to the online classroom. If you have any questions or concerns about this please contact your tutor or moderator.

  What We Don't Do with the Information

  We do not store credit card or payment details in the online classroom. 

  We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.

  Under 18s

  If you are under 18, please inform a parent or guardian about your use of our onine classroom. We will need their consent for you to join our courses.

  Security

  We're committed to keeping your information secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

  All our learning platforms and associated websites are hosted within UK data centres. We do however use some third party providers, for certain specialist services, which are based outside the UK/EEA. When using such providers we ensure that they have appropriate controls in place for managing private data and we ensure that we only share with them the data that is strictly necessary. We regularly review and update these procedures.

  Links to Other Websites

  The online classroom contains links to other websites. We do not have any control over those websites so this privacy statement does not cover them. This means that we cannot be responsible for the security and privacy of any information you provide while visiting those other websites. You should always check the privacy statement on the website you are visiting.

  Managing Your Information

  Under UK GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the lawful bases we rely on for processing your information are to fulfil our contractual obligation to you where you have signed up for a course or service.

  You are in control of what information you include in your personal profile, and you can update your profile settings at any time, including:

  • Changing your password.
  • Changing the email address we use to send you notifications from the online classroom, or stopping all email notifications.
  • Changing your personal bio, including adding or removing an image.
  • Adding, updating or deleting links to your website, social media channels, blog or other third party sites.

  If you're not sure how to change your profile settings, please contact your course moderator.

  If you decide that you do not want to continue with a course or service, retain access to the online classroom's alumni area, or need to take a short break, then please tell your moderator. If you do this, we will remove you from your course group(s) and suspend your online classroom account. We will not delete your profile immediately after you leave a course, so you'll still be able to log in and manage your personal profile.

  You have the right to know what personal data we hold on you, including asking us to:

  • Correct any errors in the data we hold.
  • Restrict how we use your data.
  • Delete your data.
  • Send you a copy of your data.

  If you want to speak to us about the personal data we hold, or believe that any information we hold on you is incorrect or incomplete, or if you have any questions, please email info@profwritingacademy.com or write to Professional Writing Academy at Henleaze Business Centre, Harbury Road, Bristol BS9 4PN. We’ll review your request and reply within 30 days.

  You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. Their details are here: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/