Effective March 17, 2020
Our Privacy Policy has been updated.
Our mission at SkillsForce, LLC (“SkillsForce”) is to develop educators in an empowering, effective and efficient way. Part of this is providing access to an educator community where educators can collaborate to develop skills, share accomplishments, and celebrate each other’s success. Central to this mission is our commitment to be transparent about the data we collect about you, how it is used and with whom it is shared.
This Privacy Policy applies when you use our Services (described below). We offer Schools and users choices about the data we collect, use and share as described in this Privacy Policy. Users can contact your School to learn about your School’s privacy policy.
At SkillsForce, we are committed to protecting your privacy.
This Privacy Policy applies to the SkillsForce website and mobile application(s) as well as any other websites, email messages or applications we own or operate containing a link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, our “Service”) provided and hosted by SkillsForce now or in the future for your school, school district or other organization (“School”).
Schools use the Service to (1) facilitate professional learning, (2) develop, acknowledge and track educator skills through the use of the micro-credential process, (3) log and quantify all educator professional development and (4) share best practices within a peer community of educators for the School’s end users, which could include teachers, staff, and others. This Privacy Policy pertains only to the Personal Information that SkillsForce collects from you or that is provided to us by the School or your users in connection with the School’s use of the Service, where we serve as the supplier that processes this data on the School’s behalf. Personal Information is information that can identify a specific individual (“Personal Information”).
When you or your School use our Service, SkillsForce needs to use your data to host and provide the Service to you and the School.
SkillsForce collects, uses and retains your Personal Information as a service provider to the School in accordance with our contractual agreements with the School. This Privacy Statement explains how SkillsForce processes your Personal Information on the School’s behalf. Your School may further use such data for its own purposes and SkillsForce does not have control over such use. Please see the School’s privacy policy or contact your School for more information about its privacy practices.
SkillsForce has been retained by the School to provide and host the Service on the School’s behalf and under the School’s control. The School configures the Service, controls who can register for and use the various features of the Service and who can access the Personal Information posted or maintained on the Service. Subject to the particular functionality and customization selected by the School, SkillsForce may collect Personal Information from those providing the School’s Service and from the users of the School’s Service, which could include School administrators, teachers, and other individuals associated with the educational School (collectively referred to as “users” or “you”). We do not collect, maintain, use or share Personal Information collected through the Service for any purpose beyond what is needed to provide the functionality of the Service and as otherwise described herein or as authorized by our agreement with the School.
To create an account, you need to provide data including your name, email address, school where you work, and a password. If you elect any premium Service available now or in the future, such as purchasing a professional development book, you will need to provide payment (e.g., credit card) and billing information.
When you register for the Service you have access to certain features as well as the ability to personalize content. When you register or during the use of the Service, we may collect additional Personal Information which could include additional contact information, demographic information such as your education level, areas of interest and professional learning preferences.
Your School may elect to provide Personal Information to us on your behalf in order to use certain features and functions of the Service. By way of example, a School-designated administrator may input registration information for you, either manually or through a system feed. Your School- designated administrator may decide to assign to you a role(s) or add you to group(s). Based upon your designated role(s) or group(s), you may have access to additional information or services. If you have questions concerning your role(s) or group(s), please contact your School administrator.
Your School may provide additional information to us in other situations, for example, in connection with a customer support request or a content submission request. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you and other users the features of the Service, including to provide you with the features of the Service selected and controlled by the School. We may use this information to communicate with you, such as to send you email messages, push notifications, text messages, and to permit other Users of the Service to follow or contact you, to improve and develop our product and services, to improve customer service, and for other systems maintenance purposes.
We may collect information about you from third party services that you connect to our Service. For example, if you login through Clever: single sign-on for Education, share SkillsForce content on social media sites, or if you access other third party services, such as DropBox, Google Drive, YouTube, and other websites (“Third Party Services”), through the Service in order to share certain content selected and approved by you with those services, and/or to import content into the Service, these third parties may provide us information about you. We may also receive information about you if you interact with our Service through various social media, for example, by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter. The data we receive is dependent upon your privacy settings with the social network or other third-party site. You should always review, and if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and services before linking or connecting them to the Service.
In addition to the information you actively provide, we also collect information about how you use the Service, your actions taken through the Service, your communications with others through the Service, and any additional data or information that is generated by your use of the Service.
Depending on the features and functionality utilized by a School, users may be able to post, download or upload various pieces of content and/or information on or through the use of the Service, and/or interact with third party social media services or other collaboration or communication tools, or communicate with one another. For example, teachers or administrators may post comments on a microcredential they collectively work on together, forums, experiences, and other information and content directly onto the Service, and/or users may chat with each other, or send instant messages, text messages or e-mail, via technology which may now or in the future be made available over the Service, and may share information, photographs, images or recordings with each other or with others in the community. The use of these features is controlled by the School and not by SkillsForce. SkillsForce has no practical ability to restrict the information, conduct, communications, or content which might be posted on or exchanged through the use of its technology Service, nor can SkillsForce ensure prompt removal of any such communications, information or content after transmission or posting. If you are concerned about any information or content that may be posted, transmitted or accessed on the Service, please contact the School. All content provided by the users to or through the Service is “User Submissions.” As provided in our Terms of Use, you are responsible for the User Submissions you post to the Service
As part of the Service, user may upload User Submissions that contains videos, images or personal information of K12 students, teachers, or other non-users of the Service. As a user, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have the appropriate rights and consents to share any such content you upload or share within the SkillsForce Product, including by obtaining any consents necessary from parents, teachers, school administrators and/or school districts, and to ensure you comply with all laws that may apply to the personal information of others that you provide in User Submissions. Although SkillsForce strives to apply high data privacy standards to all of the information in its possession, and does not use or share User Submissions other than as described in this Privacy Policy, any personal information related to non-users that may be provided in User Submissions is not strictly subject to this Privacy Policy. Please see our Terms of Use to learn more about User Submissions.
To the extent that our Service is used by a College, University, local education agency, teacher, or other educational institution (“Educational Institution”) and (a) its students as part of school curriculum (e.g., a teacher training program in a University, or (b) by teachers (e.g. as part of a teachers improvement program), the personal information we collect through the Service may include personal information from “educational records” as defined by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1232(g) (“Student Data”). SkillsForce considers Student Data to be highly confidential, and we utilize this data only to provide our Service on behalf of the Educational Institution as permitted in this Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Like most websites and online services, we and our third-party partners automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit the Service, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. We typically collect this information through a variety of tracking technologies, including cookies, web beacons, Flash cookies (locally stored objects), embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, and similar technology (collectively, “tracking technologies”). These tracking technologies collect information about how you use the Service (e.g., the pages you view, the links you click, and other actions you take on the Service), information about your browser and online usage patterns (e.g., IP address, browser type, browser language, referring / exit pages and URLs, pages viewed, whether you opened an email , links clicked), and information about the device(s) you use to access the Service (e.g., mobile device identifier, mobile carrier, device type, model and manufacturer, mobile device operating system brand and model, and depending on your mobile device settings, your geographical location data (which could include GPS coordinates (e.g. latitude and/or longitude) or similar information regarding the location of your mobile device), or we may be able to approximate a device’s location by analyzing other information, like an IP address. We may also collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools, to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Service. Although we do our best to honor the privacy preferences of our visitors, we are not able to respond to Do Not Track signals from your browser at this time.
These tracking technologies (including cookies) allow us to provide you with a better user experience and to enable your School to provide a better user experience through the Service. For example, data collected through tracking technologies can be used to: (a) remember information so that a user will not have to re-enter it during subsequent visits; (b) provide or recommend custom, personalized content and information; (c) to identify and contact you across multiple devices; (d) to provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Service; (e) perform analytics and detect usage patterns on the Service; (f) diagnose or fix technology problems; (g) detect or prevent fraud or other harmful activities or to protect the rights, property and personal safety of SkillsForce, our Districts or our users; and (h) otherwise to plan for and enhance the Service.
If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies. Please note that doing so may negatively impact your experience using the Service, as some features and services on our Service may not work properly. Depending on your mobile device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all cookies. You may also set your e-mail options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us and your School to know whether you have accessed our e-mail and performed certain functions with it. Please note that deleting cookies does not delete Local Storage Objects such as Flash objects or HTML5 cookies. For information on disabling Flash cookies, go to Adobe’s web site www.adobe.com or by clicking here [https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/disable-local-shared-objects-flash.html]. Please be aware that if you disable or remove cookies, Flash cookies, or HTML5 cookies on your device, some parts of our Service may not function properly, and that when you revisit the Service your ability to limit cookies is subject to your browser settings and limitations.
Tracking Technologies set by a School. Note that your School may engage with third parties to enable certain functionality or usage analytics, and such third parties may set tracking technologies to facilitate these services. For example, Google Analytics may be used to track visitor activity on the Service. SkillsForce does not control these third-party partners engaged directly by a School as part of the School’s Service. Please review your School’s privacy policy or refer questions to your School.
How we use your personal data will depend on how you use the Services, the choices your School makes and the choices you make in your settings. We use the data we have about you to provide and personalize the Service, including with the help of automated systems and inferences we make, so that our Services can be more relevant and useful to you.
Our Services allow you to stay in touch and up to date with colleagues, and other professional contacts. To do so, you can “connect” with the professionals who you choose, and who also wish to “connect” with you. Subject to your and their settings, when you connect with other Users, you will be able to search each other’s connections in order to exchange professional learning opportunities.
Our Services allow you to stay informed about professional learning topics you care about, and from professionals you respect. Our Services also allow you to improve your professional skills or learn new ones via micro-credentials. We use the data we have about you (e.g., data you provide, data we collect from your engagement with our Services and inferences we make from the data we have about you), to personalize our Services for you, such as by recommending or ranking relevant content on our Service. We also use the data we have about you to suggest skills you could add to your profile and grow as an educator. So, if you let us know that you are interested in a new skill, we will use this information to personalize micro-credentials and content in your feed, suggest you follow certain users on our Service, or suggest related learning content to help you towards that new skill. We use your content, activity and other data, including your name and photo, to provide notices to users. For example, subject to your School settings, we may provide a feed to users that you have added a professional learning experience, posted an experience worth sharing or completed a micro-credential.
Our Services allow you add your educational background, certifications, and areas of professional learning interest. You can also add every activity (conference, book study, workshop, etc.) you participated in to develop yourself as a professional educator and add any experience you decide is worth capturing and sharing. Keeping your profile accurate and up to date may help you better connect to others along with allowing others to see your professional learning efforts.
We will contact you through email, mobile phone, notices posted on our websites or apps, messages to your SkillsForce inbox, and other ways through our Services, including text messages, surveys and push notifications. We will send you messages about the availability of our Services, security, or other service-related issues. We also send messages about how to use our Services, network updates, reminders, and messages on ways to use the Service from us. You may change your communication preferences at any time. Please be aware that you cannot opt out of receiving service messages from us, including security and legal notices.
We also enable communications between you and others through our Services, including for example InMail, groups and messages between connections.
We use data to conduct research and development for our Services in order to provide you and other user with a better, more intuitive and personalized experience, and engagement on our Services, and help connect professional educators to each other for collective growth.
We use data (which can include your communications) to investigate, respond to and resolve complaints and for Service issues (e.g., bugs).
We use your data (including your communications) for security purposes or to prevent or investigate possible fraud or other violations of our Terms of Use and/or attempts to harm other users or others.
SkillsForce processes and shares Personal Information under the direction and control of your School. Your School can control which individuals can be registered to use certain Service features and which individuals or groups are granted privileges to access, view or use Personal Information collected, exchanged or maintained on the Service. Users who have been assigned administrative privileges by your School have access to all registered user information on their Service and may be able to grant access rights to other users. Your School may integrate third party features or permit third party partners to collect Personal Information on the Service in order to provide a service, such as social networks, content providers, or educational partners. Additionally, your School or its authorized users may provide consent or authorization for us to share Personal Information with a specific individual or third party upon request.
Accordingly, we share Personal Information as needed to provide these features and functionality of the Service and as directed by the School and its authorized users. Contact your School for more information regarding information access and sharing controlled by your School.
In addition to the information sharing practices discussed above, SkillsForce may share or disclose Personal Information collected through the Service in the following ways:
SkillsForce does not knowingly collect any information from children under the age of 13 unless and until your School has provided appropriate consent and authorization for a student under 13 to use the Service and for SkillsForce to collect this information. Your School controls the use of such information. We rely on your School to obtain any necessary parental consent before permitting a child under 13 to access or provide information through the Service, and to otherwise comply with the privacy obligations under COPPA and other applicable (state) laws, including to provide notice and a means for a parent to access information collected from a child and to request such information be modified or deleted. If you have any questions regarding the collection and use of Personal Information from a child under 13 through the Service, please contact your School.
Please contact us at privacy@skillsforce.com if you believe we have inadvertently collected Personal Information from a child under 13 without proper consents so that we may delete such information as soon as possible. Certain deletion requests may require your School’s authorization.
SkillsForce does not authorize third party ad networks, social media companies, or other third party services to collect information about visitors to the websites, applications or other online services SkillsForce provides and hosts for your School through the Service, for interest-based advertising purposes, except and unless at the direction of your School. SkillsForce does not share or sell Student Data for marketing or targeted advertising purposes.
SkillsForce may contact you through email, notices posted on our websites or apps, messages to your inbox, and other ways through our Services, including text messages and push notifications. We will send you messages about the availability of our Services, security, or other service-related issues. We also send messages about how to use our Services and reminders. You can unsubscribe from these emails by clicking on the “unsubscribe” button within the body of the email. Please be aware that you cannot opt out of receiving service messages from us, including account verification, changes or updates to features of the Service, security, technical and legal notices.
To access or change your Personal Information, log in to your account through the Service. You may be able to access or change the information collected during registration by choosing the "edit profile” option or other similar functionality offered in the Service. For data not available through such an account, please contact your School’s administrator. If a request is made to SkillsForce, we will refer the request to your School and look to the School to validate the request before we can make changes to an account.
If you are a parent, teacher, or school administrator and would like to request access information relating to a student or minor who may appear in User Submissions that has been posted on the Service, please contact us at privacy@skillsforce.com and we will do our best to assist you. User Submissions are owned and controlled by our users and School, who are responsible for obtaining all appropriate consents necessary to collect and share the User Submissions with the Service.
Data Retention. We retain Personal Information on behalf the School only as necessary to provide the service requested, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements, all in compliance with applicable laws. When a School administrative user deletes your account, the information contained in your user account is no longer available except (1) to the extent it is stored in backed-up data repositories, which are destroyed pursuant to our standard data retention schedule and (2) your ability to have continued access all the content and features on your profile page. Access to this information will require a change from your School email address to a personal email address. Please contact your School if you have questions about data retention and deletion along with how to facilitate access to your profile page. Any request we receive to delete Personal Information may require authorization from the School providing the Service.
Data Security. The School will remain responsible for the privacy and security of your Personal Information that it collects and processes through the Service, and for compliance with applicable data privacy laws that may apply to the collection, processing and disclosure of information through the Service.
SkillsForce maintains administrative, technical and physical procedures to protect Personal Information. Security safeguards may include but are not limited to data encryption, firewalls, data use and access limitation, and physical access controls to buildings.
Data Storage and Transfer. Unless and except to the extent limited in our agreement with your School, your information collected through the Service may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which SkillsForce or its subsidiaries, affiliates or service providers maintain facilities. If you are located in the European Union or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, please note that we may transfer information, including personal information, to a country and jurisdiction that does not have the same data protection laws as your jurisdiction. By using this Service, you consent to such transfer, and you agree that SkillsForce may process your personal information in the United States or any other jurisdiction, as described in this Privacy Policy.
The Service may provide links to third-party websites or services that are not governed by this Privacy Policy. To the extent that any linked third-party websites or services you visit are not owned or controlled by SkillsForce, we are not responsible for those websites’ or services’ content or information practices. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any site or service before providing any Personal Information.
We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time in our sole discretion. We will post changes on this page and indicate the “last modified” date at the top of this page. Please check back often for any updates. Your continued use of the Service after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.
We will not make any material changes to this Privacy Policy that relate to the collection or use of Student Data without first giving notice to the School and providing a choice before Student Data is used in a materially different manner than was disclosed when the information was collected.
If you have any questions, suggestions or concerns regarding the collection and processing of your Personal Information, please contact your School directly. If you are unable to resolve your questions or concerns with your School, please contact us at privacy@skillsforce.com.