Terms of Use

Legal Information and Terms of Use

The Vancouver Island University (VIU) web site consists of the material provided under the viu.ca domain (e.g., viu.ca) and subdomains (e.g., cowichan.viu.ca) (hereinafter referred to collectively as the "Site").

All material provided on the Site is intended for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace either official documents (except where the material on the Site is explicitly identified as comprising the official version of a document), nor the advice of a qualified professional.

Your access to and use of the Site shall be governed by the following Terms of Use. VIU reserves the right amend these Terms of Use at any time without notice.

(a) Reserved Rights and Grant of Limited License

VIU owns the intellectual property rights, including copyright, in and to this Site, or has acquired the necessary licenses to display the material on the Site.
As a user of this Site, you are granted a limited license to use (display or print) short extracts of the information for your own personal, non-commercial use only, provided the information is not modified. Any other use of the information is prohibited. None of the information may be otherwise reproduced, republished or re-disseminated in any manner or form without the prior written consent of VIU. To obtain such consent, please contact the faculty, department, or administrative unit responsible for the information in which you are interested.

(b) No Advice or Warranties

You shall be fully responsible for any consequences resulting from your use of the Site. The information on the Site is provided for educational or information purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, whether medical, legal, or otherwise.

VIU does not guarantee the quality, accuracy, completeness or timelines of the information on the Site. While efforts are made to verify the information provided, the Site may contain typographical or other errors and should not be assumed to be error free. Furthermore, some information on the Site has been provided by third parties and has not necessarily been verified by VIU.
VIU shall not be responsible for any direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damage or any other damages whatsoever and howsoever caused, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Site or in reliance on the information available on the Site, including the loss of use, lost data, lost business profits, business interruption, personal injury, or any other personal or pecuniary loss, whether the action is in contract, tort (including negligence) or other tortious action.

(c) No Endorsement

The Site may contain links to other sites. These links are provided as references to help you identify and locate other Internet resources that may be of interest. Parties other than VIU independently develop and maintain these other sites. Therefore, VIU does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or appropriateness of the information contained at such sites. In providing links to other sites, VIU is not acting as a publisher or disseminator of the material contained on these other sites and does not seek to control the content of, or maintain any type of editorial control over, such sites.
A link to another site should not be construed to mean that VIU is associated with or is legally authorized to use any trademark, trade name, logo or copyrighted symbol that may be reflected in the link or the description of the link to such other sites. In addition, the mention of another party or its product or services on the Site should not be construed as an endorsement of that party or its product or service.

(d) Trade Marks

Certain words, phrases, names, designs or logos used on the Site may constitute trademarks, service marks or trade names of VIU or other entities. The display of any such marks or names on the Site does not imply that VIU or other entities have granted a license or authorization of any kind to use such marks or names.

(e) Submissions

All information submitted to VIU via the Site shall be deemed and remain the property of VIU, and VIU shall be free to use, for any purpose, any ideas, concepts, know-how or other techniques contained in information provided to VIU through the Site or sent through e-mail, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by VIU. Furthermore, VIU shall not be subject to any obligations of confidentiality regarding any such information submitted to it unless otherwise agreed to in writing by VIU.
The Internet is not a secure medium and privacy cannot be ensured. Internet e-mail is vulnerable to interception and forgery. VIU will not be responsible for any damages you or any third party may suffer as a result of the transmission of confidential information that you make to VIU through the Internet, or that you expressly or implicitly authorize VIU to make, or for any errors or any changes made to any transmitted information.

(f) Access and Interference

In using the Site, you agree that you will not use any device, software or routine to interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Site. You agree that you will not use any robot, spider, other automatic device, or manual process to impose an "unreasonable or disproportionately large load" on VIU’s infrastructure. An "unreasonable or disproportionately large load" is one that prevents other members of the university community from gaining fair and equitable access to web-based systems and resources.

(g) Computer Viruses

While every effort is made to ensure that all information provided on the Site does not contain computer viruses, you should take reasonable and appropriate precautions to scan for computer viruses and should ensure that you have a complete and current backup of the applicable items or information contained on your computer system. You should pay specific attention to some of the newer viruses that have been written to automatically execute when an infected word processing document is loaded into certain word processing programs.

(h) Choice of Law

The laws of the Province of British Columbia and the laws of Canada applicable therein shall govern as to the interpretation, validity and effect of this document, notwithstanding any conflict of law provisions of your domicile, residence or physical location. You hereby consent and submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Province of British Columbia in any action or proceeding instituted under or related to your use of the Site.

(i) Web Analytics and Remarketing

This Site uses web analytics tools to help analyze how the Site is used and to improve visitors’ online experience. These tools work by tagging web pages to capture a limited amount of data (including the internet protocol (‘IP”) address of the computer, device or network being used to access the pages). This data is used for aggregate reporting purposes. None of this data can be used by VIU or the service provider to identify you.
This Site also uses remarketing tools, which enable VIU or other entities to serve you with relevant advertisements outside of the VIU domain.
Web analytics and remarketing tools work by using cookies (small files stored on your computer’s web browser). You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser (please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website). Some service providers also allow you to opt out of their use of cookies for advertising purposes, e.g. Google Ad’s settings.

(j) Security

For site security purposes, VIU employs software programs to monitor network traffic that identifies unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits.

(k) Privacy

VIU is committed to providing our students, faculty, staff, and visitors with websites that respect their privacy. This section summarizes the privacy policy and practices for all official VIU websites.
Official VIU websites do not automatically gather any personal information from you, such as your name, phone number or email address. This information is only obtained if you provide it voluntarily, through contacting us via email, or through an online form.
Any personal information you do provide is managed according to the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA). This means that, at the point of collection, you will be informed that your personal information is being collected, the purpose for which it is being collected, and that you have a right of access to the collected information. If you have questions regarding Freedom of Information or Protection of Privacy, please email FIPPA@viu.ca. The Secretariat coordinates all formal FOI requests for the university.
Some official VIU websites may collect more information than is described here and will have additional privacy policies. Where applicable, please be sure to read these privacy policies.

Terms