Terms and Conditions for Educational Websites

When setting up your educational website, you must have the right legal documents in place. Having Terms and Conditions ensures your website looks professional and well-run and establishes clear legal terms between you and your users.

It can also ensure that important issues like intellectual property (including user-generated content) issues are explicit, so users know what to expect and what their rights are.

This article will go through why you need Terms and Conditions for your educational website, and what clauses you should include, with examples.

Let's get started.

Why are Terms and Conditions Needed for Educational Websites?

You need Terms and Conditions for your educational website for several reasons. This includes establishing legal rules, increasing the professional look of your website, and making sure your website appears trustworthy to users.

Terms and Conditions set out the legal relationship between you and your users. This includes legal issues such as intellectual property, appropriate (or inappropriate) conduct, payment terms, liability, and warranties.

A T&C agreement also makes your website look professional and well-run. When you're offering an educational website, users must see you are trustworthy, responsible, and careful. Having the right legal documents helps to establish your credibility.

Finally, having Terms and Conditions also ensures your users have clear information about what they can expect from your website, how they can use it, and what conduct might result in a suspension or ban.

Let's take a look at what clauses you should cover in your Terms and Conditions.

What Clauses Should You Include in Terms and Conditions for Educational Websites?

It's difficult to know which clauses to include in your educational website's Terms and Conditions. Some websites have short, basic terms, while others have long, complicated ones. Most importantly, your Terms and Conditions should establish the relationship between you and your website users, be easily understandable, and should reflect your website's practices.

Some of the key clauses that you will need to include in your Terms and Conditions are:

• Definitions
• Payment Terms
• Cancellation/Termination
• Intellectual Property
• User-Generated Content
• Acceptable Conduct
• Warranties and Disclaimers
• Limitation of Liability
• Governing Law

We'll now go through each of these in more detail.

Definitions

At the beginning of your Terms and Conditions, you need to include a definition section. The definition section should clearly define common terms or words that are used throughout the document.

In this example from Khan Academy, you can see that important terms are defined within the text of the document. This includes words like "Services," "User," "Users," and "Terms."

You can see in the example below from edX that words are also defined within the Terms and Conditions text, including "Courses" "Programs", "Offerings", "Members", and so on. This approach is sometimes used instead of a separate definitions clause or section:

In this example from Make UK, you can see that the definitions are set out in a standalone section, with each word defined one by one. This is a common approach to a definitions section, and can help to make it clear and readable for your users:

It's up to you whether you include definitions within the text, or in a separate definitions section. Either way, make sure the important words in your Terms and Conditions are defined clearly so that no confusion or legal inconsistencies arise.

Now let's take a look at payment terms.

Payment Terms

If your educational website has a subscription approach or allows users to pay for courses per course or for a set period, you'll need to have a clause covering payment terms. This also applies if you sell merchandise such as tee shirts or caps with the name of your company or website on it, or offer certificates or other items.

You can see in this example from edX that the clause covers payment processes, price, as well as how charging will be carried out:

Your payment clause can also cover what happens in the case of payment failure, as well as information about how you work with third-party payment providers. In this example from Udemy you can see it covers payment methods, including debit, credit, SEPA, and mobile wallets. It also refers to Udemy's Privacy Policy for information on how Udemy shares data with their payment providers:

Also note that the clause explains if payment fails, the website reserves the right to disable access to content.

In this example from Udacity you can see it includes a similar statement on third-party payment providers. Unless your education website is processing payments directly, you should include similar wording in your clause:

Now let's take a look at the event where a user has a subscription or user account, and they want to cancel.

Cancellation/Termination

For education websites, having subscriptions and payment plans is common. There will be situations in which a user wants to cancel their subscription or get a refund for a course. Make sure you have a clause covering these situations, including how much time users have to cancel, how billing works with cancellations, and how refunds can be obtained.

In this example from Udacity, the clause outlines how users can cancel their automatic subscription. It explains that the monthly subscription will continue until the subscription is cancelled or terminated. It also outlines the process users need to go through in their account settings, and that users need to cancel the subscription before the next billing period carries over.

Note that the clause also outlines a refund period of 7 days for American customers, and explains that for EU residents there is an additional section with further information.

In this example from edX you can see a similar approach, in which a subscription is carried out automatically until the subscription is terminated or cancelled. Like the example above, the edX clause also explains that the subscription needs to be cancelled before the next billing period:

Make sure that your cancellation clause is clear about how users can cancel, what time periods apply, as well as how billing periods and additional charges work.

Intellectual Property

Next, you need to make sure you have a clause covering intellectual property. This includes trademarks and copyright, as well as any other information or content that you own.

In this example from Khan Academy you can see that it establishes ownership over the entire Khan Academy services. This includes visual interfaces, graphics, design, compilation, information, computer code, software, services, content, educational videos, training materials, and professional learning resources:

Make sure your clause is clear about what you are claiming intellectual property in and what belongs to you. In this example from edX, you can also see similar wording with an outline of what aspects of edX are covered by intellectual property laws:

In addition to this clause, you'll need to have information about how user-generated content is dealt with. Users will have intellectual property in their own content, and it must also be clear that they are responsible for it (rather than you).

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is content that your users can create and produce or input on your website. For educational websites this might include assignments, comments on videos, or discussion forums about a topic.

In this example from Khan Academy, you can see that users can input summary, text, or instructions, including in relation to an AI feature or tool of Khan Academy. The clause establishes that this is considered user content, that users are responsible for this content. It also outlines that when users input content into this AI feature, outputs may not be able to be easily protected by intellectual property laws:

Another example is this clause from Udacity. It refers to forum posts, chats with other Users, User discussions, post content, materials, media, and information through profile pages:

Consider what information your users can contribute to your educational website, and outline those cases in your clause. Make sure you also state that you disclaim liability for the user content, and do not guarantee its truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability, like in the Udacity example.

Acceptable Conduct

When users can interact with and contribute to your educational website, you also need a clause that covers acceptable content. This helps your users to know what is appropriate, and helps to prevent users from interacting with your website in negative or antisocial ways.

In this example from Udacity, you can see users are prohibited from violating laws, setting up multiple user accounts, duplicating the Udacity services or courses, reverse-engineering the website, and other things. Explaining these things directly helps you to have a better legal position if any user ever breaches this policy. It also makes it clear to your users what is acceptable and unacceptable conduct:

In this example from Udemy, you can see a similar approach. Udemy uses a helpful summary feature at the beginning of its clauses, making it very clear to users what the clause will then explain in more detail:

Note that Udemy also links to its Trust & Safety Guidelines. You can also set up a complete user conduct policy or set of guidelines, to give your users additional information about how they should behave on your educational website.

Warranties and Disclaimers

A warranties and disclaimers clause helps to protect you from liability. Warranties state what you guarantee or promise (or establish what you don't), and disclaimers state what things you are not responsible for.

In this example from Khan Academy, you can see that it sets out a warranty from the user, in which the user promises not to violate the rules. It also asks for users to warrant that they possess the necessary rights to their user content:

In this example from edX, the warranty is more to do with what edX is promising to do (or not). It states that the edX services are provided on an "as is" basis, and that there are no guarantees or warranties. Statements like this help to protect you from liability:

Now let's take a look at another clause related to your liability.

Limitation of Liability

A limitation of liability clause helps to protect you from liability, and reduce or prevent damages in the event that a problem occurs, such as your website not functioning.

You can see in this example from Khan Academy, the limitation of liability states that under no circumstances will Khan Academy be liable for special, indirect, consequential, cover, business interruption, or other losses:

In this example from edX, a similar statement is made, in which losses relating to the services are limited "to the fullest extent possible."

These types of clauses are relatively standard, but you should make sure your clause relates to your educational website and the potential losses that could arise if it malfunctions, such as lost course certificates, data breaches, and so on.

Governing Law

Finally, you need a governing law clause. This clause is simple and just sets out which country's laws are governing the legal agreements between you and your users.

In this example from Make UK, you can see that the governing law is English law:

In this example from edX, the governing law is from the State of Delaware:

You can choose whatever governing law you prefer, even a country that your business is not established in. This might be the case if you have many customers from another country or an international business.

How Do You Display Terms and Conditions for Educational Websites?

Now that your Terms and Conditions have the correct clauses, let's take a look at where you need to display your Terms and Conditions. They should be:

• In your website footer
• On any forms that can be submitted
• In any emails you send

Putting your Terms and Conditions in these places helps to make sure that your users see them and agree to them. Let's look in more detail.

In Your Website Footer

First, you need to include your Terms and Conditions in your website footer. In this example from edX, you can see the Terms of Service (another word for Terms and Conditions) clearly in the footer with other documents. Make sure the words are big enough to see, and are easy to read. The link to the document should not be hidden or impossible to find:

This example from Udemy is similar, and also shows how you can display the Terms and Conditions in your footer. In both cases, the link to the Terms and Conditions is the same size as all the other links:

This is a good way to make sure your users can find your Terms and Conditions when they want to read them.

On Any Forms That can be Submitted

Any forms on your website that can be submitted should also include a link to your Terms and Conditions. The link should be displayed next to a check-box, in which users can tick the box to show that they have clearly and actionably agreed to the Terms and Conditions.

This example from Simple Education shows how to place the check box and the link, on a form submission for creating a Simple Education account:

If you include a check box like this, it helps to prove that users agreed clearly to the document.

In Any Emails You Send

If you send emails to your users, you should also include a link to your Terms and Conditions in the footer of the email. This helps your users to have another opportunity to find and read the document. In this example from Khan Academy the link to the Terms and Conditions is displayed at the bottom of the message:

With this approach to displaying your Terms and Conditions, it makes sure that your users have many places in which they can see the document, and show they agree to it. This helps to protect you from legal liability, and establish clear rules between you and your users.

Summary

Having a clear, readable set of Terms and Conditions makes sure that your education website looks trustworthy to users, gives a professional appearance, and establishes a clear relationship between you and your users. Make sure you include clauses on definitions, payment terms, acceptable conduct, intellectual property, warranties and disclaimers, limitations of liability, and governing law.

You should also ensure that your Terms and Conditions are displayed in your website footer, as a checkbox on any forms users can submit on your website, and in any emails you send. By following these guidelines, your Terms and Conditions will be ready to help your educational website succeed.