TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE

Effective starting: March 26, 2021 (view archived versions)

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE ELTiS TESTING SERVICES.

The following terms and conditions set forth the legal rights and obligations between Ballard &Tighe, Publishers, a division of Educational IDEAS, Inc., (hereinafter referred as “B&T”) and its Customer for the ELTiS Testing and Score Reporting Services. Additional conditions may only be specified in a sperate, written agreement between B&T and the Customer. By accessing or using the ELTiS® Customer Portal and the ELTiS Student Portal “SITE”), you (“USER”) agree to the Terms and Conditions of Use listed on this page. B&T reserves the right, at its discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of these Terms and Conditions of Use at any time. If B&T updates these Terms and Conditions of Use, you will be notified. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE, YOU MAY NOT ACCESS OR USE THIS SITE.

 

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

When you register for the Site or send e-mails to B&T, you are communicating with us electronically. You consent to receive communications from B&T electronically. B&T will communicate with you by e-mail or by sending e-mail notices from this Site. You agree that all agreements, notices, disclosures, and other communications that B&T provides to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing.

 

YOUR ACCOUNT

If you use this Site, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Site account (“ACCOUNT”) and password and for restricting access to your computer, and you agree to accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account or password. You shall use reasonable precautions to protect your equipment from an unauthorized access, attack, or use.

 

REGISTRATION

In order to access the Site you must have an Account. Certain features are only available to Account Owners and Branch Contacts.

  1. MAIN ACCOUNT AND ACCOUNT OWNER. The “main” account for your organization is created by B&T. To assist account setup, you will assign an Account Owner by giving B&T the account owner’s name, email address, and position in the organization. Before being allowed to use the Site, the Account Owner must accept the Terms and Conditions of Use. The Account Owner will be responsible for creating any Branch Accounts for your organization. To create a Branch Account, you must (1) provide a name for a Branch Contact, (2) provide a valid e-mail address, and (3) assign test credits. The Site will automatically notify each Branch Contact using the e-mail address you provide. As an Account Owner, you will be responsible for any activities, including any violation of the Terms and Conditions of Use that occur under Branch Accounts created using your main Account. Certain features are only available to the Account Owner.
  2. BRANCH ACCOUNTS AND BRANCH CONTACTS. If you are a branch of an organization, the Account Owner is responsible for creating your Branch Contact Account and assigning test credits to your branch. Before you are allowed to use the Site, you must accept the Terms and Conditions of Use.
  3. STAFF ACCOUNTS. If you are a staff member of the organization, depending on the structure of your organization, the Account Owner and/or Branch Contact is responsible for creating your Account. To create a Staff Account, the Account Owner or Branch Contact must (1) provide a name, (2) provide a valid e-mail address, and (3) assign permission rights. Before you are allowed to use the Site, you must accept the Terms and Conditions of Use.
  4. REGISTRATION DATA. In registering for the Services, the Account Owner agrees to (1) provide true, current, and complete Registration Data; and (2) maintain and promptly update the Registration Data to keep it true, current, and complete. Registration Data includes your organization name, the organization’s physical and web address, and account owner’s name and organizational e-mail address. Account owners are responsible for all activities that occur under their Account. You may not share your Account or password with anyone, and you agree to notify B&T immediately of any unauthorized use of your password or any other breach of security. You agree not to create or access an Account using a false identity or information, or on behalf of someone other than yourself other than as part of the procedure for starting remote testing. You agree not to create an Account or use the Site if you have been previously banned from the Site by B&T or your organization.

 

NECESSARY EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE

You must provide all equipment and software necessary to connect to the Site, including but not limited to, a desktop or laptop computer or a tablet that is suitable to connect with and use the Site. You are solely responsible for any fees, including Internet connection or mobile fees, that you incur when accessing the Site.

 

RESTRICTIONS ON USE OF MATERIALS

This Site is operated by B&T. B&T provides this Site as a Service (SaaS) solution to customers for an Assessment Program. B&T restricts access to the Site by password to users who are authorized to use the Assessment Program. Authorized users may use the Site to submit personally identifiable information to B&T to allow for the registration, processing, and scoring of educational assessments and for score reporting. Personally identifiable information, score reports, or materials found on this Site may not be disclosed to any unauthorized third party. The rights granted to you by these Terms and Conditions of Use are subject to the following restrictions: (a) you shall not license, sell, rent, lease, transfer, or otherwise commercially exploit the Site, (b) you shall not use framing techniques to enclose any trademark, logo, or other Site content; (c) you shall not use any metatags or other “hidden text” using Site’s name or trademarks; (d) you shall not modify, translate, adapt, merge, make derivative works of, disassemble, decompile, reverse compile or reverse engineer any part of the Site content; (e) you shall not use any manual or automated software, devices, or other processes (including but not limited to spiders, robots, scrapers, crawlers, avatars, data mining tools, or the like) to “scrape” or download data from any web pages contained in the Site; (f) no data or material from the Site shall be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted, transmitted, hosted, or otherwise commercially exploited in any form or by any means; and (g) you shall not remove or destroy any copyright notices or other proprietary markings contained on or in the Site. Any future release, update or other addition to the Site shall be subject to the Terms and Conditions of Use. B&T and service providers reserve all rights not granted in the Terms and Conditions of Use. Any unauthorized use of the Site terminates the licenses granted by B&T pursuant to the Terms and Conditions of Use. B&T may terminate without notice your access to the Site if it is determined you violated the acceptable use policies referenced in these Terms and Conditions of Use.

 

COPYRIGHT

All content included on this Site, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, data compilations, and software, is the property of B&T or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content on this Site is the exclusive property of B&T and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. All software used on this Site is the property of B&T or its software suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws.

No part of this Site may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All of the components of B&T’s ELTIS test materials are copyrighted to protect the original works of authorship. None of the test materials may be copied by any means unless permission to reproduce is expressly granted directly on the material. Requests for permission should be directed in writing to Ballard &Tighe, Publishers, P.O. Box 219, Brea, CA 92822-0219.

 

THE FAMILY EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS AND PRIVACY ACT REGULATIONS

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a U.S. Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

You recognize that by agreeing to these Terms and Conditions of Use, you are selecting to use B&T’s ELTiS test for your educational agency and/or institution for the purpose of evaluating the language proficiency of your test takers and providing valid and reliable score reports. These score reports contain personally identifiable information of your test takers that you are required to enter into the ELTiS system in order to create these verifiable score reports.  This personally identifiable information is stored in a part of B&T’s secure database that is only accessible to your organization. The personally identifiable information will be destroyed by B&T when no longer needed for the purpose for which it is collected, which is to report test scores to appropriate organizations requesting scores from this specific test to be reported for specific students. No specific student information will be released by B&T to any other party unless there is a written request from the student’s parents specifying records to be released, the reasons for such release, and to whom, and with a copy of the records to be released to the student’s parents and the student, if desired by the parents.

As applicable, you agree to comply with all FERPA requirements prior to providing B&T access to any student education records.

 

ASSESSMENT DATA CREATED AND OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE ASSESSMENT WEB SITE AND THEIR RELATED SERVICES

The assessment data created and obtained from the use of the Site is owned by B&T. B&T may use this assessment data for internal business purposes after the data are de-identified. B&T agrees to not release assessment data to a third party on an individual student or individual school without the prior notification and authorization of the student or school and in compliance with Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). B&T grants the use of the score reports to the school, district, or other organizational activities subject to the restrictions of COPPA and any other laws that the contracting party is subject to. Such access grant does not allow the school, district, or other organization to sublicense, resell, or transfer the score reports for profit or for use in connection with development of an assessment product for profit without prior express written consent of B&T. There is no restriction to download a digital copy of the score reports for archiving in support of your organization’s internal operations.

 

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

This site and all information, content, materials, products (including any software), and services included on or otherwise made available to you through this site are provided by B&T on an “as is” and “as available” basis, unless otherwise specified in writing. B&T makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation of this site or the information, content, materials, products (including any software), or services included on or otherwise made available to you through this site, unless otherwise specified in writing. You expressly agree that your use of this site is at your sole risk.

To the full extent permissible by applicable law, B&T disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. B&T does not warrant that this site, information, content, materials, products (including any software), or services included on or otherwise made available to you through this site; its servers; or e-mail sent from B&T are free of viruses or other harmful components. B&T will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of this site or from any information, content, materials, products (including software), or services included on or otherwise made available to you through this site, including, but not limited to direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, and consequential damages, unless otherwise specified in writing. Certain state laws do not allow limitations on implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain damages. If these laws apply to you, some or all of the above disclaimers, exclusions, or limitations may not apply to you, and you might have additional rights.

 

INDEMNIFICATION

You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and account. Furthermore, you are entirely responsible for any and all activities that occur under your account and agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless B&T for any liability or expense arising from such use or misuse. You agree to immediately notify B&T of any unauthorized use of your account or any other breach of security known to you.

 

FORCE MAJEURE

Neither party will be responsible for any delay, interruption or other failure to perform under the Agreement due to acts, events, and causes beyond the control of the responsible party, including, but not limited to, embargoes, explosions, failure of third party suppliers, fires, governmental decrees, labor disputes, natural disasters, pandemics, riots, strikes, terrorist activities, extreme/dangerous weather, national defense requirements, acts or regulations of national or local governments, war, impossibility of the use of means of public or private telecommunications networks, or the threat of any of these things.

If a Force Majeure Event occurs, we may have to cancel a performance or abandon it part way through and our obligations to you are deemed to be suspended for the period that the Force Majeure Event continues. We will use our reasonable endeavors to find a solution by which our obligations may be performed despite the Force Majeure Event.

 

TERMINATION

The use of this Site is provided free with no license/program fee for purchased online ELTIS tests. B&T reserves the rights to terminate your account if it has been inactive for a period longer than two (2) years. You may terminate the use of this Site at any time by submitting a request in writing from an authorized representative. By terminating the use of this Site, B&T reserves the rights to permanently purge your stored data in its entirety including any incomplete or unused test credits without issuing any credits or refunds. Your use of this Site may also be terminated immediately by B&T if in B&T’s sole determination you fail to comply with any term or provision of these Terms and Conditions of Use. Other types of accounts such as trial/demo accounts, which are meant for evaluation purposes, are only valid for 30 days. After this period, all data associated with this evaluation account will be permanently purged without the possibility of porting to other accounts.

 

DATA RETENTION

To maintain Site’s optimum performance and data handling, B&T reserves the right to delete test records after a three-year period without notifying the customers. Thus, test records at the individual student level will no longer be available. Customers may export score reports from the Site at any time prior to the three-year period for internal archiving purposes.

 

TERMINATION OF AN ORGANIZATION’S ELTiS ACCOUNT

If an organization terminates their ELTiS account by written request, B&T will make your account data and current assessment records data available to you within 30 days for export or download. After this 30-day period, B&T will have no obligation to maintain or provide any of your data, and will thereafter delete all copies of your data in B&T’s possession or control, unless legally prohibited.

 

FUTURE FUNCTIONALITY

You agree that your purchases are not contingent on the delivery of any future functionality or features, or dependent on any oral or written public comments made by B&T regarding future functionality or features.

 

OTHER

These Terms and Conditions of Use shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of CALIFORNIA, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. Any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these Terms and Conditions of Use shall be filed only in the state or federal courts located in CALIFORNIA and you hereby consent to the personal jurisdiction of such courts for the purposes of litigating any such action. If any provision of these Terms and Conditions of Use shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from these Terms and Conditions of Use and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

 

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

The purpose of technical support is to troubleshoot problems or provide guidance and support related to the product and services. Technical support may be provided through various channels such as phone, online, or e-mail. Inquiries posted to the Site (Ask a Question page) are automatically archived in their original form and can be viewed both by you and personnel from your branch. B&T is not responsible or liable for the content of inquiries posted by users. Technical support is committed to protecting our customers’ privacy. B&T only asks for information necessary to validate you as a legitimate customer so support can be provided in an efficient and proper manner. B&T will never share any of your information with any individual outside of B&T without your clear consent. You will receive e-mail and other communication from B&T, such as responses to your inquiries placed by phone or online and administrative communication relating to your customer account (e.g., for purposes of account recovery or password reset). Note that B&T will never e-mail you to ask for your password. If you receive such an e-mail, forward it to support@ballard-tighe.com.

 

SITE POLICIES, MODIFICATION, AND SEVERABILITY

Please review B&T’s other policies on this Site. These policies also govern your visit to the Site. B&T reserves the right to make changes to our Site, policies, and these Terms and Conditions of Use at any time. If any of these conditions shall be deemed invalid, void, or for any reason unenforceable, that condition shall be deemed severable and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining condition.

Users of this Site must review and uphold the terms of the Privacy Policy found on this Site.