Membership Agreement - Solution Exchange

Solution Exchange: A United Nations Initiative

MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP TO A SOLUTION EXCHANGE COMMUNITY
APPENDIX A: SOLUTION EXCHANGE COMMUNITIES ACTIVE AS OF 1 NOVEMBER 2011
SOLUTION EXCHANGE PRIVACY POLICY
CONTACT US

MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT

Joining any Solution Exchange Community is free, voluntary and open to anyone interested in contributing advice, experience and expertise for use by others, or for adapting others’ advice, experience and expertise for their own use.

In becoming a member of this Community you hereby agree to follow seven basic - Rules of Participation:

1.   Contributions from members are primarily for the purpose of sharing advice, experience and expertise relating to development challenges. The Community’s mailgroup should not be used as a discussion forum for promoting or advocating particular views, opinions or political positions. Dialogue and debate can be done more effectively through the many other community discussion forums available.

2.   Solution Exchange Communities are networks of professional peers and not of organizations. Messages posted to Solution Exchange represent the personal views of the members and not the positions of the agencies they are employed by.

3.   Contributions should be provided in a positive and constructive manner, and not as to intentionally defame or discredit the views of another individual or group.

4.   Contributions to the mailgroup become public property and are freely available for others to cite or use as they choose, although members are encouraged to acknowledge the original contributor as a courtesy. Attachments or citations offered with these contributions retain the permissions associated with the material unless they are archived in the Solution Exchange repository, where they acquire the rights associated with Solution Exchange material as indicated in the Terms and Conditions of Use.

5.   To ensure adherence to the above rules, messages sent to this mailgroup go first to the mailgroup moderator (Facilitation Team), who is responsible for reviewing and approving messages to be posted. In carrying out these functions, the Facilitation Team reserves the right to edit and/or withhold messages that are found not to be appropriate for posting. Before a message is withheld or heavily edited, the Facilitation Team will notify and/or consult with the sender.

6.   In posting edited and unedited messages or incorporating these messages into synthesized responses, the United Nations accepts no responsibility for their veracity or authenticity. Members intending to use or transmit the information contained in these messages should be aware that they are relying on their own judgment.

7.   Users also agree to adhere to the legal rights associated with using these mailgroup forums and with the Solution Exchange websites. Legal terms and conditions governing the use of these forums, the websites and the material contained therein are spelled out in the Terms and Conditions for Membership, below. The Privacy Policy, also below, describes how the information you provide to the mailgroup forums or websites are used.

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TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP TO A SOLUTION EXCHANGE COMMUNITY

Solution Exchange is a voluntary knowledge management platform initiated by the United Nations Development Programme (“UNDP”) on behalf of the United Nations Agencies that creates “Communities of Practice” (CoP), designed to enable individuals working in the development sector to share useful knowledge, best practices and learn from each other in a spirit of collaboration.

Your use of the Solution Exchange websites and/or your membership to a Community of Practice within the Solution Exchange network is governed by the following terms and conditions.

You hereby agree that to become a member of any community of practice within the Solution Exchange network, you have read, understood and agree to comply with the terms and conditions of membership.
Membership to any community within the Solution Exchange network is available only to individuals, and not to organizations.

1. Registration and Membership
1.1 This agreement binds all registered members of a Solution Exchange Community, and to the extent applicable, to all general users of the Solution Exchange websites.

1.2 Some or all of the pages on the Solution Exchange websites may be accessed only by use of a password, which will be provided to you after registration. The information supplied by you in connection with your registration is subject to Solution Exchange’s privacy policy. You agree not to share your password with anyone and to take reasonable care to protect your password from unauthorized disclosure. You agree promptly to report to the Coordinator of Solution Exchange any known, suspected, or anticipated compromise of your password.

1.3 In the event that you are employed by an organization, you hereby warrant that you are authorized under the terms of your employment or contract to enter into this agreement.

1.4 Solution Exchange may amend these terms and conditions at any time simply by posting an amended version on this site and may make any amendment effective as it deems appropriate. It is your responsibility regularly to review these terms and conditions and to acquaint yourself with any changes. If you do not agree with these terms and conditions, do not participate in Solution Exchange.

1.5 Registration or usage of the site constitutes an irrevocable waiver of any claim that you did not read, understand, or agree to these terms and conditions.

2. Rights and Obligations of Membership to Solution Exchange
2.1 By registering as a member with Solution Exchange and by agreeing to the terms and conditions, you will be entitled to participate in any Solution Exchange Knowledge Sharing Community (“Community”).

2.2 The platform comprises of different Community discussion and knowledge exchange forums as listed in Appendix A of this agreement.

2.3 Only members shall be entitled to post queries to a Community, whose Facilitation Team shall at their absolute discretion forward the query to the entire Community. Members shall also be entitled to reply to queries in the form of sharing their experiences, examples, insights, best practices, offering suggestions and providing additional knowledge and/or information and resources.

2.4 Solution Exchange hereby reserves the absolute right of editorial discretion in the creation of a compilation of relevant answers known as a “Consolidated Reply” which shall then be posted to the Community and retained on the Community’s Website.

3. Copyright
3.1 In keeping with the spirit of voluntary information exchange, all materials and information available in Solution Exchange shall be governed by the terms and conditions laid out in the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike Agreement Ver. 3.0 (“Creative Commons License”). The Creative Commons license grants all users the right to use, distribute, modify and redistribute the information, for non-commercial purposes, and provided that adequate credit is given to the author of the work.

3.2 Any person posting either a query or a reply, or any other information to the site shall retain their copyright over such information, but explicitly agree that by posting any information to Solution Exchange, the information is licensed under the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons License.

3.3 It shall be the duty and obligation of every member posting either a query or a reply to read and understand the Creative Commons license, and your participation and/ or use of the site shall imply that you have read and agreed to be bound by the Creative Commons license, in relation to any material or information posted by you.

3.4 In the event that any member has a doubt about the terms and conditions laid down by the Creative Commons license it shall be his/ her duty to ensure that they seek a legal opinion or clarification about the same. All the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license shall be construed as being supplemental to this agreement and shall be interpreted harmoniously with this agreement.

3.5 In the event that Solution Exchange uses any material or information posted by any member it shall provide adequate credit to the member. Members also agree that Solution Exchange will invest a lot of skill and judgment and value in creating the Consolidated Reply, and shall accordingly be the owner of the copyright in the Consolidated Reply.

3.6 In the event that any member uses or distributes any Consolidated Reply in its totality, it shall provide Solution Exchange full credit in the manner prescribed by Solution Exchange. Specifically, re-users of this material must cite as their source Solution Exchange as well as the item’s recommender, if relevant, and must share any derivative work with the Solution Exchange Community.

4. Obligations of Members
4.1 Members agree that Solution Exchange is designed to provide you and other members an opportunity to exchange ideas and information. By posting or submitting material to Solution Exchange, you represent that you have all necessary rights in and to such material and that such material will not infringe on any personal or proprietary rights of any third parties. You hereby agree to authorize the right to view, use, and distribute such material in any manner and in any medium, in perpetuity and as per Clause 3 of this agreement.

4.2 Members agree that they shall not post, transmit, or otherwise distribute on or through this site any material that may be unlawful, obscene, offensive, defamatory, threatening, or infringing of any copyright or other rights of others.

4.3 Members may not post, transmit or otherwise distribute any virus, worm, or other code that may be damaging to software or hardware.

4.4 Members may not advertise or solicit on these pages without Solution Exchange’s express permission.
4.5 If you breach any of these terms and conditions, you are obligated to hold Solution Exchange harmless from, and to indemnify it against all liabilities and costs of any and every sort resulting from your breach.

4.6 Solution Exchange reserves the right to remove any content from the site at any time, for any reason (including, but not limited to, upon receipt of claims or allegations from third parties or authorities relating to such content or if Solution Exchange is concerned that user may have breached the immediately preceding sentence).

5. Representations, Warranties and Disclaimers
5.1 All members of a Solution Exchange Community hereby expressly agree that Solution Exchange is a voluntary platform for sharing knowledge of different individuals, and is not intended to provide prescriptive advice or consultancy services. The knowledge that is shared or made available on the site shall not be construed directly or indirectly as prescriptive advice or consultancy.

5.2 While Solution Exchange shall use all reasonable endeavors to ensure that the information available in the Consolidated Reply is accurate and useful, it shall not be liable for any loss or suffering caused as a result of relying on such information.

5.3 Members agree that Solution Exchange will not be able to monitor, verify or endorse all information or material submitted as a query or a reply, by any member. Members should therefore be aware that such information may be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.

5.4 We hereby disclaim all warranties and representations (whether express or implied) as to the accuracy of any information contained on the website or posted through a Consolidated Reply. We do not guarantee that such information will be fault free and do not accept liability for any errors or omissions.

5.5 In no event shall Solution Exchange be liable for any loss of profit, revenues, goodwill, opportunity, business, anticipated savings or other indirect or consequential loss of any kind in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise arising out of use of either the websites or information posted in the Consolidated Reply. The subscriber acknowledges that use of the data requires the subscriber to use of its own skill and judgment.

5.6 Solution Exchange disclaims all liability for any losses suffered or claims arising from an inability to access the websites for any reason whatsoever.

5.7 All members warrant that they have all the necessary skill and judgment required to understand the information and material available on the websites or posted to them, and undertake at all times to exercise their own judgment in the use of such information and shall be solely liable for all decision, opinions, recommendations, forecasts or comments made or any action taken in reliance on such information.

5.8 The ideas and information posted by members and used by Solution Exchange in its Consolidated Reply do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Solution Exchange.

5.9 Solution Exchange reserves the absolute right, which it may or may not exercise, to review, edit, or delete any material that it deems to be inappropriate or in violation of these terms and conditions. It further has the absolute right, in its sole discretion, to deny or to withdraw access to anyone who violates these terms and conditions.

5.10 Solution Exchange may provide through the site or the Consolidated Reply hypertext links to other internet sites. By providing or permitting such a linking service, Solution Exchange is not undertaking any responsibility or liability for any third party information or publications available on the internet, even if accessed through Solution Exchange.

5.11 Members agree that these links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by Solution Exchange of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual. Solution Exchange bears absolutely no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. It shall be the obligation of the member to contact the external site for any clarifications or answers to questions regarding its content.

5.12 In the event that any members redistribute any Consolidated Reply or any part thereof, it shall be their duty to inform all third parties about the terms and conditions that apply to such information from this agreement as well as those arising out of the creative commons license.

5.13 Members hereby represent that they shall not post any information or idea for which they intend to seek a patent. Members warrant that they are aware that in the event that they do post any such information, it may be construed as prior publication for the purpose of patent law, thereby affecting their chances of being granted a patent.

6. Miscellaneous
6.1 Solution Exchange may impose limits on certain features and services or restrict user's access to parts or all of the services without notice or liability.

6.2 Solution Exchange shall not be liable in any way for failure, interruption, delay or any other matters of the nature whatsoever arising out of war, rebellion, civil commotion, strikes, lock‑outs and industrial disputes; fire, explosion, earthquake, acts of god, flood, drought or bad weather; the failure of the system or the equipment or software; interruption to the data or problems associated with transmission or access by/to the system; the unavailability of material, information or data for or to update the database, system or software.

6.3 In the event that any or any part of the terms, conditions or provisions contained in this agreement is be determined by any competent authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable to any extent, such term, condition or provision shall to that extent be severed from the remaining terms and conditions which shall continue to be valid and enforceable to the fullest extent permitted by law.

6.4 Members hereby agree that Solution Exchange shall not have any special relationship of agency with, or any fiduciary duty to the Member or User. Members and Users acknowledge that they shall not be entitled to use any Trademark, any sign or symbol of Solution Exchange without the prior written permission of Solution Exchange, except to provide credit while using or distributing any material or information, as mandated by this agreement.

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APPENDIX A: SOLUTION EXCHANGE COMMUNITIES ACTIVE AS OF 1 MARCH 2010

http://www.solex-un.net/countriescops.htm

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SOLUTION EXCHANGE PRIVACY POLICY

Solution Exchange regards the privacy of its visitors and its members to be of utmost importance, and this privacy statement outlines Solution Exchange’s commitment to your privacy.

Your use of the Solution Exchange Website and Services is governed by the Membership Agreement and Terms and Conditions of usage. This Statement supplements the general terms and conditions of usage and is incorporated into and governed by all of the terms of the Agreement.

If you are merely visiting the website and not participating as a member, then Solution Exchange will not solicit or collect any personal information or information regarding your use of the site. As a standard protocol, your Internet Protocol (IP) address may be noted automatically on our registry.

However, if you register with Solution Exchange as a member and participate in the Solution Exchange network, or register to receive Solution Exchange material, you will be asked for personal information, such as your name, organization, designation, address, phone number and email address. This information is essential for us to ensure that you are a bona fide user. It will be maintained in a page on the relevant Solution Exchange website (“My Profile”), accessible using your password.

To achieve our stated goal of bringing developmental practitioners together, we may create a list of members of the various Solution Exchange Communities on their publicly accessible websites. This list is intended provide people contemplating joining a Community with sufficient information about the Community’s membership to enable them to make an informed choice. This list will not reveal your e-mail or contact address.

The availability of your information on the website and the Consolidated Replies (see Terms and Conditions) is intended to facilitate other bona fide members to directly contact you or your organization. Other registered members of your Community will therefore have access to your e-mail and contact address.

If you desire not to make the information specified above available either on the public website or to Community members, you can opt out by so informing the Community’s Facilitation Team.

Solution Exchange will make Consolidated Replies available to non-registered users through its publicly viewable websites, including the information and documentary material provided by you which may include reports, expert recommendations and other proprietary knowledge. The websites may also make available information you provide about events and other items of interest to the Community. Material posted on our public websites will cite your name, organization and location, and will not include your e-mail or contact address.

You have the option of not revealing your identity when sending an e-mail or other contribution to Solution Exchange. In such cases the Community’s Facilitation Team, on your request, will post your contribution anonymously and keep the source confidential.

To help us improve Solution Exchange and foster a positive user experience, we may contact you and ask your opinion on areas related to our performance. We may document your feedback and provide it to the respective Community Facilitation Team, and use it for reporting purposes, but we will not reveal the source of this information without your permission. We will also seek your permission to use solicited or unsolicited feedback for purposes of publicity about Solution Exchange, including quotations for brochures or leaflets.

We assure you that the information provided by you shall only be used for bona fide purposes, and it shall not be commercialized or otherwise made available to any database service provider.

To facilitate us to constantly improve our services and understand the needs of our users and members, Solution Exchange may implement software on our websites that enables us to track information about the nature of usage, navigation through site, services availed, queries posted and discussion frequented. Additional information may also be collected through small data pieces known as Cookies, stored on Solution Exchange’s, which may also be written to your computer system.

A cookie is a small piece of information stored by a website on your computer’s hard drive. Cookies are extensively used by most websites as a convenient way to store information it knows about you.

The information will be used internally only for website traffic analysis. If the User specifically provides unique identifying information, such as name, address and other information on forms stored on this site, such information will only be used for statistical purposes and will not be published for general access. Solution Exchange can however assume no responsibility for the security of this information.

In addition, Solution Exchange may also record your IP address, which is the Internet address of your computer, and information such as your browser type and operating system. This information enables us to learn about the geographical distribution of our website visitors and the technology they use to access our site. This information is never connected with the personal information you supply to us if you register on our website.

In the event that Solution Exchange desires to use your information for any offline purpose, we shall seek your permission before doing so.

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