Terms and Conditions

LITE Terms of Use

Please read these Terms of Use carefully before using the LITE website. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who access or use LITE. By accessing or using LITE you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree with these Terms or any future modification to these Terms then you must not use the LITE website. In these Terms, “we”, “us” or “our” refer to LINCDIRE and “you” or “your” refer to you as a user of our website.

1. Registration

You may create a user account on the LITE website to access features that require registration. You may also request to access the LITE website through a visitor account by contacting [email protected]. By registering on the LITE website, you agree that you will keep your passwords confidential; you will not allow anyone who does not have access to the registered features to gain access through your account; nor will you register to LITE with the intention of misusing the site or harassing other users. You agree to contact us at [email protected] if you notice any unauthorized access or use on your account.

2. Termination of Registration

You may request to have your account terminated by contacting [email protected] if you no longer wish to have a registered account on LITE. We may terminate your account, at our sole discretion and without prior notice, if we believe you have violated these terms in any way. All visitor accounts will automatically be terminated once every six months (January 1st and July 1st).

3. User Content

If you are a registered user of LITE, you may submit content on the website. When you submit content to the website, you agree that you have created that content or are authorized by the contents’ owner to submit that content to LITE. You acknowledge that views expressed in content submitted by you or other users do not necessarily reflect the views of LINCDIRE and that we may remove your content, at our discretion, at any time. You or the owner of the content still own the copyright in the content sent to us, but by submitting content to us, you are granting us permission to use user content for research purposes only. All names and personally identifiable information will be anonymized in all publications.

If you are under 16, you confirm by logging in that you have permission of your parent or guardian to submit content.

4. Code of Conduct

  • You may not submit any content that is inappropriate, harassing, obscene, libellous, deceptive or illegal in any way or otherwise encourage or give rise to illegal activity.
  • You may not submit any content that infringes any patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret or other intellectual property or privacy right of any party or individual.
  • You may not submit any content that is intended to upset or harm others including (i) content that defames, degrades, harasses or intimidates any individual or group on the basis of religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, colour, creed, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, military status or physical or mental handicap, source of income or any other protected status or; (ii) content that contains viruses or any other software or programs designed to damage the operation of the computer or any device of another user or to collect private information about users.
  • You may not submit content that contains viruses or any other software or programs intended to damage, disable or impair the LITE website or servers.
  • You may not submit any content for commercial or promotional purposes including, advertisement of any goods or services, solicitation of funds, surveys, contests, junk email or spamming.
  • You may not submit any content with the intention to impersonate another person, or falsify or delete any labels indicating the source or original author of any content.
  • You acknowledge that although LINCDIRE prohibits the above content you may be exposed to such content. You agree and understand that LINCDIRE shall not be liable for user content or any conduct as outlined above.

5. Intellectual Property

LINCDIRE owns all intellectual property rights, including all materials on or comprising the LITE website, including all written, audio visual or other materials and graphical elements on the website, but excluding user content (defined above in Section 3).

LINCDIRE grants you a limited license to use, download, print, make changes to or reproduce in whole or in part, the Content on this Website for non-commercial purposes. All content must contain a copyright notice in the following form: “© LINCDIRE. All rights reserved.” If you make any changes to any content, you must indicate that changes were made in a reasonable manner but not in any way that suggests that LINCDIRE endorses your use. You may not use any LINCDIRE content for commercial purposes. The LINCDIRE and LITE logos are trademarks of LINCDIRE, and may not be used without the express written permission of LINCDIRE.

6. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless LINCDIRE from any and all claims, liabilities, costs, and expenses arising out of a breach by you or any user of your account of these terms or privacy policy or arising out of a breach of your obligations, representation and warranties under these terms.

7. Data Privacy

What information is collected by LINCDIRE through the LITE platform?

Users of the LITE E-Portfolio Platform are invited to supply details of name and languages spoken to complete their profile. Users may volunteer descriptions of language learning experiences in their personal profile (‘My Plurilingual Journey’), in tasks and in online posts, which may include biographical details at the full discretion of the user. In addition LITE collects feedback about language learning experiences and learning progress through periodic questionnaires.

Who can view and / or collect data submitted to the LITE platform?

Data submitted to LITE in personal profile (‘My Plurilingual Journey’), in tasks and in posts is only visible to the LINCDIRE research team, administrators, participating teaching staff and peer users of the password protected site. Users have complete control of their own data on the site, and each user is able to set their personal privacy settings.

How is data collected and stored on the LITE platform?

Users submit data to LITE by completing their personal profile (‘My Plurilingual Journey’), by completing forms in tasks, by making online posts and by completing questionnaires. This data is stored on the LITE server, which is hosted securely by the University of Toronto. This data is available only to authorised users of the password protected site in accordance with personal privacy settings, and all data storage is protected from data breaches according to the xxx data security policy.

Why is user data collected on the LITE platform?

All data collected from users and stored on the LITE platform is for the sole purpose of the provision of educational services, through participation of users in educational activities and educational research.

How will data collected on the LITE platform be used?

Data submitted by users on the LITE platform and E-portfolio will be used to facilitate the provision of educational services relevant to the development of plurilingual competences, and supporting research to improve this service. This may include the storage on LITE of name and data voluntarily supplied by users relating to personal language learning experiences and learning achievements, as a key feature of the service. Data will only be stored on the LITE platform for as long as users give consent to that storage, and users have complete control to remove their data from the platform. Data will only be collected and stored offline where consent has been provided by users as voluntary participants in research programmes to improve the site, according to ethical research guidelines. LITE is entirely non-commercial and no user data will be passed to any third parties without the explicit consent of the user. All data collected from questionnaires, tasks and posts will be anonymised in any offline data analysis and in any related educational research publications, and all users are permitted to make a subject access request to view all data stored about them at any time.

How is my privacy protected?

The LINCDIRE project takes our participants’ privacy very seriously, and we have built a number of security features into LITE to ensure this. No outside parties are able to view any activity on LITE, as registration requires an invitation code.

Only administrators are able to create and send out the codes, and there is an extensive vetting process to make sure that those invited are legitimate LITE users (please refer to Appendix 1 of our Data Protection Policy, available on request).

How can I manage my privacy?

Users have complete control of their own data on the site, and each user is able to set their personal privacy settings. Under ‘Plurilingual Journey’ on the top bar, users click ‘My Account’ and then the ‘Privacy’ tab:

Here, users can control who can view their profile, whether it is accessible in the directory, and who can send them messages. All of these settings apply to what is visible to other registered LITE users.

Parents and teachers are encouraged to visit this page with their children/students to select the appropriate privacy settings. The Lite Privacy Policy is available on request from [email protected].

8. Research Participation

Use of the LITE platform involves participation in the LINCDIRE research project and cannot be used without first contacting the LINCDIRE team at [email protected].

Details on research participation are as follows:

Participants: Participants are elementary, high school and adult students and their teachers.

Benefits: The participants will be learners in different language programs at three different locations. Your participation will provide you with practice using different tools for language learning and you will have the opportunity to practice your target language using an online tool, which may improve your language ability. Furthermore, as tasks are widely used in classrooms to promote language learning, the findings of this study will contribute to the growing body of plurilingual education that seeks to determine how action-oriented tasks may influence the way students interact with one another during learning, thus providing both teachers and researchers with a greater understanding of task/curriculum design and its potential effects on interaction among learners of different proficiency levels, language and cultural backgrounds

What teachers will do:

Teachers in this project will teach the target language using an action-oriented approach for at least once a week. Guidelines and instructions will be provided. Teachers will be asked to use an innovative online platform (LITE) to supplement their class. Some discussions online via a wiki, email or Skype, classroom observations and two interviews will be done in order to gather your comment, feedback and perceptions about the tasks and the online tool. 

What students will do:

  • Participate in activities using an action-oriented approach;
  • Complete an online survey (approximately 10 minutes) twice: once at the start and once at near the end of the school year;
  • Participate in an audio-recorded focus group to discuss your experience with LITE(online tool); IN this focus group, you will be asked to give feedback, comments and your perceptions related to the activities and the LITE (online tool).
  • Your teacher will use one classroom task that focuses on linguistic and cultural diversity per week. 

Participants’ Rights

To Confidentiality: All participants’ identities will be kept strictly anonymous and confidential through the use of pseudonyms in both the analysis of the data and the oral and written reporting of the findings. Only the project manager and other main researchers, will have access to audio/video recordings. This information will be kept on a password protected external hard drive in the researcher’s’ office that will be locked in a cabinet and all data will be destroyed no later than eight years from now.

To Ask Questions about the Research: If you would like to ask questions about this research project, you may do so at any time. Please contact (Enrica Piccardo) at +1 416 978 0274 or [email protected], or you may speak to any of the researchers directly. The University of Toronto also has an office regarding ethics if you want more information about your rights as a research participant, or to verify the authenticity of this research. You may contact the Office of Research Ethics at 416-946-3273 or [email protected]

To Withdraw at Any Time: You may withdraw from the study at any time by contacting me. If you would like any student data collected, please indicate this by contacting the principal investigator by phone or email, and I will do so promptly. However, once the research findings are reported or published, you CANNOT withdraw.

 Risks: There are no potential risks in your decision to participate in this study.

9. Governing Law 

These Terms shall be governed by, and construed and interpreted in accordance with, the laws of the Province of Ontario, Canada.