Blog Terms & Conditions
We invite you to read and post comments in a number of areas of this website. These include but are not limited to the comments sections of blogs published on the website and any page of this website allowing you to post feedback.
Blogs are expressed opinions and views of individuals. Posting a blog gives you a chance to share your views with a large audience. Any material is fair use for blogs as long as it conforms to the rules lied herein.
Conditions of Use
When posting a comment, you agree to the appropriate use of blogs as outlined in the Blog Responsible Use Page. These blogs have a potential global audience, so when publishing a comment please ensure it:
- is considerate and respectful
- free of explicit, offensive or inappropriate language or reference to external sites containing offensive language or images
- does not defame, breach copyright or discloses personal/confidential information
- does not unlawfully discriminate on the grounds of sex, age, race, political/religious belief
- does not identify or name minors under the age of 18 without parental or guardian consent
- is respectful of the right of others
- is short and succinct (as these are more likely to be read!)
- adds value to the discussion
The site moderator, school principal and executive director of schools reserves the right to moderate and if necessary remove any comments deemed offensive, discriminatory, misleading or unlawful.
Defamation
According to the Catholic Education Commission (CECNSW) “Using the Internet – Legally: Guidelines for Schools, TAFEs and System Authorities in developing Internet policies” prepared by Minter Ellison Lawyers for the MCEETYA task force, material published on the Internet will be considered defamatory where it contains imputations which:
- injures the reputation of a person by exposing them to hatred, contempt or ridicule; or
- would tend to lower the person in the estimation of right thinking members of society; or
- would tend to make people shun and avoid the person.
Defamatory communication can also comprise cartoons, caricatures, images and effigies which harm a person’s reputation. It is not necessary to identify a person by name. Reference to an address, school, physical characteristics, mannerisms or social habits may be sufficient to identify someone, notwithstanding that the author may not have intended to identify that person.
Copyright
The CEC, NSW defines copyright as “a bundle of exclusive rights in certain creative works such as text, artistic works, music, computer programs, sound recordings and films. The rights are granted to the copyright owner to reproduce the material and, for some material, the right to perform or show the work to the public. Copyright owners can prevent others from reproducing or communicating their work without the owner’s permission”.
According to the Catholic Education Commission (CECNSW) “Using the Internet – Legally: Guidelines for Schools, TAFEs and System Authorities in developing Internet policies” prepared by Minter Ellison Lawyers for the MCEETYA task force, most content on the Web (e.g text, images, software, podcasts, audio, games, movies etc) is protected by copyright unless it has been refereed to as “public domain” material. That is, the period of copyright protection (usually 70 years) has expired. Unauthorised copying of a substantial part of copyright material without the copyright owner’s consent or licence is unlawful.
NEALS (National Educational Access Licence for Schools) is an agreement between state and territory education departments, Catholic and independent sectors. Its intention is to allow schools to copy and communicate material for educational use free of charge from each other’s websites and publications where the NEALS logo is displayed
Material with a “creative commons” identifier may be used freely or according to the copyright owner’s terms and conditions. Refer to http://creativecommons.org/about/licences. For more information on copyright go to Smartcopying, ‘National Copyright Guidelines’ which can be accessed from the Catholic Education Commission’s website.
Disclosure of Private and Confidential Information
According to the Catholic Education Commission (CECNSW) “Using the Internet – Legally: Guidelines for Schools, TAFEs and System Authorities in developing Internet policies” prepared by Minter Ellison Lawyers for the MCEETYA task force, a person may sue for breach of confidence if:
- a piece of information has a ‘quality of confidence’ about it;
- the information is disclosed to a person in circumstances or in a relationship giving rise to an obligation of confidence;
- that person disclosed or used that information without the authorisation and to the detriment of the person entitled to prevent.
All employees of the Parramatta Diocesan Catholic education system are required to respect the provisions of the Privacy Policy published by the CEO, especially when dealing with confidential, private or sensitive information.
An employee may be liable for any defamatory communication, breach of copyright, and/or disclosure of confidential information if the employee acts outside the course of their employment or in breach of the System’s Draft Acceptable Use of Information Technologies Staff Policy.