Online Course Terms of Use

Black Umbrellas NPC (“Black Umbrellas”), registration number 2005/002546/08, a non-profit company incorporated in South Africa, acting through its Black Umbrellas Siyafunda Portal, offers online training courses accessible from siyafunda.blackumbrellas.org (“platform”). These terms apply to all participants who have enrolled in a course or who otherwise access a course and/or the platform (“participants”).

Please read these Terms of Use prior to creating a new account or using any portion of the platform, including accessing any course material, forums, or other electronic services. These Terms of Use are agreements between you and Black Umbrellas setting forth the terms under which you may access and use the platform. By using the platform, you accept and agree to be legally bound by the Agreements, whether or not you are a registered user. If you do not understand or do not wish to be bound by the terms of the Agreements, you should not use the platform. As used in this Terms of Use, "we," "us," and "our" refer to Black Umbrellas.

Black Umbrellas reserves the right to withdraw or change participation and to modify these Terms of Use at any time without explanation or notice. Any changes to these Terms of Use will be effective immediately upon posting on this page. By accessing the platform after any changes have been made, you signify your agreement on a prospective basis to the modified Terms of Use. Be sure to return to this page periodically to ensure familiarity with the most current version of these Terms of Use.

In order to create a user account and to participate fully in platform activities, you must provide certain information about yourself. You agree that you will never share access to or access information for your user account with any third party for any reason. You represent that all information provided by you is accurate and current. You agree to maintain and update your information to keep it accurate and current.

By successfully enrolling in a course we grant you limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable permission to access the courses and the platform.

Once you have enrolled in a course, you must complete it. You are responsible for your participation and for ensuring that you satisfactorily complete all aspects of the course, including the requirements to provide us with feedback and other information as may be  requested from time to time. 

In order to complete a course, you will need an email account, access to a computer and access  to the internet and you need to be familiar with using a computer and accessing the internet. You may need to download certain third-party software to view video webinars and/or other resources. 

We reserve the right to amend course content, in our discretion. We will notify you if there is a  material change to a course.  

Courses are provided ‘as is’, for informational purposes only. No aspect of a course should be  construed as being legal, tax, investment, financial, or other professional advice. Courses are  designed to provide general information and do not address the circumstances of any particular  individual or entity. Participants are solely responsible for ensuring the suitability of a course  for their specific circumstances. We will not be liable for any damages arising from any reliance  on a course and/or any decision that a participant makes based on any information ascertained  from a course or through the platform.  

While we try to maintain the integrity and security of the platform and the servers from which the platform operates, we do not guarantee that the platform or the course is or remains secure, complete or correct, or that access to the course will be uninterrupted or error-free.

A Digital Badge will be issued upon your successful completion of a course in accordance with the stipulated requirements on the platform. No changes can be made to the standard form or wording of a Digital Badge for any reason whatsoever. A Digital Badge does not confirm competence of the intended learning outcomes of a course.

Black Umbrellas and it’s course collaborators do not provide formal recognition in terms of particular knowledge or skills as an outcome of successfully completing a course on the platform.

We reserve  the right to restrict access to areas of the platform or the whole platform, in our discretion. There may  be times when the availability of the platform may be interrupted for scheduled maintenance or  upgrades, for emergency repairs, or due to failure of telecommunications links and equipment that are  beyond our reasonable control. We will not be liable for any inconvenience, loss or damage suffered as a result of such interruptions. 

We will use reasonable commercial endeavours to protect the platform, the course, and related  information, however, we cannot guarantee that unauthorised third parties will not be able to  gain access. You undertake to notify us immediately of any compromise or unauthorised use of  your account. 

Except where expressly stated to the contrary, copyright in the course content, HTML, text, graphics,  audio clips, video clips, source code and/or object code and all other works (including trade marks and  names) contained on the platform or otherwise provided to participants by us, is owned by us (or our  course collaborators) or licensed to us, and we assert and reserve all of our rights in this regard. Access  to or use of the platform and our courses will not in any way result in the transfer of ownership of any  intellectual property owned by us or any other party. 

Course content may not be reproduced or distributed without our express permission. Participants are prohibited from:  

• making copies available of the course content on a network server or web server for use by  others; 
• sublicensing, reselling, renting, lending, assigning, transferring, donating or otherwise  transferring or distributing any course content or the rights granted under these terms; or 
• reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling any software that is contained within the  platform. 

You may, from time to time, share your own intellectual property, including assignments, with us, on the platform, or otherwise. You retain all intellectual property rights in, and are responsible for, the content that you share. However, you specifically agree that we and/or our course collaborators shall be entitled to use (in our discretion) all intellectual property shared by you for internal research and  development, course improvement and/or for any other non-commercial purposes.  

If you commit any breach of these terms or any other terms and conditions applicable to a specific course, and fail to remedy the breach within 5 days after receiving a written notice to do so, we may terminate your participation in the course, and you will not be entitled to a refund of any portion of any course fees paid, if applicable. We shall furthermore be entitled to immediately suspend your access to  the platform, as determined in our sole discretion, pending an investigation into your relevant conduct.  

You must not: 

• use the platform in any way that causes, or may cause, damage to or impair the availability or accessibility of the platform or in any way which is unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful; 
• use the platform to copy, store, host, transmit, send, use, publish or distribute any material  which consists of (or is linked to) any spyware, computer virus, Trojan horse, worm, keystroke logger, rootkit or other malicious or destructive computer software or code; 
• conduct any systematic or automated data collection activities (including without limitation  scraping, data mining, data extraction and data harvesting) on or in relation to the platform without our express written consent; 
• use the platform in connection with any pyramid scheme, nor to transmit or send junk e-mail,  spam, or any other unsolicited commercial communications; 
• remove, obscure or alter any legal notices displayed on the platform;  
• impersonate another person or access another platform user’s account without that user’s  permission; 
• share passwords issued for use on the platform with any third party or encourage any other  user to do so; 
• upload onto the platform: anything which you know or should reasonably know is untrue; anything which, in our discretion, may be deemed to be morally offensive, or could cause  damage to our reputation; copyrighted material that is not your own or that you do not have the legal right to distribute, display and otherwise make available to others; and/or pornographic, threatening, embarrassing, hateful, racially or ethnically insulting,  defamatory or otherwise inappropriate content.

“Force Majeure” means any circumstances beyond a party’s reasonable control, including any acts of  war or public enemy, civil commotion or strife, political or civil disturbance, riot, insurrection, strike, lock out, interruption of transport, labour dispute, boycott, fire, explosion, flood, storm, infectious or  contagious disease, epidemic, pandemic or natural or physical disaster, sabotage, terrorism, acts or  omissions of any government, government agency, provincial or local or similar authority, laws or  regulations or any acts of God or forces of nature, or other event which is out of a party’s control.  Neither us, nor our course collaborators will be liable for any delays or failures to perform our  obligations if and to the extent that such delay or failure is caused by a Force Majeure event.  We will notify you as soon as possible of the nature and extent of a Force Majeure event.  

We disclaim liability, to the full extent permitted by law, for any loss or damage of any kind  whatsoever or howsoever caused arising from the access or use of the platform and/or any  course, unless attributable to our gross negligence or wilful misconduct. You agree, to the  extent permitted by law, to indemnify us against any loss or damage suffered or liability incurred  by reason of any act or omission on your part or that of any third party acting on your behalf in  connection with your use of the platform and/or any course. 

The platform may include hyperlinks to other websites or applications owned and operated by third  parties. These links are not recommendations or endorsements. We have no control over the contents of third party websites or applications, and we accept no responsibility for them or for  any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them. 

You may receive communication from us from time to time by telephone, email or text message for administration and related purposes. You agree and consent to receipt of such communications. You may opt-out of any generic marketing communications that are unrelated to  administration of the course at any time, through the relevant opt-out mechanism. 

By accepting these terms, you acknowledge and understand that:  

• a course may be delivered by us in collaboration with another entity; and 
• during the currency of your participation in a course, we will obtain personal information about  you, including, but not limited to, your name, age, gender, race, contact number, address, as well as information relating to your participation in a course (“personal data”). 

You consent to: 

• your personal data being stored and processed by us and our course collaborators for  purposes of your participation in a course as well as for evaluation and analytics  purposes;
• providing us with an image of yourself as well as a quote regarding your participation in  a course, which image and quote (in addition to other personal data) you consent to us posting on social media platforms, or otherwise;
• your personal data being shared between us and our course collaborators;
• your personal data being stored and processed by us and our course collaborators for  purposes of your participation in a course, as well as for evaluation and analytics  purposes, and for any other purpose, with your consent; and
• the transfer of your personal data into and/or out of the Republic of South Africa, but  solely for the purposes set out above.