Terms of Service

By accessing or using the Versatile PhD website or any of its services, you agree to the following terms of service, including the terms of our Code of Conduct and Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Terms”). If you do not agree with these Terms, do not use our Website. If you have any questions about these Terms, please ask.

Last updated: DECEMBER 24, 2011

Who We Are

In these Terms, “the Website” refers to the versatilephd.com web site and any services offered on or through the Website; the words “we”, “us”, “our”, and “VPhD” refer to The Versatile PhD, LLC, a California limited liability company, and its owners, members, managers, officers, employees, agents, successors, and assigns; and the words “you”, “your”, “member”, and “user” refer to all individuals and/or entities accessing, using, or contributing premium content to the Website (including, for education institution subscribers, the university itself and the individual subunits, departments, trustees, directors, students, alumni, faculty, and other personnel of the institution) and your heirs, successors, assigns, affiliates, owners, managers, directors, officers, employees, and agents. We may be contacted as follows:

The Versatile PhD, LLC
Mail: 12930 Ventura Blvd., #632, Studio City, CA 91604

Phone: (818) 430-1158
Fax: (818) 769-2979
Email:
Web: http://versatilephd.com

Changes to These Terms

For individual users, these Terms may be updated or changed at any time without notice other than posting the revised Terms on the Website, and all such updates or changes shall be effective as of the date posted. It is your responsibility to check for updates from time to time. For institutions with a subscription agreement in place, changes to these Terms will only be effective for subsequent renewals terms and only upon written notice provided by April 1.; provided, however, that the provisions Applying to Individual Users only may be updated or changed at any time without notice other than posting the revised Terms on the Website.

General Usage Rules and Limited License — Applying to Institutions as well as Individual Users

Limited license. If you are eighteen years of age or older or a legal entity such as a university and you are accessing the Website from a jurisdiction where the Website complies with all local laws, we grant you a personal, exclusive, non-transferable, limited, and revocable license to use the Website at your own cost, subject to these Terms and subject to any other formal written agreement between us which explicitly modifies these Terms, in which case such an agreement shall control; provided, however, that any such agreement shall be read in conjunction with these Terms as a harmonious whole whenever reasonably susceptible to such an interpretation. You may not use the Website in a manner that exceeds the rights granted for your use of the Website, which includes use by minors under the age of eighteen, unauthorized copying or distribution of any of the content displayed or used on the Website, and creating an unauthorized derivative work.

Legal use of website. You agree to use the Website in good faith and in compliance with all applicable laws. You agree not to disrupt, modify, or interfere in any way with us, our Website, online store, or servers, or any third-party to which these services are outsourced, and you agree not to impede or interfere with others’ use of the Website. You further agree not to alter or tamper with any information or materials on or associated with the Website. Other than connecting to our servers (or the servers of our Internet service provider), you may not attempt to gain access to such servers by any means or access the Website by any means other than through the standard interface(s) that is provided by us for use in accessing the Website.

Respect for website content. You acknowledge and agree that the Website and the information, content, and software presented to you through or by the Website or used in connection with the Website, contain proprietary and confidential information that is protected under U.S. and international intellectual property laws, including those pertaining to the protection of copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade names, trade dress, and patents, and security components that protect digital information. Except as authorized by us in these Terms or in other direct, specific written communications from us to you, you agree not to sell, rewrite, copy, modify, redistribute, create derivative works, or rent any part of the Website or any information presented to you through the Website, in whole or in part.

Disclaimer of Website Warranties. Use of the Website is at your own risk, and we make no representations or warranties that the Website is or always will be virus or error free. We provide the Website “as is”, “with all faults”, and “as available”. We make no express warranties or guarantees about the Website. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim any implied warranties that the Website or the premium content or any other portion or area of it is merchantable, of satisfactory quality, accurate, fit for a particular purpose or need, or non-infringing. We do not guarantee that the results that may be obtained from the use of the Website, including any information or content obtained as a result of using the Website, will be effective, reliable, accurate, or meet your requirements. We do not guarantee that you will be able to access the Website at time or locations of your choosing. No oral or written information or advice given by our representatives shall create a warranty. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws that these Terms cannot change.

We shall not be liable for any indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or exemplary damages arising from your use of the Website. These exclusions apply to, without limitation, any claims of lost income, lost profits, lost date, loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer malfunction, or any other personal or commercial damages or losses, even if we or our agents or service providers knew or should have known about the possibility of such damages. In the event that these limitations, or any of them, are ineffective, our liability to you in all instances shall be limited to the greater of one U.S. dollar or the total amount you have paid to us for access to the Website and premium content. Because some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or the limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, in such jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

If you are having difficulty with the Website, please contact us.

Links. We have not reviewed the content of all sites linked to or from our Website, and we are not responsible for the content or operation of any of those sites and do not take responsibility for them or endorse them.

Communication between you and VPhD. Any direct communications taking place between you and us are considered confidential under normal circumstances, but non-confidential for legal purposes. For example, should a legal matter arise in which our direct communications become relevant, they may be introduced as evidence. Although we strive to keep the Website forums private (see “Privacy Policy”), postings to the Website forums and premium content contributions are inherently non-confidential by their nature; see the Individual User section below for more information.

Termination. You agree that we may, without prior notice, discontinue or modify, temporarily or permanently, the Website or any part thereof, except where there is a formal written agreement between us to the contrary, such as a premium content subscription agreement. We may additionally suspend or terminate your right to access the Website when, in our sole discretion, you have violated or threatened to violate these Terms or to otherwise disrupt or threaten the Website, us, or our suppliers or users.

For institutional subscribers to premium content, the suspension or termination of right of access described in the foregoing paragraph shall not serve to terminate your subscription, nor entitle you to a refund or prorate for the applicable subscription term; all such subscriptions are non-cancellable and non-refundable. For institutional subscribers to premium content, such subscription may only be terminated as follows:
(a) With regard to an existing subscription term, upon the occurrence of a material breach by the other party of any written agreement between the parties, including these Terms, the aggrieved party shall provide written notice to the other party, who shall then have thirty (30) calendar days from the date of receipt of such notice to cure such default and to provide evidence of the same to the aggrieved party, notwithstanding that we may suspend provision of service with financial penalty during this notice and cure period if we are the aggrieved party. The failure of any party to correct a material breach within thirty (30) calendar days shall operate as a cancellation option for the aggrieved party, exercisable by such party upon written notice to the other party. Such option shall expire, however, upon the commencement of any renewal term.
(b) With regard to a renewal subscription term, either party may decline to renew. In the case of institutional subscribers, this requires timely notice to us by you.

Interpretation. These Terms shall be interpreted in accordance with the laws of the State of California and of the United States of America, without reference to choice of law provisions. The headings in these Terms are for convenient reference only, and are not to be used in interpreting these Terms. If any provision of these Terms shall be deemed to be illegal or unenforceable, to the maximum extent permissible under applicable law, such provision shall be deemed stricken from these Terms and the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect. Except as otherwise mutually agreed in a formal written agreement, these Terms represent the entire understanding of the parties with respect to its subject matter and supersede all prior agreements and understandings between them with respect to its subject matter. No terms, conditions, prior course of dealings, course of performance, usage of trade, understandings, purchase orders, or agreement purporting to modify, vary, supplement, or explain any provision of these Terms shall be effective unless in writing and signed by representatives of both parties authorized to amend these Terms. In the event of a conflict between a provisions of these Terms and one contained in another formal written agreement, the provision contained in the formal written agreement shall prevail but only with regard to the parties to that agreement.

Dispute Resolution, Jurisdiction, and Choice of Law. Any dispute concerning these Terms, the Website, any services we provide, advertising, copyrights, or trademarks, or any other dispute between you and us shall be resolved in small claims court in Los Angeles County (if within the then applicable small claims court jurisdictional limits) and otherwise by binding arbitration in Los Angeles County, California, unless otherwise required by law. Any appeal from a small claims court judgment shall be to binding arbitration only. The result of any arbitrator’s decision shall be final and non-appealable. You hereby irrevocably and unconditionally consent to this jurisdiction and further agree that the laws of California and of the United States (except conflict of law provisions) shall apply to any such or small claims court or arbitration proceeding. Each party shall initially bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs, including costs of arbitration. The prevailing party in any litigation, arbitration, or other legal proceeding shall be entitled to an award of its attorney’s fees and costs.

Notice. Any notice required or permitted to be given to any other party under these Terms shall be effective only when given in writing (including email) and when actually received by a party.

Intellectual Property Infringement Policy. If you believe that any materials accessible on or from the Website infringe your copyright (or trademark or other legal rights), you may request removal of those materials (or access thereto) by contacting our copyright agent, Paula Chambers, in writing, at or 12930 Ventura Blvd., #632, Studio City, CA 91604, with the following information:

We shall then expeditiously investigate and if warranted take down or disable access to the material from the Website and notify the original poster of the notification of allegedly infringing material received and of the takedown/disabling, at which point the poster may file with our copyright agent a counter-notification, in writing, as above, with the following information:

In our discretion, we may also take down or disable access to material during our investigation. It is our policy to provide for the termination, in appropriate circumstances, of posters who repeatedly violate this policy or are repeat infringers of copyrighted works, trademarks, or any other intellectual property of ours or of third parties. While notifications under this policy must be made in writing, you may contact our copyright agent by telephone at (818) 430-1158.

Applying to Individual Users

You control your profile. You acknowledge and agree that you have control over how much information you reveal about yourself on the Website. All responsibility for controlling this information rests with you and requires you to take the time to learn how our Website works and make sure your profile settings are set and maintained to your liking.

We may remove your postings. You acknowledge and agree that we have the right to remove from the Website any of your postings if, in our sole discretion, we deem them in violation of the Terms or otherwise inappropriate. If you violate any part of the Terms egregiously or repeatedly, you may be removed from the Versatile PhD community. If you disagree with our judgment, you may email us to discuss the matter, but we are the final arbiter.

You have copyright on your writings. You retain the copyright to everything you write for the Website and are free to re-post your writings elsewhere and do anything you want with them (blog, write a book, whatever). However, by posting on the Website, you are granting us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, assignable, sub-licensable, and irrevocable license to store and display your writings on the Website and to make whatever “copies” are deemed necessary to archive your writings or to publish them on the Website. Suggestions you may make to us for enhancing the Website are considered our intellectual property upon receipt and their adoption by us will not result in compensation to you. Any other intellectual property rights not specifically granted to you in these Terms are reserved by The Versatile PhD, LLC.

VPhD is a business. You acknowledge and agree that we are a business, and while we do not resell your writings individually to others or republish them elsewhere, we do benefit from them financially. This is obviously true of direct contributions to the premium content area, because universities pay us to gain access to that content. Less obviously, it is true of forum postings as well. Postings in regular ongoing discussions in the Main Forum serve to enrich the quality and credibility of the site as a whole, and postings in Career Panels eventually become part of the premium content.

Disclaimer of responsibility. You understand and agree that VPhD, your university, and your fellow VPhD members are not responsible for your career choices and outcomes. Any advice you may receive through this Website, whether from us or others, is only advice and opinion and may or may not pertain to your particular situation: results are not guaranteed. The views expressed by members on the Website are not necessarily ours. This policy protects not only us but also individual members and university subscribers. No one has to worry that they will be somehow held responsible for someone else’s career

Please refer to our Privacy Policy for more information about how we may use information provided to us by you, and to the Code of Conduct for more information about how intellectual property is to be respected on the Website.

Code of Conduct

By accessing or using the Versatile PhD website or any of its services, you agree to abide by the following Code of Conduct, which is considered part of the Terms of Service, along with the Privacy Policy. The Versatile PhD Code of Conduct is centered on five basic principles: Confidentiality, Tone, Truthfulness, Relevance, and Respect for Intellectual Property. If anything here is unclear to you, please email your questions to .

Confidentiality. Because some academics take a dim view of those who seriously consider nonacademic careers, The Versatile PhD protects member confidentiality in a number of ways, most notably by protecting the Forums and other members-only areas from search engines. (See the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for more information.) Likewise, you are expected to protect the confidentiality of other members. Do not “out” anyone as being a member of the Versatile PhD community, do not share postings with non-members, and do not harvest other members’ information for any purpose.

Tone. The tone of this site is helpful and supportive. Please be collegial with each other even in disagreement. No flaming, trolling, constant negativity, or harassment, intimidation, abuse, or defamation of others, whether or not they are Website users.

Truthfulness. Please speak the truth as you know it. Do not make things up or spread information you know to be false. When registering as a member, please provide only truthful information to The Versatile PhD; you can still control what other members see by maintaining your profile to your liking.  Using your real name as your display name is encouraged but not required.

Relevance. Please post only relevant material (relevant = directly related to nonacademic careers for PhDs, ABDs and MAs). Do post personal stories of your own nonacademic work experiences; thoughts, questions and reflections about nonacademic careers; helpful, supportive responses to others; and nonacademic job announcements. Note: please post job announcements on the Jobs page, not in the Forums. Do not post irrelevant material or spam, virus warnings, commercial advertisements, or faculty position announcements.

Respect for Intellectual Property. The Versatile PhD respects your intellectual property by acknowledging that you retain the copyright to all of your writings on the Website. You may use your own writings however you wish: publish them elsewhere, write a book, whatever. However, you are expected to give equal respect to the intellectual property of others. Do not post copyrighted material from elsewhere unless you own the copyright or have express permission (just link to it rather than posting full text). Do not re-post material found on the Website on any other site or in any print publication, or even share it privately with non-members without explicit written permission of the author. Please also respect the intellectual property of The Versatile PhD, LLC. While each individual author retains copyright to his or her own writings on the site, collections of writings by multiple authors on the Website (for example, forum topics) are the intellectual property of VPhD and may not be re-published anywhere without our prior express written permission, which, frankly, is unlikely to be granted.  What’s said on the site, stays on the site.

Privacy Policy

Last updated: AUGUST 13, 2010

At The Versatile PhD, we value your privacy and therefore have adopted this Privacy Policy, effective as of the date written above. This Privacy Policy is considered part of the Terms of Service, along with the Code of Conduct. In this Privacy Policy, “Website” refers to versatilephd.com; the words “we”, “us”, and “our” refer to The Versatile PhD, LLC, a California limited liability company, and its owners, members, managers, officers, employees, agents, successors, and assigns; and the words “you”, “your”, “member”, and “user” refer to all individuals and/or entities accessing or using the Website (including, for education institution subscribers, the university itself and the individual subunits, departments, trustees, directors, students, alumni, faculty, and personnel of the institution) and your heirs, successors, assigns, affiliates, owners, managers, directors, officers, employees, and agents.

This Privacy Policy makes disclosures concerning our collection of information, including personal information, when you use the Website, and how we use and disclose it to others. By using the Website, you acknowledge and agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

Confidentiality

Because your confidentiality is important to us, we have requested that Internet search engines not “crawl” the following pages of the Website: Forums, Jobs, Events, Members, and Premium. In technical terms, those pages have been made “no-index” and “no-archive,” which means that anything you post in those protected areas, including your user profile, should not be visible to search engines. Moreover, only registered members are allowed to post to the Website or read postings in their entirety, andou have control over your profile.

Our hope and assumption given the presumed invisibility of the Forums and other members-only areas of the Website to search engines, and the requirement that all participants, even “lurkers,” must register, you will feel comfortable using your real name and information. However, if you don’t want to show your real name to other members or to search engine, that is fine: control your member profile as you see fit. The real name you give to us when registering does not become part of your member profile.

We will never distribute your writings anywhere other than the Website without your explicit permission, “out” you as a member of the Versatile PhD community, or give or sell your information to any third party without your explicit written consent (except in the case of a sale of the Website or part of it to another party, and then only as necessary to complete such a transaction and transfer the Website to its new owner(s)).

Categories of Information We Collect

Personal and non-personal information is automatically collected when you provide it to us in the course of using the Website. The personal information that we may collect includes any information that you include in any email or message sent through or posted to the Website, as well as any personal information provided while registering for or updating an account with us and the dates, times, durations, and IP addresses of your account logins. This information is generally stored on our servers or those of our Internet Service Provider(s) (“ISP[s]”) and may be used by us to personally identify you. The non-personal information that we may collect includes your browser type and version, ISP, operating system and version, Internet Protocol (IP) address, the URL of the website you were visiting prior to coming to the Website, the amount of time you spend on the Website or any page or portion of it, and your behavior on the Website. The non-personal information is not typically used by us to personally identify you and is not readily usable for that purpose, but may be used for that purpose to prevent abuse of the Website or to comply with applicable laws. In addition, if you communicate with us regarding the Website or any of our services, we may collect any information that you provide to us during the course of this communication.

We may use analytic and reporting technologies to record non-personal information such as Internet domain and host names, IP addresses, browser software and version, operating system and version, click patterns, and the dates and times that the Website is accessed by you. We may contract with one or more third parties to help us manage, monitor, and optimize the Website and measure the effectiveness of our advertising, communications, and use of the Website. We may use web beacons and cookies (described below) for this purpose.

Use of Information for Internal Purposes

We use your personal information primarily for our own internal purposes, such as providing, maintaining, evaluating, and improving our Website and services, and to provide user support. We use the non-personal information we collect to track the use of the Website and to assist us in providing, maintaining, evaluating, and improving the Website and the services we provide.

Disclosure of Personal Information to Third Parties

Except as otherwise provided in this Privacy Policy, we will only disclose your personal information to protect or enforce our legal rights and policies, to protect or enforce the legal rights of a third party, or where we in good faith believe we are required to do so by law (such as in complying with a subpoena or court order). We may contract with various third parties who help us provide, maintain, and improve the Website and the services we provide, and such third parties may have access to your personal information in order to perform their services. For example, we may use a third party to process payments made to us, for certain portions of our content creation, information verification, production, fulfillment, analytics, reporting, or other operations. We may contract with third-party contractors to help us manage, monitor, and optimize the Website and the services we provide. We may also use third-party contractors to help us measure the effectiveness of our advertising and communications.

Disclosure of Non-Personal Information to Third Parties

We may disclose non-personal information, in aggregate form, to potential strategic partners, advertisers, investors, users, and others. You may not opt out of the sharing of this information, except by choosing not to use the Website or our services.

Use of Cookies and Web Beacons

A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. Most websites use cookies. A web beacon is an often-transparent graphic image, usually not larger than one pixel wide by one pixel tall that is placed on a web page or in an email and that is used to monitor the behavior of the user visiting the Website or receiving the email. We may use cookies and/or web beacons to track your use of the Website, provide you with a more personalized user experience, and facilitate your logging in to the Website, if applicable. Cookies and web beacons used by us will not be linked to your personal information.

How We Protect Your Personal Information

The protection of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it; however, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure or failsafe. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially reasonable means to protect your personal information, we cannot and do not guarantee absolute security. We are not responsible for the unauthorized acts of others and assume no liability for any disclosure of information due to errors in transmission, unauthorized third-party access (such as through hacking or theft of computers) or other acts of third parties, or acts of omission beyond our reasonable control.

Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information

When registering as a member, you are asked to provide certain information that only we will see (such as your real name), and other information that becomes part of your profile, which is seen by other members.  You can change your profile at any time.  You may obtain a copy of and/or request changes to any information that is not part of your profile by emailing us at .  You will, of course, be required to provide proof of your identity.  If you no longer want to access or use the Website, simply stop using it.

Application of Privacy Policy When You Access Third-Party Websites

You may be able to access third-party websites directly from the Website. This Privacy Policy does not apply when you access third-party websites. We cannot control how third parties may use personal or non-personal information you disclose to them, or that they collect, so you should carefully review the privacy policy of any third-party web site you visit before using it or disclosing your personal information to its proprietor.

Opting Out From Receiving Communication from Us

You may only opt out from having your personal information used by us as provided in this Privacy Policy by contacting us to close any account you have with us and ceasing your use of the Website. Please note that closing your account does not result in any prior postings to our Website automatically being deleted. To close your account, or with any related questions, please contact .

Changes in Our Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated or changed at any time without notice other than posting the revised Policy on the Website, and all such updates or changes shall be effective as of the date posted. It is your responsibility to check for updates from time to time. If you have questions, please ask.

Other Terms

Your use of this Website is also subject to our Privacy Policy, of which this Privacy Policy is a part, and to the Code of Conduct.