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Terms of Use


Version 1.2, updated September 13, 2021

About these Terms of Use

By viewing, posting, or uploading content or comments to the Social Science Reproduction Platform (“SSRP”) or the SSRP Forum (“Forum”) (collectively, “Using” SSRP or the Forum), you (“User”) hereby agree to the terms and conditions below (“Terms of Use”). These Terms of Use may be modified by SSRP at our discretion from time to time.

About & Contact

The SSRP is an openly licensed platform that crowdsources and catalogs attempts to assess and improve the computational reproducibility of published social science research. The SSRP is supported by the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS), an initiative of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at UC Berkeley. BITSS staff members and other administrators authorized by BITSS staff (referred to as “UC Berkeley,” "us,” "our,” and "we") act in the capacity of administrators of the SSRP and are authorized to enforce these Terms of Use.

For questions about these Terms of Use or to report violations please contact acre@berkeley.edu.

If you believe material should be taken down from SSRP due to purported copyright infringement, please follow the procedures set forth by the UC Berkeley Information Security & Policy department for submitting a claim, and send an e-mail to: policy@berkeley.edu.

Your Use of SSRP

Viewing Content

The SSRP is open to be used by the public. Users may preview all web content created by the site administrators (e.g., the Guide for Accelerating Computational Reproducibility) and content contributed by other platform users, such as reproductions data, subject to privacy options.

Ownership of Our Content; License to Our Content

Apart from the underlying technological platform which is open-source, we own all of the content that we generate and post, upload, or host on SSRP. (See distinctions for User-Generated Content, below.) Unless otherwise noted, all content that we have created and make available through SSRP or the Forum is licensed for reuse under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 license.

Disclaimer of Warranties

We provide the SSRP “as is” and “as available,” without warranty of any kind. Without limiting this, we expressly disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied, or statutory, regarding the SSRP including without limitation any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, security, accuracy, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the SSRP will meet your requirements; that the SSRP will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; that the information provided through the SSRP is accurate, reliable, or correct; that any defects or errors will be corrected; that the SSRP will be available at any particular time or location; or that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components. You assume full responsibility and risk of loss resulting from your downloading and/or use of files, information, content, or other material obtained from the Service.

Limitation of Liability

You understand and agree that we will not be liable to you or any third party for any loss of profits, use, goodwill, or data, or for any incidental, indirect, special, consequential, or exemplary damages, however arising, that result from:

  • the use, disclosure, or display of content, including User-Generated Content (defined below);
  • your use or inability to use the SSRP;
  • any modification, price change, suspension, or discontinuance of the SSRP;
  • the SSRP generally or the software or systems that make the SSRP available;
  • unauthorized access to or alterations of your transmissions or data;
  • statements or conduct of any third party on the SSRP;
  • any other user interactions that you input or receive through your use of the SSRP; or
  • any other matter relating to the SSRP.

Our liability is limited whether or not we have been informed of the possibility of such damages, and even if a remedy set forth in these Terms of Use is found to have failed of its essential purpose. We will have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond our reasonable control.

Release and Indemnification

If you have a dispute with one or more Users, you agree to release us from any and all claims, demands, and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

You agree to indemnify us, defend us, and hold us harmless from and against any and all claims, liabilities, and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of your use of the SSRP, including but not limited to your violation of these Terms of Use, provided that we (1) promptly give you written notice of the claim, demand, suit or proceeding; (2) give you sole control of the defense and settlement of the claim, demand, suit or proceeding (provided that you may not settle any claim, demand, suit or proceeding unless the settlement unconditionally releases us of all liability); and (3) provide to you all reasonable assistance, at your expense.

User Accounts & User-Generated Content

In order to upload, post, or record reproductions and comment on reproductions submitted by others, Users need to sign up for an SSRP account, the requirements for which are described below. Users who create accounts consent to all of the following terms and conditions

Account Requirements

The following rules describe the conditions under which users can create accounts on the SSRP:

  • You must be a human to create an Account. Accounts registered by "bots" or other automated methods are not permitted.
  • You must be age 13 or older.
  • You are solely responsible for ensuring that your account information is correct, complete, and remains up to date. Impersonating others or using aliases is not permitted.
  • Your account may only be used by one person — i.e., a single account may not be shared by multiple people. You can work on a reproduction with another user by creating a “collaborative reproduction.”

Violation of any of the above may result in account suspension or termination at the administrators’ discretion.

User Account Security

You are responsible for all content posted and activity that occurs under your account.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and password. Weare not liable for any loss or damage from your failure to comply with this security obligation.

You will promptly notify us if you become aware of any unauthorized use or access to your account, including any unauthorized use of your password or account.

You have the right to discontinue the use of, or terminate, your account whenever you like, and subject to our Privacy Policy (see “Privacy Policy” section below), control the use and sharing of your account information.

User-Generated Content

You may create or upload User-Generated Content (UGC), such as reproductions and Forum posts while using the SSRP. You are solely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, any content that you post, upload, link to, or otherwise make available via the SSRP. We are not responsible for any public display or misuse of your UGC by other parties.

We have the right to refuse or remove any UGC that, at our sole discretion, violates any laws, these Terms of Use, or the SSRP Forum Code of Conduct.

You retain ownership of and responsibility for your UGC. You agree that you are responsible for any content you post; that you will only submit content that you have the right to post; and that you will fully comply with any third-party licenses relating to the content you post. You further agree to apply the CC-BY-NC 4.0 to all UGC that you create, record, upload, or store to SSRP.

Per this license, you and other users have the following permissions in relation to UGC posted on the SSRP:

  • Share, download, redistribute in any medium or format, or copy the UGC like published reproductions; and
  • Adapt, transform, and build upon all UGC posted on the SSRP.

The permissions outlined above are granted under the following conditions:

  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  • Non-commercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
  • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

You understand that you will not receive any payment for any of the permissions granted per the license outlined above. The permissions granted per the CC BY-NC 4.0 will end when you remove your content from our servers unless other users have made copies of it (learn about how we handle reproductions that were deleted after submission in the “Privacy Policy” section below).

SSRP Code of Conduct

While using SSRP, under no circumstances will you:

  • upload, post, host, execute, or transmit any content that is unlawful or promotes unlawful activities; is or contains sexually obscene content; is libelous, defamatory, or fraudulent; is discriminatory or abusive toward any individual or group; gratuitously depicts or glorifies violence, including violent images; is or contains knowingly false, inaccurate, or intentionally deceptive information that is likely to adversely affect the public interest (including health, safety, election integrity, and civic participation);
  • harass, abuse, threaten, or incite violence towards any individual or group, including our employees, officers, and agents, or other users;
  • post off-topic content, or interact with platform features, in a way that significantly or repeatedly disrupts the experience of other users;
  • use our servers for any form of excessive automated bulk activity (for example, spamming or cryptocurrency mining), to place undue burden on our servers through automated means, or to relay any form of unsolicited advertising or solicitation through our servers, such as get-rich-quick schemes;
  • use our servers to disrupt or to attempt to disrupt, or to gain or to attempt to gain unauthorized access to, any service, device, data, account or network (unless authorized by the GitHub Bug Bounty program);
  • impersonate any person or entity, including any of our employees or representatives, including through false association with GitHub, or by fraudulently misrepresenting your identity or site's purpose; or
  • violate the privacy of any third party, such as by posting another person's personal information without consent.

We will investigate any abuse reports and may moderate public content on our site that we determine to be in violation of our Terms of Service.

Privacy Policy

Our Commitment

We are committed to protecting the privacy and accuracy of your confidential information to the extent possible, subject to provisions of California state and U.S. federal law. Personally-identifiable information is not actively shared other than to enable you to display your account information which you may or may not connect with your reproductions, or as required by laws that guarantee public access to certain types of information, or in response to subpoenas or other legal instruments that authorize access. In particular, we do not redistribute nor sell personal information collected on this website.

Participation

Your participation and sharing of personal information on this website are voluntary, and you can opt-out at any time by deleting your account. Note that if you delete your account, you will not be able to use the site to create or manage reproductions, nor post in the Forum.

Though it is not encouraged, you may delete reproductions after they have been submitted. Data entered as part of submitted reproductions that you would like to delete will be permanently removed from our servers unless other users have made copies of it using the “copy reproduction” function, in which case we will preserve an anonymized copy. Such copies will anonymize your identity and free-form narrative answers with potentially personally identifiable information (e.g., notes, descriptions, summaries) indefinitely.

We will not delete content that you have contributed to collaborative reproductions (reproductions with contributions by more than one user). If you delete your account, your contributions to collaborative reproductions will be attributed to a “ghost” contributor or an equivalent anonymous username.

Information collected

We collect personal information such as your name, email address, position, institutional affiliation, and discipline for research and administrative purposes. We collect this information through the “Sign Up” form you fill out and submit to create an account. Web servers typically collect, at least temporarily, the following information: Internet Protocol (IP) address of computer being used; web pages requested; referring web page; browser used; date and time of activity logged. We may collect statistics identifying particular IP addresses from which our websites are accessed.

Use of collected information

We use user account information and UGC for research purposes. You can opt-out of this by deleting your account.

We may also use these for communication to keep you informed of reviews of or comments on your reproduction attempts, activity related to your account in the Forum, and platform functionality updates. You can control the frequency of these notifications or opt-out at any time by unsubscribing through your Account Settings.

We use Google Analytics with GDPR-compliant settings for general site monitoring. You may opt-out of this tracking at any time by activating the “Do Not Track” setting in your browser.

We encrypt and store your data in a password-protected location.

We may use browser-IP-address information and anonymous browser history to report information about site access. This information is generally used to improve Web presentation and utilization. UC Berkeley’s campus also may use IP address information for troubleshooting purposes.

Distribution of collected information and privacy options

Your reproductions will not be visible to other users until you submit them. You may grant view-only access to other users and the general public by generating anonymous links from the reproduction landing page. After you submit a reproduction, other users will be able to view and use it per the license grants described above. The SSRP will issue a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for each reproduction upon submission.

Your name will be displayed on reproduction attempts you initiate and submit according to the privacy option you choose at the time of submitting. You may also elect to display other personal information such as contact information and contributions by others.

You may select one of the following privacy options at the time of submitting your reproduction attempt:

  • Public, identified — The SSRP will credit the reproduction to you as the author, and other users can see the full reproduction record. This is the recommended privacy option for most reproductions.
  • Class anonymous — If you are a student, you can anonymize your identity and free-form narrative answers without personally identifiable information (e.g., notes, descriptions, summaries, explanations, but not one-sentence claim summaries as inputted in Q.3.1.1 in Scoping) indefinitely. Under this privacy option, other users can only access categorical responses, numeric responses, claim summaries, and class identifiers such as class name, year, institution university, instructor’s name, and email address.

    • You can use the “Class anonymous” privacy option if you conducted your reproduction as part of a class, project, or some other assignment for credit at the university or post-secondary level.
    • The SSRP will credit such reproductions to your class (e.g., “Reproduction conducted as part of ‘Graduate Development Economics’ at UC Berkeley”), and other users can contact your instructor with questions about your reproduction.
    • Your instructor is responsible for uploading your reproduction package to a class-level repository.
  • Temporary individual anonymous — You can embargo (i.e., do not show publicly) your identity and free-form narrative answers with personally identifiable information (e.g., notes, descriptions, summaries, explanations, but not one-sentence claim summaries as inputted in Q.3.1.1 in Scoping) for a period of time per your discretion, up to four years after submitting, based on the conditions outlined below. We recommend using this option if you are uncomfortable being publicly listed as the author.

    • You are not required to enter information about instructors or supervisors, but you are personally responsible for anonymizing your revised reproduction package.
    • You will have the opportunity to determine the embargo period at the time when you submit your reproduction attempt.
    • At the expiration of the embargo period, your reproduction’s privacy settings will be updated to “public, identified.”

If you choose the “class anonymous” or “temporary individual anonymous” settings, you are responsible for de-identifying all linked content that is hosted on sites owned or operated by independent third parties. These may include the contents of your revised reproduction package, such as script files and log files stored on GitHub, or data files stored on data repositories. Though we welcome you to use our guidance to de-identify your materials, please note that these methods are not foolproof. We are not responsible for any consequences that may arise if you fail to fully de-identify your materials.

Access to Own information

Questions regarding users’ rights to review, modify, transfer, restrict the processing of, or delete their previously provided personal information should be directed to acre@berkeley.edu. Any disputes will be resolved under existing records regulations applicable to UC Berkeley.

General Data Protection Regulation

If you are accessing this site from a country that is a member of the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EAA), the processing of your Personal Data is subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We comply with the requirements of GDPR. For information regarding your rights under GDPR and/or UC Berkeley’s compliance with the requirements of GDPR, refer to the UC Berkeley Privacy Office’s GDPR site; or contact the UC Berkeley Privacy office: privacyoffice@berkeley.edu or (510) 664-7775.

The platform code is not currently available to the public, but the team is in the process of assessing the security implications of this and is aiming to make the code available in the next 1-2 years.

Data collected by the SSRP will be released, along with our first paper Standardizing and Crowd-sourcing Analysis to Assess Reproducibility in Economics in the next 2-3 months.

The SSRP is free of charge to use for everyone! Users can create and view reproductions at no cost.

We currently don’t have any features that make our site accessible to all, however we believe that this is very important and will look to fundraise in order to do so.