Terms and Conditions of Enrolment- ACS Distance Education Australia
Welcome to the ACS Distance Education (ACS) website ("the site") and ACS Distance Education Business Hub (“the hub”), which is owned and operated by ACS Distance Education Australia.
These terms and conditions are important. Please read them carefully. Terms and conditions are subject to change. Since you are bound by these Terms of Use, you should periodically refer to this web document to monitor changes.
Upon enrolling a student in a course with ACS, you ("the Client") are entering a legal agreement under common law, in which you agree to abide by the conditions of enrolment (including meeting stated payments), in exchange for the service offered by ACS during the course enrolment. The terms and conditions are subject to the jurisdiction to the laws of Australia.
These Terms and Conditions form the agreement between ACS and the Client. It is the Client’s responsibility to fully read, understand and agree to all Enrolment Terms & Conditions, Privacy Statement and Fees & Charges upon enrolment. By agreeing to these Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Statement below, the Client confirms they possess a full understanding of all Terms & Conditions, and willingly accepts all such terms.
Course Duration
The following allowable time frames are for the course duration, from the date payment is processed. Your students have the following time periods to complete the courses:
100 hour module- 1 year
Specialist Award- 2 years
Certificates- 3 years
Advanced Certificates- 3 years
Learning Bundles- 10+ modules- 5 years
Cancellation Policy
Clients wishing to cancel their student’s enrolment must submit notification of withdrawal in writing within 14 days of the confirmation of enrolment. In order to apply for a cancellation, the Client must complete the course change form available on the ACS website, or email studentservices@acs.edu.au .
It is recommended clients contact ACS within 24 hours of submitting a cancellation request to confirm receipt. ACS accepts no responsibility for and will not be liable for non-receipt of messages or transmissions.
Refund Policy
Adding a student to your business hub account acts as confirmation of acceptance, and commitment to, paying all fees as stated on the enrolment form. Checking the box below these Terms and Conditions confirms that the client has read and agreed to these Terms and Conditions, the Privacy Policy (see below), and the Fees & Charges agreed to with ACS. This action provides confirmation in lieu of a signature. In checking the appropriate box, the Client fully accepts ACS 's Terms and Conditions.
Client’s students are considered to have commenced their course from the date that the student’s are added to the Client’s business hub account by the client.
Refunds may be granted in the event an application is submitted within 14 days of the client adding a student to their business hub account. The refunded cost will be less minimum AUD$50 Administration Fee per 100-hour module.
In the event an assignment has already been submitted and returned, a refund will not be issued.
If you would like to request a refund, please complete the change of enrolment form here. Refunds will be issued via the original method of payment.
Deferments and Extensions
Deferments and/or extensions may be granted at the discretion of ACS. Application for a deferment or extension must be submitted via the course change of enrolment form here or email studentservices@acs.edu.au. ACS reserves the right to refuse a deferment or extension request in the event that:
• Valid reason, with appropriate documentation, is not submitted
• The Client has requested multiple deferments and/or extensions
• The Client is not in good financial standing with ACS.
If ACS approves a deferment or extension, recommencement fees may apply.
Course Transfer
For a period of 30 days following the addition of a student to the client’s business hub account, the Client may apply for special consideration for their student to transfer from one course to another. Applications must be made in writing via the course change form available on the ACS website or email studentservices@acs.edu.au. A transfer fee of $50 per module will apply. ACS will apply credit for monies paid for the original enrolment against the new module. No refund will be issued for any difference in the course price. In the event ACS grants a transfer request, confirmation in writing will be given.
In the event an assignment has been submitted and returned a module transfer will not be granted.
Transfer to Another Party
In the event the Client wishes to transfer a course enrolment from one of their students to another, an application must be submitted in writing via the change of enrolment form here or email studentservices@acs.edu.au within 2 months of enrolment. An administration Fee of $50 will apply. ACS will apply the credit for monies paid for the original enrolment against the new course, but no refund will be issued for any difference in course price.
In the event an assignment has already been submitted and returned, a client transfer will not be granted.
Age Restriction
Enrolments will only be accepted for clients 18 and over.
Your Privacy
ACS is committed to protecting your privacy. We use the information we collect about you or your students to maximize the services that we provide to you. We will get your permission before retaining any personal information about you or your students.
ACS newsletters are used to communicate important developments to ACS clients. It is recommended clients remain subscribed to the client newsletter.
In order to best protect the rights of our clients and students and their personal data against cyber-attack, hacking and unlawful accessing of sensitive and confidential client records, IT IS HEREBY AGREED that all such records shall be confidentially destroyed within a period of one month to twelve months of cessation of client enrolment and to remove any doubt, ACS is irrevocably authorised to do so within such time frame.
To comply with Australian and European law, we will maintain client and student records for the period of course enrolment.
If you would like ACS Distance Education to delete your or your student’s information at any time (whether you are a customer or a prospective customer), please contact our privacy officer and we will process this (admin@acs.edu.au ).
Please see full privacy policy below.
Security
ACS maintains strict online security measures. This is to ensure that our business is managed in accordance with worldwide legal developments and to protect against cyber-attack, hacking, and unlawful access of confidential records.
Disclaimer
Every attempt is made to ensure all information provided by ACS is accurate, and that the Client’s students have attained all competencies taught within a course, at the time of assessment.
Graduated students are responsible for their use and maintenance of acquired competencies. ACS takes no responsibility for, and will not be liable, for any action or claim in connection with, or arising from any such information, instruction or advice, given by any student or ex-student. ACS takes no responsibility for and will not be liable for the student's or ex-student's interpretation and/or misuse of materials.
All information, text, material, graphics, software and advertisements on the site ("Content") are protected by Australian and international copyright and trademark laws.
No courses, course materials and study notes are to be republished, sold, loaned or copied, or used in any way outside the pursuit of studying the course by the Client’s enrolled students without explicit permission granted in writing by the Principal of ACS.
Access and Use of the ACS business hub and site
Use of, and access to the ACS business hub and site is conditional upon acceptance of and compliance with the following Terms of Use and the terms, conditions, notices and disclaimers contained in this document and elsewhere on the ACS site.
Your use of, and/or access to, the business hub and site constitutes your agreement to the following:
As a condition of use of this hub and site, you agree to not use the site or its content and materials for any unlawful purpose, or in any ways prohibited by these Terms and Conditions. ACS gives no endorsement, accepts no responsibility for, and will not be liable for, any third party links.
If you become aware of misuse of the site or hub by any person, please contact ACS with your concerns.
PRIVACY NOTICE
1. Introduction
1.1 ACS Distance Education (ACS) acknowledges that the privacy of your personal information, and the security of your transactions with us is of paramount importance to us. ACS has data protection policies to ensure your privacy and data security. The ACS Privacy Policy sets out the rules we will abide by when dealing with personal information we collect from individuals during the course of our business. This policy is based on Australian Privacy Legislation and also complies with the European GDPR (General Data Processing Regulations).
1.2 In order to ensure that we meet and maintain our Privacy standards, we have appointed a Privacy Officer. Should you wish to contact us in relation to Privacy, please complete our online contact form.
1.3 We may occasionally make alterations or additions to our Privacy Policy. Should we do so, we will update the policy on our website. We require that all our customers agree to abide by our Privacy Policy as part of our terms of trade. This policy also applies to users of our website who are not customers of ACS.
1.4 Please note that we cannot and do not assume any responsibility for the privacy or security practices of any other websites which you may be able to access through our site.
2. What Information Do We Collect?
ACS collects a range of information about you and your students at different times. There are four broad categories of information that we collect:
2.1 Information we require to supply our services.
(a) When you first sign up or contract with ACS for our products or services, or when you make an inquiry about our services, we request information such as your name, address, telephone number, domain name, email, and type of industry you are in. We may also ask for your age and gender. The student is offered the opportunity to provide extra personal information relevant to the subject they are studying, as background information to inform ACS staff in a way that can improve the support provided to the student. ACS will make every effort to explain the pros and cons of providing such additional info, the fact that such information must be volunteered, and the fact that access to such information is only given to employees of ACS in line with laws which ACS is obliged to follow.
(b) We may also monitor and/or record telephone conversations with you from time to time in order to train staff and to improve our service to you.
2.2 Non-personally identifying information.
(a) In addition to the information you specifically provide above, ACS operates statistics gathering software on its website to collect information about the number of visitors coming to the site. No identifying information is collected by this software. The software records the IP address of the visitor only. We use this information to improve our own technical structure and performance, and to determine which areas of our website are most popular.
(b) We may use 'cookies'. Cookies are pieces of information that a website can transfer to an individual's computer in order to allow that website to store information about user preferences. We use cookies which expire once the visitor leaves our website. Cookies are used to collect session IDs. It is possible to adjust your internet browser to refuse cookies, but you may find this reduces the functionality of this site.
2.3 Other demographic information.
If you respond voluntarily to our surveys or other interactive communications, we collect the responses and use the information to improve the quality and range of ACS' products and services.
2.4 Personal information stored on a website hosted by ACS.
ACS will have personal information stored on our servers due to the fact that we host websites of other organisations. Any information that is submitted to or collected by these organisations will be physically located on an ACS and/or an ACS server and/or workstation. This information, whether voluntarily provided or not, will not be used or released by ACS in any manner to any third party, and it will be kept strictly confidential, unless we are required to release the information by law.
3. How Do We Use Personal Information We Have Collected?
3.1 We collect and use your personal information to operate our website and deliver our services to you. We will use your personal information to provide you with:
o technical support
o billing and credit control
o sales support
o product upgrades and
o information
o online products and services
3.2 You may stop the delivery of future promotional emails from ACS by following the specific instructions in the email you receive. These instructions will tell you how to remove your name from our promotional email list. These instructions will appear at the BOTTOM of your email. If you experience technical difficulties with removing yourself from a list, you may email us at admin@acs.edu.au and request removal from a list and/or future mailing.
3.3 We may use your personal information to:
(a) contact you in relation to upgrading your use of our services, special offers (from us, or on behalf of third parties), with newsletters, surveys, and individual service audits. We may give extracts of our customer lists containing personal information to third parties specifically to contact you on our behalf. We require third parties to agree to the same privacy conditions that we abide by.
(b) identify the source of new customers to ACS;
(c) monitor and address complaints, other feedback, and to resolve disputes;
(e) in the case of ABNs, to verify your identity;
(g) maintain a technical and account history of your dealings with us, and to re-establish your account with us where you re-join as a customer within six months after having terminated your account;
(h) monitor your compliance with our 'Terms and Conditions' Policy and other terms and conditions of supply;
(i) comply with our reporting and other obligations to third party licensors (such as reporting to software suppliers the number and identity of software licenses we have issued as part of our products).
3.4 We will treat all information we collect from you as strictly confidential. ACS does not rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. We will not reveal, disclose, sell, distribute, rent, licence, share or pass onto any third party (other than those who are contracted or supply services to ACS) any personal information that you may have provided to us unless we have your express consent to do so, other than in the circumstances set out in the next paragraph.
3.5 We will disclose your personal information, without notice or your consent, only if:
(a) we are required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to conform with the laws, applicable code of conduct or legal process served on us in relation to our business or website;
(b) to protect and defend the rights or property of ACS;
(c) if we consider it necessary to do so in order to enforce or apply the terms of any of our agreements with you;
(d) if we sell our business or part of it; and
(e) in extreme circumstances, to protect the personal safety of users of ACS services, its website, our staff or the public.
4. Security
4.1 ACS has implemented security features in our database to protect your personal information from unauthorised access. We maintain our servers in a controlled, secured environment. Only staff who need to have access to your personal information in order to perform their job function are authorised to access the database. Constant changes to the internet and technology mean that we cannot guarantee that data transmission will be 100% secure, or safe from attack by unauthorised intruders.
5. Other Disclosure By You
5.1 You might provide personal information through your participation in chat sessions, message boards, email exchanges or newsgroups accessed via ACS, or another service provided by ACS. This information is public and immediately available to anyone who has access to such a site; it is not private. ACS urges you to enter only information that you are comfortable to share with the public at large in this public domain. This Privacy Policy does not apply to such information.
5.2 You should never reveal your password to third parties. If you lose control of your password, you may lose control over your personal information and may be liable for actions taken on your behalf by third parties using your password and/or personal information. Therefore, if your password has been compromised for any reason, you should immediately change it.
5.3 If you collect personal information which you keep on servers provided by ACS as part of our service to you (including email), you alone are responsible for compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 in respect of that information. We take no responsibility for your dealings with personal information you collect.
6. How To Access & Correct Your Personal Information
6.1 From time to time you may need to update your personal information. You may do so by phone, mail or email. You may be required to supply your username and password to authorise the update of information.
6.2 If you contact us via telephone, you may need to answer a few security questions before any personal information is revealed or amended.
7. Children's Privacy
ACS does not knowingly collect, use or promote products any information to children. Potential students must be over 18 and agree before submitting our online forms.
8. Complaints
If you have a complaint about any aspect of our Privacy procedures, please contact our Privacy Officer on admin@acs.edu.au . We will deal promptly with your complaint. If we cannot resolve the complaint to your satisfaction within a reasonable time, you or we may refer the complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.
9. Data Retention
In order to best protect the rights of our students and their personal data against cyber-attack, hacking and unlawful accessing of sensitive and confidential student records, IT IS HEREBY AGREED that all such records shall be confidentially destroyed within a period of one month to twelve months of cessation of student enrolment and to remove any doubt, ACS is irrevocably authorised to do so within such time frame.
To comply with Australian and European law, we will maintain student records for the period of course enrolment.
If you would like ACS Distance Education to delete your information at any time (whether you are a customer or a prospective customer), please contact our privacy officer and we will process this ( admin@acs.edu.au ).
By agreeing to the privacy policy, you are indicating that you (and your students) are 18 years or over and that you authorise ACS Distance Education to contact you via email regarding news and promotions. You may unsubscribe from our newsletters at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletters.