Acceptable Use Policy

1. You may use the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal to find, download and interpret life science data for the purposes of research, or research training. Use is defined by the Data and Collaboration policy for each initiative that can be accessed through the Bioplatforms Australia website
2. You agree to interact with the Bioplatforms Australia Community (defined as other users of the service, consortium members, research partners, technical support staff, operational staff, and those involved in governance of the service) in a responsible and respectful manner at all times, consistent with the Australian BioCommons Code of Conduct.
3. The following uses of Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal are explicitly forbidden:
   1. The deliberate or reckless creation, transmission, storage, downloading, or display of any offensive or menacing images, data, metadata or other material, or any data capable of being resolved into such images or material
   2. Use which constitutes an infringement of any intellectual property rights of another person or organisation
   3. The creation of duplicate user account and/or double registration by a single user for the purposes of intentionally circumventing service limits on the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal
   4. Attempt to or circumvent the appropriate authentication or access control measures, security or restrictions on the use of a registered account, including the unauthorised distribution or use of tools of any kind for compromising security
   5. The transfer, storage or processing of any sensitive data, including but not limited to potentially personally identifying genetic, genomic or medical data unless explicity approved by Bioplatforms Australia
   6. Communications which would be actionable under the law of defamation
   7. Deliberate or reckless undertaking of activities which seek to or result in:
      1. the imposition of (or attempted imposition of) an unreasonable burden on the Bioplatforms Australia Operations and Support teams,
      2. excessive data transfer from the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal,
      3. corruption of or disruption to data stored on the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal, or to the data of another user,
      4. disruption to other users, and/or
      5. introduction or transmission of malware into Bioplatforms Australia’s systems.
4. Other uses of Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal are only permitted with the written permission from Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal Manager - please contact us if you feel that this is neccessary.

Terms of service

The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal is an online data management system providing an archive for life science data alongside a search and retrieval service. The service is offered by Bioplatforms Australia in conjunction with partners and suppliers.

Interaction with the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal website https://data.bioplatforms.com/ denotes agreement with the following terms:

1. Use of service
   1. The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal provides access to life science datasets (comprising metadata and data files, e.g. sequence files) via web and API interfaces. Use that respects these Terms of Use is permitted.
   2. You may choose to register an account via the Bioplatforms Australia in order to access the API and download data files.
   3. The key features of the Bioplatforms Data Portal are:
      • Searchable metadata for data archived on the system
      • Data downloads via the website, downloadable tools or the API.
      • Support information on how to access and use these features
   4. Your access to Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal is provided under the condition that you abide by our Acceptable Use Policy.
   5. You indemnify and hold Bioplatforms Australia and our partners and suppliers harmless against loss in connection with your use of the service.
   6. You agree to acknowledge use of data provided by the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal in your research outputs using the citation and Acknowledgement Statement information that we provide to you through the Bioplatforms Australia website .
2. Research data movement, hosting and analysis
   1. The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal is designed to be a centralised resource of life science data.
   2. The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal is provisioned to support one-off, specific data transfers from our systems to yours. Please contact us for support for large scale, bulk or repetitive transfers.
   3. You are welcome to undertake data analysis and visualisation with the data, providing you comply with applicable laws of the Commonwealth of Australia, as well as laws of other jurisdictions that might be applicable due to the sensitivity, provenance, intended use, ownership, or licensing imposed on the data being processed.
3. Use of and Sharing content
   1. The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal is designed to support reproducible science. We encourage you to create and share workflows and visualisations using openly accessible platforms.
   2. Datasets and their associated metadata on the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal may be updated, replaced or removed from the system from time to time for reasons at our discretion. This typically includes corrections and quality assurance.
   3. Access to specific datasets and their associated metadata may be restricted to particular users for early access embargos, policy or other reasons. Where possible, we will advise you if that is the case.
   4. Datasets and their associated metadata will be retained per the requirements of each individual Bioplatsforms Australia project and initiative.
   5. Download and use of data and content from the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal does not transfer any intellectual property rights in the content to you.
4. Termination
   1. Bioplatforms Australia reserves the right, without notice, at its sole discretion and without liability,
      1. to alter, delete or block access to content that it deems to be inappropriate, and
      2. to restrict or remove access where it considers that your use of Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal seeks to impede its operations or violates these Terms of Service and/or Acceptable Use Policy.
5. Change of Terms
   1. These Terms of Service are subject to change by Bioplatforms Australia at any time and without notice, other than through posting the updated Terms of Service and /or Acceptable Use Policy on the https://data.bioplatforms.com/ website.

If you have any questions or comments with respect to the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal, or if you are unsure whether your intended use complies with these Terms of Service, or if you seek permission for an intended use that does not fall within these Terms of Service, please contact us.

Service commitments

Best effort operations

We realise that access to the data that is made available via the Bioplatforms Australia Data portal is important to you. For that reason, we commit to making best efforts to keep the service as reliable and responsive as possible.

Our operational staff work a mix of normal Australian West and East Coast office hours. During those hours we aim to triage tickets and reference data requests within two business days. Resolution of tickets, requests, outages and issues will take longer outside normal office hours, on weekends, and on public holidays.

The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal runs on a combination of research-grade and commercial-grade infrastructure contributed by our partners and suppliers. The reliability and capacity of the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal may be impacted if partner or supplier infrastructure unexpectedly becomes unavailable.

Service capacity

The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal is underpinned by specialised compute and storage capabilities, allowing provision of data sets at scale. We periodically review our capacity and performance, taking into account growth in users, and data held.

From time to time the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal may reach capacity, usually resulting in slower request responses.

The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal aspires to operate a “fair share” system, where capacity is distributed amongst researchers using the service. For that reason, we may at times work with researchers to halt and reconfigure jobs that are causing adverse performance impacts or incurring data management costs.

Service lifetime

Operations of the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal are supported by funding from Bioplatforms Australia, enabled by the Commonwealth Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Maintenance

The maintenance and administration of the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal is a balance between service uptime and the health of the service. From time to time, the service may become unavailable during planned or unscheduled maintenance events.

Planned maintenance

Bioplatforms Australia Operational Partners and Suppliers plan upgrades and security patches to the service. During these planned maintenance periods, the service may not be available.

Notification of planned service unavailability will be made via a notice on the Bioplatoforms Australia Data Portal website https://data.bioplatforms.com/. The period of notice varies depending on the length of the planned service unavailability:

Unscheduled maintenance

On occasion, the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal Operational Partners and Suppliers may need to perform urgent maintenance (e.g. for urgent security patching) resulting in Service downtime outside of scheduled and planned maintenance windows. In this case Bioplatforms Australia will make every effort to give users as much advance notice as is possible to limit disruption.

Privacy Policy and Data Collection Statement

Privacy Policy and Data Collection

Bioplatforms Australia is committed to protecting your privacy. We do not collect, process, retain or share personal data other than for the purposes described below.

1. Usage data
   1. In order to monitor and enhance the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal and associated applications, we track and retain information about your interaction with the service (i.e. IP addresses, cookies, pages visited, tool invocation parameters, data uploads, etc).
   2. We may share log files of your interactions with the service.
   3. For promotional, funding and reporting reasons, Bioplatforms Australia periodically creates public usage reports. When we do, we aggregate and anonymise this data to protect your privacy.
2. Registration data
   1. If you choose to register an account with the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal and associated applications, we collect registration data (i.e. email address, institutional affiliation and public name).
   2. We may store and examine registration data to provide access to advanced features, extended quotas, and specialised computing facilities.
   3. Bioplatforms Australia may contact registered account holders using the email address they provide for operational reasons, including:
      1. checking user account security including email verification,
      2. communicating service downtime,
      3. communicating service improvements,
      4. communicating actions we are taking with respect to data available or provided to you,
      5. communicating actions we are taking with respect to service and network capacity,
      6. responding to your support requests,
      7. surveying existing and planned use in order to improve and promote the service,
      8. discussing breaches of these Terms of Use, and
      9. communicating updates to Bioplatforms Australia policies
   4. Bioplatforms Australia may contact registered account holders using the email address they provide for promotional reasons, such as seeking consent and content for newsletters, annual reports or media releases by operational partners and funding partners.
3. Data you download
   1. The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal will make datasets available for you to download for your research activities.
   2. Use of the downloaded data is subject to the license and usage conditions associated with each dataset. This may include restrictions on use and embargo periods. Data use is defined by the Data and Collaboration policy for each initiative that can be accessed through the Bioplatforms Australia website
   3. Appropriate citation and acknowledgement of Bioplatforms Australia and our associated research groups and partners is requested. Details can be found for each initiative through the Bioplatforms Australia website .
   4. Access to, the mechanism of and volume of data transferred is subject to our Acceptable Use Policy.
4. Support requests
   1. When you submit a support request with Bioplatforms Australia, we collect your email address, and may ask for personal data as part of the support process.
   2. Data collected as part of a support request is stored in our instance of Zendesk - please refer to the Zendesk Privacy Policy for more information.
5. Cookies
   1. The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal and associated applications use cookies to identify users/computers in order to maintain user sessions.
   2. The Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal cookies are not linked to your Registration data.
   3. If you prefer not to receive cookies, you may set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies or you may also refuse all cookies by turning them off in your browser. Not accepting Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal cookies will limit the functionality of the service.
6. Analytics
   1. Bioplatforms Australia uses Google Analytics to analyse usage and improve the service. Google Analytics uses cookies to generate data which is transmitted to Google. You can view Google’s Privacy Policy and options for controlling the data collected here.
7. Data location
   1. Google Analytics uses cookies to generate data which may be transmitted and stored in Google servers outside Australia.
   2. User support data managed by Zendesk may be stored outside Australia.
   3. All other data is stored and processed in Australia by the Bioplatforms Australia Operational Partners, and will not be provided to any third party unless
      1. you choose to share content through the service, or
      2. we are required to do so by law.
8. Modifying and removing personal data
   1. Registered account holders can see and modify the personal information collected by Bioplatoforms Australia Data Portal by logging into the service and navigating to the User page by clicking on your name in the top right corner.
   2. Registered account holders can request removal of personal information at any time. Please contact us if you are in this position.