Community Guidelines

Last Updated: November 14, 2011

Purpose: The intention of this site is to provide a safe and inviting edu-social-media environment just for independent school educators to connect and collaborate. The site is supported, monitored, and guided by several administrators to maintain a collegial learning environment free from blinking ads and unwanted email. If you ever see anything inappropriate or receive any unwanted messages, please let us know!

Non-Anonymity: We require all participants to identify themselves on this network by name, either on the profile page, or privately to the site administrators. We also encourage photos in profiles to build face-to-face dialog and community. Participants who do not identify themselves will not be approved for membership or will be removed from the network. (Anonymity sometimes provokes less thoughtful reflection in online discussion.)

Personal Educator Accounts With School Email Address Only:

• We do not accept accounts created in the name of an organization, school, vendor, group, or association. These accounts will not be approved and/or will be removed without notice.
• Starting 11/14/11, all applicants for membership must use a school email address. We can no longer accept members using personal email accounts.
• Non-educators (e.g. vendors, consultants, or other individuals not currently employed within schools) who wish to participate on this network should send an email to the site admins explaining their reason for wanting to participate here. Within your message please also articulate your understanding of our guidelines related to marketing and messaging. No marketing, solicitation, or "soft-selling" of any variety is permitted on this network, and non-educators are generally not approved for membership unless their participation is on a personal level to contribute to discussion and dialog. 
• Students- please review the guidelines for student accounts.

Public nature of this site: This is a public site, so everything posted on this site is available to anyone on the internet (with the exception of private groups), so do not post personal, private, or controversial information. This site, like all public sites is indexed by Google and your postings will be accessible to Google (or other search engine) searches. Your disclosure of information is not controlled by Site Administrators nor Ning Platform & neither party is liable in any way for anyone's misuse of the information in or as a result of your disclosure. In other words, use judgment & caution here.

Private message system: Clicking 'Send Message' under a member's photo on their page will let you send that peson a private message. This messaging system does not reveal your email address to the recipient. Members are able to opt out completely from receiving email by clicking on the "My Settings" link. If you ever receive a private message which you feel is inappropriate in any way, please let the site admins know.

Questionable content. Site Administrators may remove inappropriate or questionable content without notice in order to maintain our community standards as outlined on this page.

Employment seekers & job postings: This site is not intended as a place to post "job wanted" notices. Doing this, or using the private message system to send unsolicited messages about seeking employment will result in content and/or account removal without notice. If anyone receives unwanted private messages of this nature, please forward them to the ISEnet administrators. We do however encourage the active exchange of guidance between members about the process of seeking employment in independent schools in the Job Exchange group. It is also permissible to include information on one's profile page about seeking employment.

Copyright: Please do not post any copyrighted content on this site unless it is your own, or you have the owner's permission. Unless specified otherwise by the person posting content here, all posted content on this site is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License for re-use of anyone anywhere. Please note that this does not apply to embedded content (e.g. embedded videos from YouTube) whose owners retain copyright.

A friendly community. This is meant to be a community where you don't have to deal with spam, explicit content, or defamatory speech ~ if you find offensive or inappropriate content please report the issue (see below.) We encourage positive and constructive discussion and debate. If any Member (or non-Member) feels that they have been subjected to inappropriate content or behavior from this site, they should contact Site Administrators immediately so that we can take appropriate action. We may remove material posted on the site that we feel is not related to the subject of the site. We also reserve the right to exclude members who, in our view, have not followed the values set out here. 

Report an Issue: There is a link on the "Help" tab to report issues or bugs on the site. If a Member has any concerns about the conduct of another Member, please contact us.

Events: Events which get posted should be of an educational nature. The events board is intended for conferences, workshops, etc. Site administrators reserve the right to remove any events. Multiple postings of similar events are discouraged. Vendor (for profit) events are not permitted to be posted.

Commenting on Blog Posts: We encourage active participation on blog posts by having readers comment, whether in agreement or disagreement, but please follow these guidelines:

• Be respectful and polite.
• Engage the author and other readers in conversation.
• Do not post spammy self-serving comments.
• Only link to relevant content.
• Proofread your comments.
• Read the original post from the beginning to the end before commenting.

No Spam. Site Administrators will never share your email address with anyone without your permission (unless required by law). With the exception of schools selling used equipment in the Items For Sale forum, we do not permit advertising by members, and we do not allow membership from those who, in our view, intend to promote a product or a service. Members are expected to refrain from spamming their fellow community members. Obvious spammers (or posters of inappropriate content) will be deleted and banned from the network without warning. Vendors of products or services are permitted to create personal accounts on ISEnet and participate in discussions, so long as they do not actively market or post links to their products or services. The intent of this policy is to allow us to benefit from everyone’s knowledge and participation without being subjected to marketing or advertising in any form. This includes the posting of comments on members’ profile pages, or the sending of direct messages. Any member who does not comply with this policy will be subject to immediate account removal without explanation or warning. Teachers who sell or benefit from the sale of products or services are also subject to this policy. ISEnet administrators reserve the right to terminate any member’s account at any time without warning, when in our judgment, the member is violating any part of our policies. Sometimes content which is posted may not be immediately apparent as spam, so here is how we make a determination (in roughly descending order):

1. Appropriateness of content: Does it relate to education or the process of learning? Does it relate to school or schooling? Does it further the goals of building a pesonalized dynamic online community of teachers, students, & administrators? Please note that the discussion forums are for asking questions and starting discussions, not for announcing of events, products, or services.

2. Are you a known member of our community?: Those who include information that shows us who you are, and what you do, help us to understand your intentions.

3. Quantity of postings, or off-topic content: New members who start posting many off-topic items (e.g. comments, non-education-related) will be removed from the network, as the expected pattern is for new members to join this community and slowly start blogging or joining conversations around educational topics. New members are certainly encouraged to dive right in, but a note of caution is urged if the content which you are posting does not relate to education.

4. Language: At this time, our network managers are primarily English-speaking, so new members who post content in languages other than English should approach us before posting many items (see #3 above) that we may not be able to interpret.

4. Double-posting: Identical items posted in multiple places (e.g. as a blog entry and discussion board entry, and/or as an event entry) will be viewed as spam, and some or all of the duplicate items will be removed with or without notice.

5. Cross-posting: If items are posted on multiple nings they are more likely to be interpreted as spam. (We want to offer unique content!)

Getting banned from the site. Spammers or posters of offensive content will banned without warning and all content from said member is automatically deleted. When there is questionable content we will attempt to contact the member. Failure to respond to administrator requests will result in being banned from the site.

Release of Liability and Indemnification of Site Administrators: Use of Independent School Educators network (the “Site”) is at the sole risk of Members and others who choose to access this Site (collectively, “Users”). Under no circumstances, including, but not limited to, negligence, shall the Administrators of the Site be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, even if the Site Administrators have been advised of the possibility of such damages. As a condition of use of the Site, Users agree to indemnify the Site Administrators, from and against any and all actions, claims, losses, damages, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of User's use of this Site. If the User is dissatisfied with any material on this Site or with any of its policies as set out above, the User's sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue using this Site. The information, documents and materials (collectively, "Materials") on the Site are provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation warranties of accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. This site may contain advice, opinions, and statements of various Users. The Site Administrators do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other information provided by any User of this site or other person or entity. Users of this site specifically acknowledge and agree that the Site Administrators are not liable for any conduct of any other User. Web links to third-party websites do not imply endorsement of the linked site by the Site Administrators. The Site Administrators periodically add, change, improve, or update materials or navigation on this Site without notice, and reserve their exclusive right in their sole discretion to alter, limit or discontinue the site or any Materials in any respect. The Site Administrators grant permission to Users to visit the Site and download and copy the Materials from the Site for non-commercial and derivative use with attribution and share-alike licensing. The Site Administrators reserve the right to deny in their sole discretion any User access to this Site or any portion thereof without notice.

Please also see the Ning's Terms of Service (located on the bottom of the linked page.)


Please feel free to contact us with suggestions or questions on these policies.