Privacy Information for UoNO Students and Applicants

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This privacy notice applies to current and former students and applicants of the University of Nottingham Online (UoNO), a subsidary of the University of Nottingham. UoNO complies with University of Nottingham policies and procedures. It explains how we'll process your personal data. This notice does not form part of any student or applicant contract.

What information do we hold?

We hold a range of personal data about you, some of which you provide to us directly and some of which we receive from third parties.

Here are some examples of types of personal data we hold:

  • your contact details
  • prior educational experience and attainment
  • immigration information (such as passport details and language proficiency)
  • where relevant, health information (including any disabilities) and other equality monitoring data you provide to us

In addition, if you come to study with UoNO, we'll start keeping data like:

  • academic performance
  • attendance and progression
  • if it's relevant, breaches of our policies (such as academic or other misconduct concerning UoNO activities)

We also process contact and educational details after you stop being a student with us.

How do we use it and why?

When you're an applicant, we process your personal data for the purposes of assessing your eligibility to be offered a place on one of our courses and for identifying any support needs you may have.

If you accept a place on a course and/or register as a student at UoNO, we process your personal data for the purposes of providing our academic programmes and related services, such as welfare support.

In general, this applies to personal data you provides to us to process your application and, if enrolled, to monitor academic performance. Without that information, we wouldn't be able to provide you with your chosen academic programme and related support services.

We pay attention to how you interact with us and may record this information. For example, whether you open or click on our emails, your interactions with UoNO-operated social media accounts, and what you visit on our websites and use this information to personalise future interactions.

We only process data for specified purposes and if it is justified in accordance with data protection law. The table below lists examples of personal data we process and the justification for it.

Purpose of data use and justifications
 PurposeLegal basisJustification
Assessing eligibility to undertake our academic programmes Consent and Contract Consent and/or processing is necessary for the purposes of taking steps prior to entering into a contract with us
Provision of academic programmes and related services (including IT and library services)  Contract Necessary for performing a contract - in other words to provide your chosen academic programme. This can be a contract with us or a contract between you and your sending institution. This is called contractual necessity

Monitor your use of our networks to protect the security and integrity of UoN's IT network and information and electronic communications systems.

Contract Contractual necessity
Assessment of academic progress and performance (including attendance) Contract Contractual necessity
To support investigations into the integrity of student contributions and assessment e.g. determining the originality of assessed work, the use of 3rd party services to provide solutions or answers on behalf of students. Contract Contractual necessity
Operate security, disciplinary, complaint, and quality assurance processes and arrangements Contract Contractual necessity
Monitor compliance by you with UoN’s policies and your other contractual and legal obligations. Contract Contractual necessity
Making reasonable adjustments for disabilities and providing relevant support to students or applicants with ill health. Legal Obligation Necessary for us to comply with our legal obligation under the Equality Act 2010, and for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims relating to the University's duty of care towards students and its obligations to comply with the Equality Act 2010
Regulating UoNO's community (including dealing with misconduct under our procedures for academic and other misconduct) Contract and Legitimate Interest Contractual necessity and our legitimate interest in maintaining academic standards
Obtaining payment of fees Contract Contractual necessity and our legitimate interest in obtaining payment for the services we provide
Protecting our property and assets (for example by dealing with misconduct) Contract and Legitimate Interest Contractual necessity and necessary for our legitimate interest in safeguarding our property and assets
Providing appropriate IT and other infrastructure facilities, for example a virtual learning environment, as well as the development of new IT systems Contract Contractual necessity; legitimate interest in providing a proper infrastructure to support the provision of academic programmes and related student services
Communicating with applicants and students Contract Contractual necessity
Internal Audit Service Legitimate Interest Necessary for our legitimate interests in maintaining internal control, and/or prevention, detection and investigation of fraud
Carrying out internal research and analysis for non-academic (research) purposes including monitoring performance and quality at an institutional level and where there is no direct impact on data subjects Legitimate Interest Legitimate interest in ensuring that the University is able to benefit its staff and students through understanding how they are impacted by its practices and enacting continuous improvement to its policies, processes and technologies.
Carrying out teaching and learning surveys to enable UoNO to plan teaching, learning and assessment, and support. There may be some data matching of participants' non-special category data from other UoN/UoNO systems, but all outputs are non-identifiable. Consent is sought for any inclusion of special category data. Legitimate Interest/ Consent Legitimate interest in ensuring that the University is able to benefit its staff and students through understanding how they are impacted by its practices and enacting continuous improvement to its policies, processes and technologies.
Sharing relevant student details with the Office for Students or their contractors for the purposes of conduting the National Student Study (NSS). Task carried out in the public interest The University is required to share contact details to the OfS or their contractors for this purpose.
For the purpose of obtaining professional accreditation and charter marks, such as Athena Swann. Legitimate Interest Data will be shared in aggregated and anonymised format. The legal basis for this processing is legitimate interest.
Recording of calls to UoNO/UoN helplines, such as the DTS Service Desk.  Legitimate Interests UoN is entitled to record such information to enable it to identify training needs and monitor service level agreements

There may be other processing in addition to the above, for example, when you access our website which uses cookies. This is done on the basis of our other policies, and we will inform you about such processing at the time when the data is obtained or as soon as we can afterwards.

Where the basis of processing your personal data is a contractual necessity and you don't provide us with the personal data needed, UoNO may not be able to process your application or provide you with the programme for which you have applied.

What information do we get from third parties?

Sometimes we receive your data from third parties. The following table lists what information we may receive from them.

Who we get data from
Data we may receiveSource
Your immigration status Home Office (UKVI), Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Your financial status Student Loans Company
Details of any University associated complaint Officer of the Independent Adjudicator

 

Who do we share it with?

Sometimes we may need to share your data. The following table gives examples of this kind of data sharing.

Who we share data with
RecipientsData which we may share with them
Our academic staff Contact details, attendance and progression information, education and attainment data, and where necessary for the implementation of reasonable adjustments and/or the provision of other support and subject to your consent health information. Your contact details may also be used by these staff when recruiting to related extra-curricular activities, such as volunteering opportunities
Our administrative and support staff Contact details, immigration details, progression information, education and attainment data, and where necessary for the implementation of reasonable adjustments and/or the provision of other support and subject to your consent health information. Your contact details may also be used by these staff when recruiting to related extra-curricular activities, such as volunteering opportunities
Our alumni team Contact details, attendance, attainment and progression information
The University of Nottingham Students' Union Contact details and student record details where relevant to enabling the opportunities offered to students by the Union, where required for the purposes of supporting efficient and effective engagement to support the efficient and effective engagement of all eligible Students in the democratic functions of UoNSU, to support the inclusion of representatives of UoNSU (including Student representatives) on University committees that may include discussions about, or the provision of, data or statistics that could potentially include that of identifiable persons (including other Students); to support the efficient and effective communication of UoNSU services to all Students; to support the administration of all elections, and membership activity; to enable effective management and planning of UoNSU services and facilities; to support any investigations, or matters pertaining to, Student safety, wellbeing, safeguarding or the prevention or detection of crime in order to ensure a secure and safe environment for students, staff and visitors; and to comply with any legal obligation to which either Party is subject. Data also includes special category data relating to ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability information, as well as widening participation flags for the purposes of equaties and diversity monitoring. Access to this data is tightly restricted and is used for anonymous reporting purposes only.
Your employer Details as to how you are performing in the academic part of your apprenticeship
Official bodies to which the University is obliged to report, for example HESA  and the Office for Students, or their agents Information supplied as necessary to fulfil the University's reporting obligations to these bodies. This may include relevant special category data.

You can find HESA's Privacy Notices here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/about/regulation/data-protection/notices

We supply contact information to the OfS for the purposes of inviting students to participate in the National Student Survey (NSS), and for auditing.
External examiners Identification details and exam papers and assessment records
Data processors (in other words third parties who process personal data on our behalf, such as software providers)

Application details, attendance and attainment records, contact information and account credential where required for single sign-in.

UoNO has the following major partners with whom it shares personal data in order to deliver its services to you:

  • Totara/Catalyst - Learning platform
  • Connected Shopping Limited - e-Commerce Solution - Processing of course credits, refunds etc
  • Accredible - Badging services
  • D-Space - Digital Asset Management
  • Course Merchant - Booking and administration of courses to be delivered via Totara
  • YOTI - ID verification
Government agencies, for example HMRC (only upon request and where there is a legal basis for doing so) Contact details
Police (only upon request and where there is a legal basis for doing so) Information supplied as necessary in order to fulfil the University's legal obligations with respect to fire prevention and detection of crime

When do we transfer data overseas (outside of the UK or European Union)?

As shown in the table above, we will share your data with your placement provider, who may be outside of the UK/EU/EEA, on the grounds that such transfer is necessary for performing our contract with you.

UoNO also works with suppliers and partners who may make use of cloud and/or hosted technologies based outside of the EEA. We undertake data security due diligence on our partners, ensure that suitable contracts are in place and that these partners conform to appropriate accreditations.

Wherever these transfers take place, UoNO or will have an appropriate contract in place and there are strict rules regarding the confidentiality and security of your information in place to safeguard it.

How long do we keep your data?

Usually application-related personal data will be kept for around one year.

Contractual information (for example details of performance and contact details) is retained for six years after you have completed or otherwise terminated your programme. Retention periods are usually linked to legal limitation (statute of limitation) periods. The University's records retention schedule is available online.

Where can I get more information?

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact the data protection team.

We will keep this privacy notice under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page.

This page was last updated on 09 October 2023 at 10:46 (GMT)

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