These
Instructor Terms were last updated August 5, 2020.
When
you sign up to become an instructor on the Gurukol platform, you agree to abide
by these Instructor Terms ("Terms"). These Terms cover details
about the aspects of the Gurukol platform relevant to instructors and are
incorporated by reference into our Terms of Use, the general terms that
govern your use of our Services. Any capitalized terms that aren't defined in
these Terms are defined as specified in the Terms of Use.
As
an instructor, you are contracting directly with Gurukol, Inc. (a Virginia
corporation in the United States), regardless of whether another Gurukol
subsidiary facilitates payments to you.
1. Instructor Obligations
As
an instructor, you are responsible for all content that you post, including
lectures, quizzes, coding exercises, practice tests, assignments, resources,
answers, course landing page content, and announcements ("Submitted
Content").
You
represent and warrant that:
you will provide and maintain accurate account
information;
you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents,
permissions, and authority to authorize Gurukol to use your Submitted Content
as specified in these Terms and the Terms of Use;
your Submitted Content will not infringe or
misappropriate any third party's intellectual property rights;
you have the required qualifications, credentials, and
expertise (including education, training, knowledge, and skill sets) to teach
and offer the services that you offer through your Submitted Content and use of
the Services; and
you will respond promptly to students and ensure a
quality of service that corresponds with the standards of your industry and
instruction services in general.
You
warrant that you will not:
post or provide any inappropriate, offensive, racist,
hateful, sexist, pornographic, false, misleading, incorrect, infringing,
defamatory or libelous content or information;
post or transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized
advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, spam, or any other form of
solicitation (commercial or otherwise) through the Services or to any user;
use the Services for business other than providing
tutoring, teaching, and instructional services to students;
engage in any activity that would require us to obtain
licenses from or pay royalties to any third party, including the need to pay
royalties for the public performance of a musical work or sound recording;
frame or embed the Services (such as to embed a free
version of a course) or otherwise circumvent the Services;
impersonate another person or gain unauthorized access to
another person's account;
interfere with or otherwise prevent other instructors
from providing their services or courses; or
abuse Gurukol resources, including support services.
2. License to Gurukol
You
grant Gurukol the rights detailed in the Terms of Use to offer,
market, and otherwise exploit your Submitted Content, and to sublicense it to
students for these purposes directly or through third parties. This includes
the right to add captions or otherwise modify content to ensure accessibility.
Unless
otherwise agreed (including within our Promotions Policy), you have the
right to remove all or any portion of your Submitted Content from the Services
at any time. Except as otherwise agreed, Gurukol's right to sublicense the
rights in this section will terminate with respect to new users 60 days after
the Submitted Content's removal. However, (1) rights given to students before
the Submitted Content's removal will continue in accordance with the terms of
those licenses (including any grants of lifetime access) and (2) Gurukol's
right to use such Submitted Content for marketing purposes shall survive
termination.
We
may record all or any part of your Submitted Content for quality control and
for delivering, marketing, promoting, demonstrating, or operating the Services.
You grant Gurukol permission to use your name, likeness, voice, and image in
connection with offering, delivering, marketing, promoting, demonstrating, and
selling the Services, your Submitted Content, or Gurukol's content, and you
waive any rights of privacy, publicity, or other rights of a similar nature, to
the extent permissible under applicable law.
3. Trust & Safety
3.1 Trust & Safety
Policies
You
agree to abide by Gurukol's Trust & Safety policies, Restricted
Topics policy, and other course quality standards or policies prescribed by Gurukol
from time to time. You should check these policies periodically to ensure that
you comply with any updates to them. You understand that your use of the
Services is subject to Gurukol's approval, which we may grant or deny at our
sole discretion.
We
reserve the right to remove courses, suspend payouts, and/or ban instructors
for any reason at any time, without prior notice, including in cases where:
an instructor or course does not comply with our policies
or legal terms (including the Terms of Use);
a course falls below our quality standards or has a
negative impact on the student experience;
an instructor engages in behavior that might reflect
unfavorably on Gurukol or bring Gurukol into public disrepute, contempt,
scandal, or ridicule;
an instructor engages the services of a marketer or other
business partner who violates Gurukol's policies; or
as determined by Gurukol in its sole discretion.
3.2 Co-Instructors and
Teaching Assistants
The
Gurukol platform allows you to add other users as co-instructors or teaching
assistants for courses that you manage. By adding a co-instructor or teaching
assistant, you understand that you are authorizing them to take certain actions
that affect your Gurukol account and courses. Gurukol is not able to advise on
any questions or mediate any disputes between you and such users. If your
co-instructors have an assigned revenue share, their share will be paid out of
your earned revenue share based on the ratios you have specified in your Course
Management settings as of the date of the purchase.
3.3 Relationship to Other
Users
Instructors
don't have a direct contractual relationship with students, so the only
information you'll receive about students is what is provided to you through
the Services. You agree that you will not use the data you receive for any
purpose other than providing your services to those students on the Gurukol
platform, and that you won't solicit additional personal data or store
students' personal data outside the Gurukol platform. You will indemnify Gurukol
against any claims arising from your use of students' personal data.
3.4 Anti-Piracy Efforts
We
partner with anti-piracy vendors to help protect your courses from unauthorized
use. To enable this protection, you hereby appoint Gurukol and our anti-piracy
vendors as your agents for the purpose of enforcing copyrights for each of your
courses, through notice and takedown processes (under applicable copyright laws
like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and for other efforts to enforce
those rights. You grant Gurukol and our anti-piracy vendors primary authority
to file notices on your behalf to enforce your copyright interests.
You
agree that Gurukol and our anti-piracy vendors will retain the above rights
unless you revoke them by sending an email to [email protected] with the
subject line: "Revoke Anti-Piracy Protection Rights" from the email
address associated with your account. Any revocation of rights will be
effective 48 hours after we receive it.
4. Pricing
4.1 Price Setting
When
creating a course, you will be prompted to select a base price ("Base
Price") for your course. Alternatively, you may NOT choose to offer
your course for free. As a premium instructor, you will also be given the
opportunity to participate in certain promotional programs under the terms of
our Promotions Policy ("Promotional Programs").
If
you do not opt to participate in any Promotional Programs, we will list your
course for the Base Price set up by you or the closest local or mobile app
equivalent (as detailed below).
When
a student purchases using a foreign currency, we will convert the relevant Base
Price or Promotional Program price into the student's applicable currency using
a system-wide foreign currency conversion rate set by Gurukol and fixed
periodically into a table of corresponding price tiers by currency ("Price
Tier Matrix"). Since the Price Tier Matrix is fixed, those conversion rates may
not be identical to the applicable market rate in effect when a transaction is
processed. We reserve the right to update the Price Tier Matrix at any time.
When
a student purchases through a mobile application, the mobile platform
provider's pricing matrix will control, and we will choose the price tier
closest to the applicable Base Price or Promotional Program price. Because
mobile platforms impose their own currency conversion rates, conversions for
mobile app prices may not match the conversions in the Price Tier Matrix.
You
give us permission to share your courses for free with our employees, with
selected partners, and in cases where we need to restore access accounts who
have previously purchased your courses. You understand that you will not
receive compensation in these cases.
4.2 Transaction Taxes
If
a student purchases a product or service in a country that requires Gurukol to
remit national, state, or local sales or use taxes, value added taxes (VAT), or
other similar transaction taxes ("Transaction Taxes"), under
applicable law, we will collect and remit those Transaction Taxes to the
competent tax authorities for those sales. We may increase the sale price at
our discretion where we determine that such taxes may be due. For purchases
through mobile applications, applicable Transaction Taxes are collected by the
mobile platform (such as Apple's App Store or Google Play).
4.3 Promotional Programs
Gurukol
offers several optional marketing programs (Promotional Programs) in which you
can choose to participate, as detailed in our Promotions Policy. These
programs can help increase your revenue potential on Gurukol by finding the
optimal price point for your courses and promoting them through additional
marketing channels.
There
is no up-front cost to participate in these programs, and you can modify your
participation status at any time, though changes you make will not apply to
currently active campaigns.
5. Payments
5.1 Revenue Share
When
a student purchases your course, we calculate the gross amount of the sale as
the amount actually received by Gurukol from the student ("Gross Amount").
From this, we subtract any Transaction Taxes, any mobile platform fees applied
to mobile application sales, a 3 percentage administrative and handling fee
(except in Japan, where we subtract a 4 percentage fee) for any non-mobile-app
sales, and any amounts paid to third parties in connection with the Promotional
Programs to calculate the net amount of the sale ("Net Amount").
If
you have not opted into any of Gurukol's optional Promotional Programs, your
revenue share will be 50 percentage of the Net Amount less any applicable deductions,
such as student refunds. If we change this payment rate, we will provide you 30
days’ notice using prominent means, such as via email or by posting a notice
through our Services.
If
you opt into any of the Promotional Programs, the relevant revenue share may be
different and will be as specified in the Promotions Policy.
Gurukol
makes all instructor payments in U.S. dollars (USD) regardless of the currency
with which the sale was made. We will assume transaction processing fees,
excluding foreign currency conversion fees and wiring fees. Your revenue report
will show the sales price (in local currency) and your converted revenue amount
(in USD).
5.2 Receiving Payments
For
us to pay you in a timely manner, you must own a PayPal account in good
standing and must keep us informed of the correct email associated with your
account. You must also provide any identifying information or tax documentation
(such as a W-9 or W-8) necessary for payment of amounts due, and you agree that
we have the right to withhold appropriate taxes from your payments. We reserve
the right to withhold payments or impose other penalties if we do not receive
proper identifying information or tax documentation from you. You understand
and agree that you are ultimately responsible for any taxes on your income.
Depending
on the applicable revenue share model, payment will be made within 10 days of
the end of the month in which (a) we receive the fee for a course or (b) the
relevant course consumption occurred.
As
an instructor, you are responsible for determining whether you are eligible to
be paid by a U.S. company. We reserve the right not to pay out funds in the
event of identified fraud, violations of intellectual property rights, or other
violations of the law.
If
we cannot settle funds into your payment account after the period of time set
forth by your state, country, or other government authority in its unclaimed
property laws, we may process the funds due to you in accordance with our legal
obligations, including by submitting those funds to the appropriate government
authority as required by law.
5.3 Refunds
You
acknowledge and agree that students have the right to receive a refund, as
detailed in the Terms of Use. Instructors will not receive any revenue
from transactions for which a refund has been granted under the Terms of Use.
If
a student asks for a refund after we have paid the relevant instructor payment,
we reserve the right to either (1) deduct the amount of the refund from the
next payment sent to the instructor or (2) where no further payments are due to
the instructor or the payments are insufficient to cover the refunded amounts,
require the instructor to refund any amounts refunded to students for the
instructor's courses.
6. Trademarks
While
you are a published instructor and subject to the requirements below, you may
use our trademarks where we authorize you to do so.
You
must:
only use the images of our trademarks that we make
available to you, as detailed in any guidelines we may publish;
only use our trademarks in connection with the promotion
and sale of your Gurukol courses or your participation on Gurukol; and
immediately comply if we request that you discontinue
use.
You
must not:
use our trademarks in a misleading or disparaging way;
use our trademarks in a way that implies that we endorse,
sponsor, or approve of your courses or services; or
use our trademarks in a way that violates applicable law
or in connection with an obscene, indecent, or unlawful topic or material.
7. Sanctions and Export
Laws
You
warrant that you aren't restricted from using the Services under U.S. sanctions
or export laws (as an individual or as an officer, director, or controlling
shareholder of any entity on whose behalf you use the Services). If you become
subject to such a restriction while you are subject to these Instructor Terms,
you will notify Gurukol within 24 hours, and we will have the right to
terminate any further obligations to you, effective immediately and with no
further liability to you (but without prejudice to your outstanding obligations
to Gurukol). You will not use the Services to conduct or facilitate any
transaction with any other individual or entity subject to such a restriction.
You may not remove, export, or allow the export or re-export of the Services
(or any product thereof, including technical data) outside the U.S. in violation
of any restrictions, laws, or regulations of the U.S. or any other applicable
country.
8. Deleting Your Account
Instructions
on how to delete your instructor account are available here. We'll use
commercially reasonable efforts to make any remaining scheduled payments that
are owed to you before deleting your account. You understand that if students
have previously enrolled in your courses, your name and that Submitted Content
will remain accessible to those students after your account is deleted. If you
need help or encounter difficulty deleting your account, you can contact us via
our Support Center.
9. Miscellaneous Legal
Terms
9.1 Updating These Terms
From
time to time, we may update these Terms to clarify our practices or to reflect
new or different practices (such as when we add new features), and Gurukol
reserves the right in its sole discretion to modify and/or make changes to
these Terms at any time. If we make any material change, we will notify you
using prominent means such as by email notice sent to the email address
specified in your account or by posting a notice through our Services.
Modifications will become effective on the day they are posted unless stated
otherwise.
Your
continued use of our Services after changes become effective shall mean that
you accept those changes. Any revised Terms shall supersede all previous Terms.
9.2 Translations
Any
version of these Terms in a language other than English is provided for
convenience and you understand and agree that the English language will control
if there is any conflict.
9.3 Relationship Between
Us
You
and we agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, contractor, or
agency relationship exists between us.
9.4 Survival
The
following sections shall survive the expiration or termination of these Terms:
Sections 2 (License to Gurukol), 3.3 (Relationship to Other Users), 5.2
(Receiving Payments), 5.3 (Refunds), 8 (Deleting Your Account), and 9
(Miscellaneous Legal Terms).
10. How to Contact Us
The
best way to get in touch with us is to contact our Support Team. We'd love
to hear your questions, concerns, and feedback about our Services.
