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About the Terms of Use

PropaGate Learning, RBGE’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) uses Moodle and Mahara software to offer blended and distance courses to users. The purpose of the Terms of Use is to inform you of our obligations and to lay out appropriate use of these sites.

The term ‘PropaGate Learning’ refers to the sites at propagatelearning.rbge.ac.uk and myportfolio.rbge.ac.uk. Where the term ‘site administrators’ is used, this covers Learning Technologists, office staff, IT staff, managers, and also support staff at CoSector, University of London, our Hosting Company.

Each user (Staff, Student or Guest) is responsible for ensuring that their use of PropaGate Learning complies with this document.

By using PropaGate Learning you agree to be bound by the Terms of Use, which shall take effect immediately at your first log-in. If you do not agree to be bound by all the following Terms of Use you should cease using PropaGate Learning and notify the Education Department at education@rbge.org.uk.

RBGE may revise the Terms of Use by posting the latest version of this document on PropaGate Learning and informing users using the site news facility.

Our Obligations

RBGE will undertake all reasonable steps to provide you with a safe, secure and operational online learning environment. If at any time you feel your rights have not been upheld or you have any questions regarding the Terms of Use, please contact us immediately.

Outages and Upgrades

PropaGate Learning will occasionally be unavailable for short periods of time as we release new system features. We will endeavour to provide at least 3 working days’ notice of any scheduled maintenance via the site news. Major upgrades may result in the site being unavailable for a few days and we will ensure we give you timely advanced warning. 

Objectionable material or inappropriate behaviour

You are encouraged to report objectionable material or inappropriate behaviour immediately. Please contact either your tutor or to the Learning Technology Manager (propagate@rbge.org.uk). We will ensure the matter is investigated in a timely manner.

Inappropriate behaviour includes intentionally attempting to load files with viruses, placing objectionable or excessive feedback, posts or comments in a message, on forums or on any other user's portfolio, misuse of the objectionable material reporting system and any other behaviour deemed to be a nuisance or offensive by an administrator.

Accessing your account

Administrators may access your account, profile, forum posts, assignment uploads or quiz responses, however, they will avoid doing so unless specifically required to support your use of PropaGate Learning or as per these terms and conditions. From time to time, a system administrator may need to login as a user in order to observe exactly what the user is seeing. This is used for troubleshooting purposes and as a last resort, when all other avenues have been exhausted and the user is still experiencing difficulties. The administrator can do this without needing any login information from the user, thus preserving the security of the user’s password.

Your Obligations

Intellectual Property Rights

All files and content you upload to PropaGate Learning are subject to copyright legislation. You are responsible for ensuring you have appropriate permission to reproduce and publish any work that is not your own.

All assessment work uploaded to PropaGate Learning should be your own. Copying others’ work, cheating, collusion, plagiarism and attempting to obtain unfair assessment advantages are forbidden.

Course materials are owned by RBGE unless otherwise stated. Any downloading or copying of course material must be for the sole use of completing the course of study or for reviewing materials as a tutor.

Netiquette (online etiquette)

You are prohibited from using any words or pictures which:

• are sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, pornographic, paedophilic or similarly discriminatory and/or offensive
• advocate or condone, directly or indirectly, criminal activity, or any other activity which may otherwise damage the RBGE’s standing in the UK or abroad
• are defamatory, libellous or threatening
• contain personal data (as defined by the GDPR) about third parties, unless their permission has been given explicitly

You should be polite and courteous to one another and always act in a professional manner.

Copies of your work

You should always keep original copies of work uploaded to PropaGate Learning. RBGE accepts no liability for lost or corrupted data that has been stored on PropaGate Learning.

Your User Account

Access to courses on PropaGate Learning is controlled by user permissions. You should log into PropaGate Learning using your own user account and never allow another user to access PropaGate Learning using your account.

All student accounts are set up with email addresses hidden from other students – you may change this setting to allow other students on your course or on the site to view your email address if you wish. This can be done within your profile settings.

On the rare occasion that you find yourself with access to any part of PropaGate Learning that you do not require or should not have the permission to view, you should inform the Learning Technology Manager (at propagate@rbge.org.uk) and not proceed any further.

Data protection and Security of Data 

Logging of Activities

Activities on PropaGate Learning are fully logged. Records are kept of when you access the site, courses and resources along with a log of all online communication such as forum posts, assignment submissions, page views etc. These records are available to tutors for course/activity completion information, but may also be used as a point of reference for any matters arising, such as accounts of harassment, bullying or the transmitting of inappropriate material.

Students should be aware that in addition to the site administrators, course tutors are able to directly access their files.

Personal Information

Fellow students on the site and authorised persons, for example, tutors, administrators and external examiners will have access to your name, photograph and any discussion comments you make (discussions within courses can only be seen by other students in that course).

You should not post personal or sensitive information to forums, profile, messages or any other area within PropaGate Learning.

PropaGate Learning is hosted by The University of London. In order to provide access to your online course(s) provided by RBGE at https://propagatelearning.rbge.ac.uk and https://myportfolio.rbge.ac.uk, RBGE shares your information with the University of  London. The University of London accesses your information in order to provide technical assistance for the Learning Technology team at RBGE and to store the sites securely for RBGE.

For more information please refer to the RBGE Privacy Notice and the RBGE Education Privacy Policy

Assessment Information and Grades

Only you and authorised persons (your tutors and site administrators) will have access to your assessment information.

External Content

Tutors may add links to useful websites on PropaGate Learning. RBGE cannot accept any responsibility for the content of external sites.

Please email propagate@rbge.org.uk if you have any queries regarding any of the content outlined in this document.

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Updated 28/05/25

Changes: Tiles format information added; Video information updated

Política geral

PropaGate Learning logins are given to people aged 16 or above. By clicking the button below you are confirming that you are aged 16 or older.

If you are under 16, please contact education@rbge.org.uk

Política geral

About these Terms of Use

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh ("RBGE", "we" or "us") provides PropaGate Learning for visitors (the "Guest", "you"), to support the learning opportunities provided by RBGE. PropaGate Learning, RBGE's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) uses Moodle software to offer blended and distance courses to users together with providing free resources to guests. The purpose of these terms of use set out below ("Terms of Use") is to inform you of your obligations to RBGE and to lay out appropriate conditions on your use of this site.

The term ‘PropaGate Learning’ hereinafter refers to the site with the following URL: https://propagatelearning.rbge.ac.uk/. Where the term ‘Site Administrators’ is used, this means Learning Technologists, office staff, IT staff, managers, and also support staff at CoSector, University of London, our Hosting Company.

Each Guest is responsible for ensuring that their use of PropaGate Learning complies with these Terms of Use. 

By using PropaGate Learning you agree to be bound by these Terms of Use, which shall take effect immediately when you first visit the site. If you do not agree to be bound by all the following Terms of Use you should cease using PropaGate Learning.

RBGE may revise these Terms of Use periodically. We will use reasonable efforts to inform you of any material changes.

RBGE will undertake all reasonable steps to provide you with a safe, secure and operational online learning environment. If at any time you feel your rights have not been upheld or you have any questions regarding the Terms of Use, please contact us immediately.

Many materials are available to view without needing a user account. When you visit PropaGate Learning you are automatically logged in as a Guest. Guests can view content and have read-only access, meaning you cannot add content such as posting to forums or receiving grades in quizzes.

Young people

If you are under 18 and have any trouble understanding the conditions set out within these Terms of Use, in the first instance please discuss this with your parent, guardian or carer before you take any further action.

Availability and site maintenance 

PropaGate Learning is intended to be available at all times however we do not guarantee that it or any content made available on it will always be available or that availability will be uninterrupted.  PropaGate Learning will occasionally be unavailable for short periods of time as we release new system features and security updates. We will endeavour to provide reasonable notice of any scheduled maintenance via the site news. Major upgrades may result in the site being unavailable for an extended period and we will ensure we give you timely advanced warning. 
 

Using the site

We provide advice on how to use the site within the Help and Support pages of PropaGate Learning. Support is also available via the contact links on the site.

Online behaviour

You are prohibited from using PropaGate Learning to: 
•    undertake, facilitate, authorise or permit any text or data mining or web scraping of the sites; 
•    breach UK data protection law: The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018; 
•    infringe our intellectual property rights, for example by using our trade marks without our approval; and/or
•    any other behaviour deemed to be a nuisance or offensive by a Site Administrator.

Please be aware we will take action against any breach of these prohibitions and will thoroughly investigate any allegations of a breach. 

Intellectual property rights and using site resources

Course materials and any other materials published by us on PropaGate Learning, unless otherwise stated, are solely owned or licensed by RBGE and we are the owner or the licensee of all associated intellectual property rights. Course materials are protected by copyright legislation and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

With the exception of Learning Resources for Schools, any downloading or copying of course material must only be for the purposes of completing the course of study, for reviewing materials as an RBGE tutor or for developing the course by RBGE staff.

You must not use any part of the content on PropaGate Learning for any other reason without first obtaining permission to do so from us or our licensors.  

Learning resources for schools

You may print off copies, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from PropaGate Learning Resources for Schools pages for non-commercial educational purposes only. You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, except for personal annotations, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
If you wish to change any Learning Resources for Schools to suit your own project or your learners’ needs, please contact us at propagate@rbge.org.uk.

Data protection and security of data 

Logging of activities

Activities on PropaGate Learning are fully logged. Records are kept of when Guests access and view the site, courses and resources. These records are available to tutors, managers and administrators and are used to measure ‘views’. This information is used to check how often resources are used and for reporting to funders.  Your IP address will be logged.

Personal information

As a Guest, your IP address is logged, however RBGE cannot identify any individual from this information.

How we use, process and store your data

PropaGate Learning is hosted by The University of London. In order to provide access to online course(s) provided by RBGE at https://propagatelearning.rbge.ac.uk RBGE shares information with the University of London. The University of London accesses information in order to provide technical assistance for the Learning Technology team at RBGE and to store the sites securely for RBGE. This includes guests’ IP addresses.

For more information please refer to the RBGE Education Privacy Notice (opens in a new tab)
 

External content

Tutors may add links to useful websites on PropaGate Learning. RBGE does not accept any responsibility for the content of external sites. 

Liability

RBGE accepts no liability for any claims, penalties, loss or expenses arising from: any reliance placed on the content; the use or inability to use PropaGate Learning; or any unauthorised access to or alteration of PropaGate Learning or its content. Furthermore, we will not be liable for loss of profits, business interruption, loss of anticipated savings, loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation or any indirect or consequential loss or damage. Nothing in this provision limits or excludes liability that cannot legally be excluded or limited under UK law. 

Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms of Use shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the Laws of Scotland and any disputes that may arise will be subject to the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts. 

Queries

Please email propagate@rbge.org.uk if you have any queries regarding any of the content outlined in this document.

Created July 2025