Introduction

This privacy policy covers the New Curiosity Shop™ and its website.

The New Curiosity Shop is an online business based in Scotland (8 Craiglockhart Bank, Edinburgh, EH14 1JN). Our principal activities are the provision and delivery of online courses, the provision of consultancy services in online education and learning, and research into online education.

You can visit our home page and browse parts of our site without disclosing your personal data.

As a subscriber we ask for your e-mail address, your full name and (optional) the areas you are interested in. This enables us to contact you when new courses which may be of interest to you become available. It also helps us to gauge the popularity of different areas of study

As a student at the New Curiosity Shop we require further details (click here to see the table) including a geographical address and telephone number. Additional information may be required when enrolling for courses accredited by external bodies – in such cases your personal details will be forwarded to the accrediting organisation. When enrolling on an accredited course you will need to check a box agreeing to your details being forwarded to the third party. Payment for courses is carried out online but we do not hold any credit card or bank details (see our data protection statement for further details).

We at the New Curiosity Shop are committed to employing tutors who are qualified in their field and have experience in the delivery of distance learning courses. We therefore require from prospective tutors a detailed CV and the names of two referees – please go to Teach Online for further information.

Prospective clients of the New Curiosity Shop, wishing to enquire about our services, should in the first instance contact us via email (services), telephone (0131 208 1900), or letter (The New Curiosity Shop, 8 Craiglockhart Bank, Edinburgh, EH14 1JN) outlining their requirements.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. All students on a New Curiosity Shop course must be 16 years or over. Please see our User Agreement for further details.

We have implemented security policies, rules and technical measures to protect personal data that we have under our control from:

• unauthorised access;

• improper use or disclosure;

• unauthorised modification; and,

• unlawful destruction or accidental loss.

All our employees and data processors who have access to, and are associated with the processing of, personal data, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of such data.
We ensure that your personal data will not be disclosed to State institutions and authorities except if required by law or other regulation.

You can ask what personal information we hold on you by contacting us. Our details are available on our Contact Us page. Once we are confident of your identity we will provide you with a readable copy of the personal data which we keep about you. There is a small charge of £5 to provide this information.

You may change the data that we hold about you, and where appropriate, you may have the data erased, rectified or amended, or completed. By enrolling as a student or being employed as a tutor you agree to inform us of any material changes to the personal data we hold on you.

Our website may, and individual courses will, contain links to third party websites. These sites are governed by separate privacy polices unrelated to the New Curiosity Shop and if concerned you should consult the privacy policy statements of the relevant sites.

Cookies are small pieces of code that are stored on a computer when communicating with some web servers. Their main purpose is to identify users to the web server and possibly prepare customised web pages. Cookies cannot read your hard disk nor make any information collected by the use of a cookie available to any third party. A cookie can only be read by the organisation that installs it. Any cookies used by the New Curiosity Shop will only be active once you are enrolled on a course, in which case they are used to facilitate and improve your access to course materials.
Cookies will not be used by us for anyone browsing our website as a visitor.

As a visitor, student, tutor or client of the New Curiosity Shop you will not be sent unsolicited e-mail from us. As a subscriber, tutor or client you may subscribe to the New Curiosity Shop, in which case you may receive e-mails concerning new courses and new developments at the New Curiosity Shop which we consider to be of interest to you. Once you have subscribed to our e-mail service you can at any time unsubscribe by replying using the e-mail link at the bottom of the e-mail or by sending an e-mail to unsubscribe.

In line with our policy that all courses at the New Curiosity Shop provide ‘online learning with the personal touch’ we encourage tutors to use Forums and Chat Rooms in their courses. These provide an opportunity for the students and tutor to simulate face-to-face interaction and, we believe, greatly enhance the learning experience of the student. These facilities are only open to students enrolled on your diet of the course and (usually) the tutor. Remember that any information you disclose will be made available to fellow students and will remain visible to them for the duration of the course. It is therefore your responsibility not to disclose any confidential, personal or proprietary information.

The New Curiosity Shop seeks to abide by the regulations as set out in the following regulations:

The Data Protection Act 1998.
The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000.
The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) regulations 2002.
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

Any changes that are made to this policy will be posted on this site. You should check the site from time to time to make sure that you are aware of any changes that have been made.

If you have any questions about this policy statement please contact us via email at: privacy.