Privacy Policy

§ 1. General information

  1. The online peer review platform "Peers International" was developed and maintained with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union within the OPTIMA project (618940-EPP-1-2020-1-UA-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP), coordinated by Lviv Polytechnic National University.
  2. The Platform is provided “as-is” without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. Lviv Polytechnic National University does not warrant that the platform and its content, or any part of it, will meet your requirements, provide uninterrupted use, or operate as required without delay or error.

§ 2. Definitions

  1. Online open peer review platform "Peers International" (hereinafter referred to as a Platform) - a dynamic website available online via the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) https://peers.international, providing its users with functionality to view and manage various types of content, such as research papers and supplementary materials, reviews and comments on them, user guides, blog posts, interuser messages, etc. to implement workflows of scholarly materials submission and evaluation as well as communication and support services. The Platform was developed and maintained with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union within the OPTIMA project (618940-EPP-1-2020-1-UA-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP), coordinated by Lviv Polytechnic National University
  2. Platform owner - organization or individual having the ultimate control over the Platform, and that is the legal owner of all the intellectual property available on the Platform, such as software, configuration, the content of any type, etc., except the intellectual property used on the Platform for any purpose, which third parties licensed. Platform owner is Lviv Polytechnic National University, organisation type: higher education institution (tertiary level), non for profit, legal form: public body, address: 12 Bandera Street, 79013 Lviv, Ukraine, e-mail address: it@lpnu.ua, phone number: +38 032 258-20-50.
  3. User - an individual over 18 years of age (or the age of majority in the jurisdiction in which this person is located), who accesses and uses any part of the Platform content and functionality for any purpose, either being registered and/or authorized on the Platform or not. Individuals affiliated with any entity in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus will be not accepted as registered users. By accessing and using the Platform, users agree to Platfrom’s terms and conditions.
  4. ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) - a nonproprietary alphanumeric code to uniquely and persistently identify individual authors and contributors of scholarly communication, registered at https://orcid.org website.
  5. Scopus Author ID is a unique numeric identifier that is used in the Scopus database - https://www.scopus.com. It is assigned automatically to every author after they publish at least one article indexed in Scopus.
  6. Web of Science ResearcherID is a unique alphanumeric identifier that associates researchers with their works in Web of Science database - https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/web-of-science.

§ 3. Processing of personal data

  1. The controller of your personal data, i.e. entities which jointly determine the purposes and means of the processing of personal data, is platform owner: Lviv Polytechnic National University, 12 Bandera Street, 79013 Lviv, Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the Controller as well).
  2. The Controller voluntarily accepts the application of the Regulation (EC) 2016/697 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC, hereinafter referred to as the GDPR to the processing of personal data on the platform developed and maintained with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union within the OPTIMA project (618940-EPP-1-2020-1-UA-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP).
  3. The Controller will process data of a user in order to conclude and perform the agreement for the delivery of a peer review on a scientific paper, perform obligations arising under the provisions of law (e.g. administrative obligations) and exercise legal claims, if any.
  4. The controller collects the following personal data from individuals when they register as a user on the Platform (obligatory information is marked with an asterisk):
    • first and last name*;
    • email address*;
    • organisational affiliation*;
    • country of residence*;
    • fields of research or expertise*;
    • personal photo;
    • professional information such as availability for acting as a peer reviewer and collaboration with other researchers and entities, openness to job offers, etc.;
    • free-text information (personal statement or other additional information a user would like to provide);
    • links to personal profiles and identifiers on third-party websites (ORCiD, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, institutional website, etc.).
  5. Data collected automatically:
    • The Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) of the site you visited before coming to our Website, the URL of the site you visit after leaving our Website, the type of device,  browser, and operating system you are using and your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address;
    • Information about the articles, content, or services that you have searched and/or viewed on the Website;
    • Usage history relating to the Website;
    • Browsing history; and
    • Information we collect on the use of the Website via cookies. For more information, please see the sections below regarding cookies and web beacons.
  6. The user consent is not required for the above purposes because the processing is necessary for the performance of the agreement (legal basis: Article 6.1(b) of the GDPR) or for the compliance with a legal obligation (legal basis: Article 6.1(c) of the GDPR) and for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, if any, which represents the legitimate interests of the Controller (legal basis: Article 6.1(f) of the GDPR).
  7. User gives his/her personal data freely, however the data are necessary for the agreement conclusion and performance and for the performance of obligations imposed on the Controller in relation to the agreement performance.
  8. User’s data may be disclosed to the following categories of recipients for the attaining of the above purposes:
  9. User’s data may also be made available to entities acting at the Controller’s request such as entities performing actions related to the Controller operations (IT services, document management).
  10. Due to the processing of user’s personal data, user has the right to:
    • access his/her personal data processed by the Controller, obtain information about the origin of these data, purposes of the data processing and the data recipients, including data processors,
    • have your data rectified,
    • have your data erased from the Controller’s records if they are not necessary for the above purposes and if the period for which the Controller is entitled to store them expired,
    • request restriction of processing of your data,
    • obtain a copy of your data in a commonly used format,
    • have the data transmitted to another controller (right to data portability),
    • withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before its withdrawal if the processing is based on consent.
  11. In order to exercise the above rights, please do not hesitate to contact the Controller by writing at: it@lpnu.ua.
  12. If you find that the actions taken by the Controller or entities acting on its behalf breach the personal data protection provisions, you have the right to lodge a complaint to the to the data protection authority in your country - https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en.
  13. We acknowledge the importance of protecting personal information. Any personal information provided by Platform users will be treated with the utmost care and security.
  14. The Platform is designed with an open access and open science mindset aiming at fostering communication and collaboration between users, meaning that some required personal information will be published on their profiles and other Platform webpages and therefore disclosed to other users of the Platform and the general public. We will not publicly disclose users’ email addresses. However, users will be offered the option of sending messages to other users' emails via a personal contact form (users will also be able to block receiving such emails).
  15. Regarding the users’ personal information not to be disclosed, we use various physical and technical measures to keep it safe and prevent unauthorized access or usage. Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems with control over access to information using both physical and electronic means. Our colleagues receive data protection training, and there is a set of security and data protection policies that colleagues must follow when handling personal information.
  16. While we take all reasonable steps to ensure that personal information will be kept secure from unauthorised access, we cannot guarantee it will be secure during transmission by you to a website or other services, as we do not control that transmission. We use HTTPS (HTTP Secure), whereby the communication protocol is encrypted via Transport Layer Security (TLS) for secure communication over a computer network. The website is loaded via HTTPS, represented by the lock icon in your web browser, ensuring the transmission is secured with a certificate issued by an official security certificate authority to Lviv Polytechnic National University operating it.
  17. We will retain users' personal information only for as long as is necessary and as applicable laws permit. The personal information will be retained while respective users' accounts on the Platform are active. We may also continue to retain users' personal information to comply with our obligations, meet our legal requirements or to defend or exercise our legal rights. For example, when a person has deleted their user profile on the Platform, we will retain limited details about this person to ensure the possible content authorship remains attributed to them. After we no longer need to retain your personal information, it will be deleted or securely destroyed.

§ 4. Information on cookies

  1. The website does not automatically collect any information, except for information contained in cookie files.
  2. Cookies - small text information sent by the web server and saved on the user's side (on the hard drive, the place of storage is determined by the web browser). The parameters of cookies allow only the server that created them to read the information contained therein. The computer will make the information contained in "cookies" available only to the website from which they come. Cookies are designed to enable the server to remember individual information about the Internet connection session. The use of cookies and similar technologies is also aimed at adapting the website to the needs of users and for statistical purposes.
  3. The entity placing cookies on the website user's end device and accessing them is the operator Lviv Polytechnic National University, organisation type: higher education institution (tertiary level), non for profit, legal form: public body, address: 12 Bandera Street, 79013 Lviv, Ukraine, e-mail address: it@lpnu.ua, hone number: +38 032 258-20-50.
  4. Cookies are used to:
    • adapting the content of the website pages to the user's preferences and optimizing the use of websites; in particular, these files allow to recognize the website user's device and properly display the website, tailored to his individual needs;
    • creating statistics that help to understand how website users use websites, which allows improving their structure and content;
    • maintaining the website user's session (after logging in), thanks to which the user does not have to re-enter the login and password on each subpage of the website;
  5. The website uses two basic types of cookies: "session" (session cookies) and "permanent" (persistent cookies). Session cookies are temporary files that are stored on the user's end device until logging out, leaving the website or turning off the software (web browser). "Permanent" cookies are stored on the user's end device for the time specified in the cookie file parameters or until they are deleted by the user.
  6. Types of cookies used on the website:
    • functional cookies - enabling "remembering" the settings selected by the user and personalizing the user's interface, e.g. in terms of the selected language or region from which the user comes from, font size, website appearance, etc.;
    • "performance" cookies, enabling the collection of information on how to use the website's pages;
    • analytical cookies for the Google Analytics purposes - when you use a Google service, we use various technologies to collect and store information - this may include, for example, sending one or more cookies or an anonymous identifier to your device. We also use cookies and anonymous identifiers when you interact with services we offer to our partners, such as advertising services or Google features running on other websites.
  7. In many cases, the software used for browsing websites (web browser) allows cookies to be stored on the user's end device by default. Website users may change their cookie settings at any time. These settings can be changed in particular in such a way as to block the automatic handling of cookies in the web browser settings or to inform about them each time they are placed on the website user's device. Detailed information on the possibilities and ways of handling cookies are available in the software (web browser) settings.
  8. The user may reject functional cookies or performance cookies or analytical cookies or all of them as well.
  9. The website operator informs that restrictions on the use of cookies may affect some of the functionalities available on the website's websites.

§ 5. Changes to the Privacy Policy

In order to ensure that the Privacy Policy meets the current requirements imposed by law at all times, we reserve the right to amend it at any time. The above also applies in cases where the Privacy Policy requires changes to cover new or changed products or services of the website.