Terms and Conditions of Use

1. Introduction

1.1 These terms and conditions shall govern your use of our website www.reviewercredits.com (“Website”) and our Services (as described below).
1.2 By using our Website, even when you do so without being registered or having logged in, you accept these terms and conditions in full and you agree to enter into a legally binding agreement (“Agreement” or “User Agreement”) with Reviewer Credits GmbH (“ReviewerCredits” or “we” or “Us”); accordingly, if you disagree with these terms and conditions or any part of these terms and conditions, you must not use our Website. As a registered member, if you wish to terminate this Agreement, at any time you can do so by closing your account and no longer accessing or using our Website and our Services.
1.3 If you register with our Website, you will be asked to expressly agree to these terms and conditions.
1.4 You must be at least 18 years of age to use our Website; by using our Website and agreeing to these terms and conditions, you warrant and represent to us that you are at least 18 years of age.
1.5 Our Website uses cookies; by using our Website and agreeing to these terms and conditions, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy, which covers how we collect, use, share, and store your personal information.

2. Services

2.1 Through the Website we provide you the following services (“Services”):
2.1.1. For Scientists. If you complete a registration for an account as “Individuals” with our Website, you may benefit from certain services, including but not limited to:
(i) obtain certification and recognition of your activity as a peer reviewer and/or as a conference speaker;
(ii) claim a peer review you have performed on behalf of a Journal (“Review Claim”);
(iii) make your name and your profile available in a list of registered reviewer (“Reviewer Ranking”), including the number of Credits you have gained and your reviewer score (“Reviewer Score”);
(iv) claim a talk you have given at any conference or congress (“Claim a Talk”);
(v) gain credits (“Credits”) to spend on our Reward Center (as defined below).
2.1.2. For Journals. If you complete a registration for an account as “Journals” with our Website, you may choose one of the following subscription:
A. Free Services subscription (“Free Services”), which makes available to you certain services, including but not limited to:
(i) Have your journal showcase page;
(ii) Assign a certain number of Credits to Scientists for each completed peer review;
(iii) provide discounts and benefits towards our products (e.g. discount on APCs, purchase of articles or books, courses and so forth) in our Reward Center (as defined below).
B. Plus Services annual subscription (“Plus Services”), which allows you, for a period of 1 (one) year, the following services in addition to Free Services, including but not limited to:
(i) assign a greater number of Credits to Scientists for each completed peer review;
(ii) individual peer review certification for your journal.
C. Premium Services annual subscription (“Premium Services”), which allows you, for a period of 1 (one) year, the following services in addition to Free Services and Plus Services, including but not limited to:
(i) assign a greater number of Credits to Scientists for each completed peer review;
(ii) search and contact Scientists as reviewers.
2.1.3. For Conferences. If you complete a registration for an account as “Conferences” with our Website, you may benefit from certain services, including but not limited to:
(i) promote your event;
(ii) index your abstracts or proceedings;
(iii) find relevant speakers among Scientists.
2.2 In the ReviewerCredits virtual Reward Center (“Reward Center”) we may make available services, goods, discounts provided by our partners, which may be claimed by Scientist using the Credits gained. We reserve the right to change or remove some services, goods or discounts from our Reward Center.
2.3 As a Journal, if you subscribe to Plus Services or to Premium Services (“Paid Services”), you agree to pay us the applicable fees and taxes and to the following additional terms specific to the Paid Services. Failure to pay these fees will result in the termination of your Paid Services.
2.4 When you subscribe to Paid Services:
(i) you are asked to choose the payment method option among those available;
(ii) you agree to pay the amount corresponding to the Paid Services subscribed;
(iii) you also agree to pay all applicable taxes, government charges and foreign exchange fees;
(iv) your payment method automatically will be charged at the start of each subscription period for the fees and taxes applicable to that period. To avoid future charges, cancel before the renewal date.
2.5 We will periodically charge, through the payment method you have chosen, the amount corresponding to the Paid Services you have subscribed. All amounts paid are non-refundable. You remain responsible for any uncollected amounts. According to the applicable law, we may charge interest for any overdue amounts.
2.6 At the end of the subscription annual period you may renew or change your Paid Services or you may return to Free Services. In case you change your Paid Services or you return to Free Services, you will maintain your profile but you will lose access to the services related to the cancelled Paid Services.
2.7 We may change, suspend or discontinue any of our Services. We may also modify our prices effective prospectively upon reasonable notice to the extent allowed under the law.

3. Intellectual Property Rights

3.1 Reviewer Credits owns and controls all the economic exploitation rights in and to our Website, the Services and, except for Your Content as provided for in Section 9, the materials on our Website.

4. License to use Website

4.1 Reviewer Credits grants you a non-exclusive right to use the Website and the Services for the entire duration you are registered for an account on our Website. According to this license to use Website, subject to the other provisions of these terms and conditions, you may:
(i) view pages from our Website in a web browser;
(ii) download pages from our Website for caching in a web browser;
(iii) print pages from our Website;
(iv) register for an account with our Website as indicated by Section [•]
(v) [•].
4.2 Except as expressly permitted by Section 4.1 or the other provisions of these terms and conditions, you must not download any material from our Website or save any such material to your computer.
4.3 You may only use our website for your own personal purposes and you must not use our website for any other purposes.
4.4 Except as expressly permitted by these terms and conditions, you must not edit or otherwise modify any material on our website.
4.5 Unless you own or control the relevant rights in the material, you must not:
(i) republish material from our website (including republication on another website);
(ii) sell, rent or sub-license material from our website;
(iii) exploit material from our Website for a commercial purpose; or
(iv) redistribute material from our Website.
4.6 We reserve the right to restrict access to areas of our Website, or indeed our whole Website, at our discretion; you must not circumvent or bypass, or attempt to circumvent or bypass, any access restriction measures on our Website.
4.7 You may not sub-license the Use of our Website and of the Services.

5. Acceptable use

5.1 You must not:
(i) use our Website in any way or take any action that causes, or may cause, damage to the Website or impairment of the performance, availability or accessibility of the Website;
(ii) use our Website in any way that is unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful, or in connection with any unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful purpose or activity;
(iii) use our Website to copy, store, host, transmit, send, use, publish or distribute any material which consists of (or is linked to) any spyware, computer virus, Trojan horse, worm, keystroke logger, rootkit or other malicious computer software;
(iv) conduct any systematic or automated data collection activities (including without limitation scraping, data mining, data extraction and data harvesting) on or in relation to our website without our express written consent;
(v) access or otherwise interact with our Website using any robot, spider or other automated means;
5.2 Except as expressly permitted by these terms and conditions, you must not use data collected from our website to contact individuals, companies or other persons or entities.
5.3 You must ensure that all the information you supply to us through our Website, or in relation to our Website, is true, accurate, current, complete and non-misleading.

6. Registration and accounts

6.1 To be eligible for an account (as Individuals, Journals or Conferences) on our Website under this Section 6, you must be at least 18 years of age.
6.2 You may register for an account (as Individuals, Journals or Conferences) with our Website by completing and submitting one of the account registration form on our Website, and clicking on the verification link in the email that the Website will send to you.
6.3 You must not allow any other person to use your account to access the Website.
6.4 You must notify us in writing immediately if you become aware of any unauthorised use of your account.
6.5 You must not use any other person’s account to access the Website, unless you have that person’s express permission to do so.
6.6 Your profile information must be truthful.
6.7 You must not register for an account on behalf or others or persons under the age of 18.

7. User login details

7.1 If you register for an account (as Individuals, Journals or Conferences) with our Website, you will be asked to choose a user ID and a strong password.
7.2 When you register for an account, we may allow you to login through other platforms (such as, by way of example, ORCID, Twitter, Google, Linkedin).
7.3 Your user ID must not be liable to mislead and must comply with the content rules set out in Section 10; you must not use your account or user ID for or in connection with the impersonation of any person.
7.4 You must keep your password confidential.
7.5 You must notify us in writing immediately if you become aware of any disclosure of your password.
7.6 You are responsible for any activity on our Website arising out of any failure to keep your password confidential, and may be held liable for any losses arising out of such a failure.

8. Cancellation and suspension of account

8.1 We may:
(i) suspend your account;
(ii) cancel your account; at any time in our sole discretion without notice or explanation.
8.2 You may cancel your account on our website by contacting [email protected].

9. Your content: license

9.1 In these terms and conditions, “Your Content” means all works, information and materials (with a specific reference to the “Review Claims”, but also text, graphics, images) that you submit to us or our Website for storage or publication on, processing by, or transmission via, our Website.
9.2 By submitting Your Content to us or our Website through our Services you grant ReviewerCredits a non-exclusive worldwide, transferable and sub-licensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish and process, Your Content, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others.
9.3 You acknowledge that no compensation will be provided for the grant of the exploitation rights listed above in and to Your Content, as your claims are satisfied by the use of our Website and of our Services.
9.4 By filling a “Review Claim” on our Website you authorize us to contact the Journal which you indicate in the claim and disclose to the Journal the data you provide us. We will be free to contact the Journal by any email address or other channel (website, telephone, fax) which we deem appropriate without providing you any notice in advance.
9.5 We are not responsible:
(i) for any erroneous data provided by you in Your Content and in your “Review Claim”;
(ii) for any dispute between you and any Journal, related or not to the “Review Claims”.
9.6 By filling a “Claim a Talk” on our Website you authorize us to contact the Conference which you indicate in the claim and disclose to the Conference the data you provide us. We will be free to contact the Conference by any email address or other channel (website, telephone, fax) which we deem appropriate without providing you any notice in advance.
9.7 We are not responsible:
(i) for for any erroneous data provided by you in Your Content and in your “Claim a Talk”;
(ii) for any dispute between you and any Conference, related or not to the “Claim a Talk”
9.8 You grant to us the right to bring an action for infringement of the rights licensed under Section 9.4 or 9.6.
9.9 You may edit Your Content to the extent permitted using the editing functionality made available on our Website.
9.10 You can end this license for specific content by deleting such content from the Services, or generally by closing your account, except (a) to the extent you shared it with others as part of the Service and they copied, re-shared it or stored it and (b) for the reasonable time it takes to remove from backup and other systems.
9.11 Without prejudice to our other rights under these terms and conditions, if you breach any provision of these terms and conditions in any way, or if we reasonably suspect that you have breached these terms and conditions in any way, we may delete, unpublish or edit any or all of Your Content.

10. Your Content: rules

10.1 You warrant and represent that Your Content will comply with these terms and conditions.
10.2 Your Content must not be illegal or unlawful, must not infringe any person’s legal rights, must not infringe not violate the law nor anyone’s rights (including intellectual property rights) and must not be capable of giving rise to legal action against any person (in each case in any jurisdiction and under any applicable law). You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Reviewer Credits, including each of its officers, directors, agents and employees, from and against any and all claims, demands, actions, suits prosecutions, and all damages, costs (including reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs, and excerpt witnesses’ fees), loss, liability and expense based upon or arising out of or in connection with any claim which, taking the claimant’s allegations to be true, would result in a breach by you of any of your obligations, warranties and covenants set forth in this Section 10.
10.3 Your Content, and the use of Your Content by us in accordance with these terms and conditions, must not:
(i) be libellous or maliciously false;
(ii) be obscene or indecent;
(iii) infringe any copyright, moral right, database right, trade mark right, design right, right in passing off, or other intellectual property right;
(iv) infringe any right of confidence, right of privacy or right under data protection legislation;
(v) constitute negligent advice or contain any negligent statement;
(vi) constitute an incitement to commit a crime;
(vii) be in contempt of any court, or in breach of any court order;
(viii) be in breach of racial or religious hatred or discrimination legislation;
(ix) be blasphemous;
(x) be in breach of official secrets legislation;
(xi) be in breach of any contractual obligation owed to any person;
(xii) depict violence;
(xiii) be pornographic
(xiv) be untrue, false, inaccurate or misleading;
(xv) consist of or contain any instructions, advice or other information which may be acted upon and could, if acted upon, cause illness, injury or death, or any other loss or damage;
(xvi) constitute spam;
(xvii) be offensive, deceptive, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, harassing, anti-social, menacing, hateful, discriminatory or inflammatory; or
(xviii) cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to any person.

11. Your Profile Content: rules

11.1 Depending on the selection made in “your profile” as Individual through the Website editing tool, your name will be included (or not) in the list of registered reviewers available on our Website (“Reviewer Ranking”). If you wish to remove your name in the Reviewer Ranking list, at any time you can do so by through the Website editing tool.
11.2 The “Reviewer Ranking” will include the number of “Credits” and the “Reviewer Score”
11.3 We will not deliberately disclose to any third party the data concerning the “Review Claims” you filled on our Website, unless specifically authorized by you.

12. Limited warranties

12.1 We do not warrant or represent:
(i) the completeness or accuracy of the information published on our Website;
(ii) that the material on the Website is up to date; or
(iii) that the Website or the Services or any other service on the Website will remain available.
12.2 We reserve the right to discontinue or alter the Services or any or all of other services on the Website, and to stop publishing our Website, at any time in our sole discretion without notice or explanation; and save to the extent expressly provided otherwise in these terms and conditions, you will not be entitled to any compensation or other payment upon the discontinuance or alteration of any website services, or if we stop publishing the Website.

13. Limitations and exclusions of liability

13.1 Nothing in these terms and conditions will:
(i) limit or exclude any liability for death or personal injury resulting from negligence;
(ii) limit or exclude any liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
(iii) limit any liabilities in any way that is not permitted under applicable law; or
(iv) exclude any liabilities that may not be excluded under applicable law.
13.2 The limitations and exclusions of liability set out in this Section 13 and elsewhere in these terms and conditions:
(i) are subject to Section 13.1; and
(ii) govern all liabilities arising under these terms and conditions or relating to the subject matter of these terms and conditions, including liabilities arising in contract, in tort (including negligence) and for breach of statutory duty, except to the extent expressly provided otherwise in these terms and conditions.
13.3 We are not liable for any loss or damage of any nature.
13.4 We will not be liable to you in respect of any losses arising out of any event or events beyond our reasonable control.
13.5 We will not be liable to you in respect of any business losses, including (without limitation) loss of or damage to profits, income, revenue, use, production, anticipated savings, business, contracts, commercial opportunities or goodwill.
13.6 We will not be liable to you in respect of any loss or corruption of any data, database or software.
13.7 We will not be liable to you in respect of any special, indirect or consequential loss or damage.

14. Breaches of these terms and conditions

14.1 Without prejudice to our other rights under these terms and conditions, if you breach these terms and conditions in any way, or if we reasonably suspect that you have breached these terms and conditions in any way, we may:
(i) send you one or more formal warnings;
(ii) temporarily suspend your access to our Website;
(iii) permanently prohibit you from accessing our Website;
(iv) block computers using your IP address from accessing our Website;
(v) contact any or all of your internet service providers and request that they block your access to our Website;
(vi) commence legal action against you, whether for breach of contract or otherwise; and/or
(vii) suspend or delete your account on our Website.
14.2 Where we suspend or prohibit or block your access to our Website or a part of our Website, you must not take any action to circumvent such suspension or prohibition or blocking (including, without limitation, creating and/or using a different account].

15. Variation

15.1 We may revise these terms and conditions from time to time.
15.2 The revised terms and conditions shall apply to the use of our Website from the date of publication of the revised terms and conditions on the Website, and you hereby waive any right you may otherwise have to be notified of, or to consent to, revisions of these terms and conditions.
15.3 If you have given your express agreement to these terms and conditions, we will ask for your express agreement to any revision of these terms and conditions; and if you do not give your express agreement to the revised terms and conditions within such period as we may specify, we will disable or delete your account on the Website, and you must stop using the Website. However, your continued use of our Website and Services after the publication of revised terms and conditions means that you are consenting to the updated terms and conditions as of their effective date.
15.4 You agree that we have no obligation to store, maintain or provide you a copy of Your Content, except to the extent required by applicable law.

16. Assignment

16.1 You hereby agree that we may assign, transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with our rights and/or obligations under these terms and conditions.
16.2 You may not without our prior written consent assign, transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with any of your rights and/or obligations under these terms and conditions.

17. Severability

17.1 If a provision of these terms and conditions is determined by any court or other competent authority to be unlawful and/or unenforceable, the other provisions will continue in effect.
17.2 If any unlawful and/or unenforceable provision of these terms and conditions would be lawful or enforceable if part of it were deleted, that part will be deemed to be deleted, and the rest of the provision will continue in effect.

18. Third party rights

18.1 The Agreement under these terms and conditions is for our benefit and your benefit, and is not intended to benefit or be enforceable by any third party.
18.2 The exercise of the parties’ rights under these terms and conditions is not subject to the consent of any third party.

19. Entire agreement

19.1 These terms and conditions, together with our Privacy and Cookie Policy, shall constitute the entire agreement between you and us in relation to your use of our Website and shall supersede all previous agreements between you and us in relation to your use of our Website.

20. Law and jurisdiction

20.1 These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with German law.
20.2 Any disputes relating to these terms and conditions shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Berlin.

21. Our details

21.1 This website is owned and operated by Reviewer Credits GmbH.
21.2 You can contact us at [email protected] or, if you are a Journal, at [email protected].

Pursuant to articles 1341 and 1342 of the Italian Civil Code, you hereby specifically accept the following clauses:
Section 2 (Services); Section 3 (Intellectual Property Rights); Section 4 (License to use Website); Section 5 (Acceptable use); Section 6 (Registration and accounts; Section 7 (User Login Details; Section 8 (Cancellation and suspension of account); Section 9 (Your Content: license); Sections 10 and 11 (Your content: rules); Section 12 (Limited warranties); Section 13 (Limitations and exclusions of liability); Section 14 (Breaches of these terms and conditions); Section 15 (Variation); Section 16 (Assignment); Section 20 (Law and jurisdiction)