Exercises in genetic linkage analysis - conditions of use

Essentially, the exercises are free for personal use or for use by non-profit health and educational institutions except for very large genome centres or for when they are used as part of a teaching course. They are not really designed for personal use - if you are competent to set up all the necessary programs then you probably won't get all that much out of the exercises. Rather, they are designed either to be set up as a resource for institutions carrying out genetic analyses so that researchers wishing to gain some basic familiarity with the practicalities of linkage analysis can be directed to the exercises and advised to work through them, hopefully with minimal supervision, or else they may be used as the basis for a taught course.

If the exercises are used as part of a taught course then royalties are payable. A taught course is defined as a course in which three or more students work through the exercises simultaneously, with some kind of supervision or help from an instructor. Royalties are payable whether or not the students specifically pay to work through the exercises. It might be the case, for example, that a group of PhD students were taken through the exercises as part of a much larger course in genetics or molecular biology. Alternatively, one could set up the exercises and use them as the substantive basis for an introductory course in linkage analysis for which one might charge students a substantial tuition fee. In either case royalties would be payable for the use of the exercises.

It is intended that use should be free for moderately-sized non-profit health and education institutions and for those centres not particularly specialising in genetic research. However royalties are payable by for-profit institutions and by large genome centres. Thus usage will be free for a medical school in which only a few research groups are performing linkage analyses, each group only having two or three members involved in the computational work. However large genome centres providing computing resources and/or training to significant numbers of individuals and which may attract a large number of users for the exercises will need to pay royalties. Non-profit institutions expecting no more than 30 users per year to work through the exercises need pay nothing. Larger institutions and for-profit institutions must pay royalties, and this partially relates to the expectation that such institutions may require customised installations and enhanced user support. (Note that the 30-users-per-year limit applies to the number of users realistically expected to make use of the exercises, not to the perhaps much larger number of users who may hold an account on the system and be potentially able to access the exercises.)

Conditions of use

• Any individual may download these exercises, set them up on their own system together with the other necessary programs and work through them for their own personal use or for evaluation purposes.
• Anybody is welcome (indeed encouraged) to pass on these exercises to other individuals or organisations, provided only that they pass on the package in its entirety as it is originally distributed and including this notice. (Although in fact new users may be better advised to download a new copy of the package for themselves, as this will ensure that they obtain the most up-to-date version.)
• The package of exercises, together with the necessary related programs, may be freely installed for use on a system belonging to a non-profit health or educational institution, provided that:
  • You inform me that you have installed these exercises, tell me where they have been installed and give me details of a contact person responsible for maintaining them and supporting users;
  • You inform me of any problems encountered during the installation or running of the exercises;
  • You provide me with details of any modifications to the exercises which you make in order to have them run properly on your system;
  • You make no modifications which disguise the fact that the exercises are substantively my work or that I hold the copyright to them, and you do not inhibit direct access of users to me, for example by removing links to my email address;
  • You mark any modifications that you do make so that they can be clearly seen by users as being changes to the exercises as I have distributed them;
  • You allow me to incorporate such modifications into future releases of the exercises, with your contribution appropriately acknowledged by me, but with overall copyright of the exercises still belonging to me;
  • You provide me with details of any additions you make to the exercises, for example in order to cover new topics or programs;
  • You mark any such additions so that they can be clearly seen by users as being changes to the exercises as I have distributed them;
  • You appreciate that I would welcome being able to distribute additional contributions covering new programs and topics along with my original exercises and that I would hope to be able negotiate some arrangement whereby such contributions could be included in the package;
  • You expect no more than 30 users per year to work through the exercises you have set up on your system, and you undertake to inform me should it become apparent that this limit is exceeded (although you need take no formal measures to monitor usage precisely);
  • The exercises are not used as part of a taught course, such a course here being defined as three or more students being led through the exercises simultaneously by one or more instructors, whether or not accompanied by additional tuition or occurring as part of a more extended course of study;
• The package of exercises may be installed and used as part of a taught course provided that I am informed of the course, that the other relevant conditions listed above are adhered to and that the relevant royalties are paid (see below). Thus you may use these exercises as the whole or part of a course which you deliver and charge for, provided only that my status as author of the exercises is acknowledged, that modifications to the exercises as distributed are highlighted as such, that due royalties are paid and that I am informed of the use of the exercises in the course.
• The package of exercises may be installed for use in a for-profit institution or in a centre expecting more than 30 users per year to work through the exercises provided only that all other relevant conditions above are adhered to and that due royalties are paid (see below). It should be noted that royalties for such institutions are additional to the royalties for use on a taught course, and that if such an institution provides the exercises for its users on a continuing basis but then also uses them as part of a specific taught course then both sets of royalties will be payable.
• No kind of liability is accepted by myself, nor are the exercises implied to be of any use, in any way accurate, helpful or to have any kind of attributes whatever. What you see is what you get, and I make no claim at all for anything at all. If you wish to use them for any purpose then that's your problem, don't come running to me if the exercises don't do something you think I said they should or if they do what you think I said they shouldn't, because I'm telling you right here and now that everything outside of this single paragraph may be completely wrong. So.

Royalties

Royalties for taught courses

Royalties for non-exempt institutions

Support

Exercises in genetic linkage analysis

• Contents page

All material copyright (C) Dave Curtis 1996-2000