Website Policies

The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. We continue to make changes to improve the user experience for everyone and apply the relevant accessibility standards.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.

Wherever possible, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) will aim to adhere to level AA/AAA of the WCAG guidelines, which states that sites should be:

• Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
• Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable.
• Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
• Robus - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

In order to ensure accessibility we also:

• Have internal policies that take accessibility into account.
• Incorporate accessibility into our operational practices.
• Provide our staff and students with accessibility training.
• Have clear organizational accessibility targets and responsibilities.
• Confirm to formal accessibility quality assurance methods.

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) website. If you have experienced any accessibility barriers while using any part of www.mcla.edu, please let us know:

Phone: (413) 662-5276
E-mail: accessibility@mcla.edu 
Get in touch with us at: https://www.mcla.edu/student-services/disability-resources/index.php 

 

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Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts is strongly committed to protecting the privacy and safety of all visitors of www.mcla.edu. We created the following privacy policy to explain to you our policy on using and disclosing information gathered on visitors to the site.  By visiting the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts' web site you are accepting the practices described in this privacy policy.

Our web site logs every contact by Internet address, date, time and pages viewed. This information is analyzed statistically and is only used in the aggregate.  We employ the use of cookies only to ease navigation.  If you do not wish to have a cookie on your system, you can set your browser preferences to refuse them.

Personal information you provide us via a form will only be used for the purpose stated on the form, and will not be shared with any outside companies.  All information you submit will be stored either on a secure server or on our internal system for its intended purpose. 

By choosing to email this website to a friend, you are not initiating contact from us to your friend. 

Some parts of the site control access through a login. The login name, date and time for these sessions are recorded for security purposes only.

Any changes to the privacy policy will be updated on this page.

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The US Department of Education provides the following summary of penalties for violation of Federal copyright laws:

Copyright infringement is the act of exercising, without permission or legal authority, one or more of the exclusive rights granted to the copyright owner under section 106 of the Copyright Act (Title 17 of the United States Code). These rights include the right to reproduce or distribute a copyrighted work. In the file-sharing context, downloading or uploading substantial parts of a copyrighted work without authority constitutes an infringement.

Penalties for copyright infringement include civil and criminal penalties. In general, anyone found liable for civil copyright infringement may be ordered to pay either actual damages or "statutory" damages affixed at not less than $750 and not more than $30,000 per work infringed. For "willful" infringement, a court may award up to $150,000 per work infringed. A court can, in its discretion, also assess costs and attorneys' fees. For details, see Title 17, United States Code, Sections 504, 505.

Willful copyright infringement can also result in criminal penalties, including imprisonment of up to five years and fines of up to $250,000 per offense. For more information, please see the Web site of the U.S. Copyright Office at www.copyright.gov, especially their FAQ section.

All MCLA students and prospective students are expected to review the following mechanisms in educating and informing themselves about appropriate versus inappropriate use of copyrighted material.

• The MCLA Network User Agreement, assented to by each user as a condition of network access, has a section dealing with adherence to copyright restrictions.   

• MCLA has posted on line a document describing its stand on sharing and property rights.  This document explicitly refers to the legal issues and legal penalties involved.  

• MCLA maintains a section in its student handbook on the use of computing and electronic resources that covers unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material.

• A summary offered by the Department of Education  

Note: MCLA treats the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material as a breach of the Network User Agreement. Penalties for violations allow for limiting or completely denying network access.  

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