Terms of Service
1. About these terms
These terms are an agreement between you and SEARCH (Space and Earth Analogs Research Chapter), a registered student organization at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. They govern your use of the SEARCH website at purduesearch.github.io and of Constellation, our internal project-management system.
By using the website or signing in to Constellation, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use them.
SEARCH is student-run and is not an official service of Purdue University. These terms are offered by the student organization on its own behalf. They do not create any obligation on the part of Purdue University, and they do not modify any Purdue University policy that applies to you as a student, employee, or visitor.
Your privacy is covered separately by our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.
2. What we provide
SEARCH operates two things covered by these terms:
- A public website describing the organization, its research programs, its members, and its published writing. Anyone may read it.
- Constellation, an internal system used by SEARCH members to manage projects, tasks, milestones, files, CAD parts, events, outreach, and internal training. Access is limited to current members.
Both are provided free of charge, are built and maintained by student volunteers, and exist to support the club's activities. They are not commercial products.
3. Eligibility and accounts
The public website is open to everyone. Constellation is available only to current SEARCH members.
- You sign in to Constellation using your Slack account in the SEARCH workspace. We do not issue separate passwords, so keeping your Slack account secure is how you keep your Constellation account secure.
- You are responsible for activity that happens under your account. Tell us promptly at purduesearch@gmail.com if you believe someone else has used it.
- Do not share your account, and do not sign in on behalf of another person.
- Access is tied to membership. When you stop being a SEARCH member — by graduating, leaving the club, or being removed from the Slack workspace — your access to Constellation ends. Work you contributed to club projects remains part of the project record; see section 5.
- Some functions, such as approving rewards, managing projects, and connecting integrations, are restricted to club leadership.
4. Acceptable use
When using the website or Constellation, you agree not to:
- Break the law, or use the services to help someone else break the law;
- Harass, threaten, defame, or discriminate against anyone, or post material that is obscene or hateful;
- Upload malware, or attempt to gain access to accounts, data, systems, or projects you are not authorized to reach;
- Probe, scan, or test the security of our systems without written permission from club leadership, or interfere with their normal operation;
- Scrape, harvest, or bulk-download content or member information, or use automated tools against the services beyond ordinary use;
- Take club data — including member details, outreach contacts, unpublished research, or CAD files — outside the club without authorization;
- Misrepresent your identity or affiliation, or imply that you speak for SEARCH or for Purdue University when you do not;
- Upload material you do not have the right to share, including material that infringes someone else's copyright or breaches a confidentiality obligation you owe to an employer, sponsor, or research partner;
- Use the services for commercial purposes unrelated to SEARCH.
You must also follow Purdue University's applicable policies and any SEARCH code of conduct in force. Conduct that would violate the club's rules in person violates them in Constellation too.
5. Content and intellectual property
5.1 Our content
The website's design, text, graphics, and code, and the SEARCH name and logo, belong to SEARCH or its licensors. You may read, quote, and link to our published material with attribution. You may not republish substantial portions, or use the SEARCH name or logo to suggest endorsement, without our permission.
5.2 Content you contribute
You keep ownership of original work you create and upload — documents, designs, CAD files, writing, images, and code.
By contributing it to Constellation or to a SEARCH project, you grant SEARCH a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, adapt, display, and distribute that work for the club's purposes: running the project, presenting and publishing the club's research and outreach, and maintaining the project record. This licence continues after your membership ends, so that the club can keep using and building on work done during your time with it.
You confirm that you have the right to contribute what you upload, and that doing so does not breach anyone else's rights or any obligation you owe to a third party.
5.3 Project records and attribution
Constellation keeps a history of project activity, including who made which changes and when. This record is part of how the club runs its projects and is retained after members leave. You can ask us to remove or anonymize your personal details in line with our Privacy Policy; we will do so wherever the integrity of the project record allows.
5.4 Research, sponsors, and third-party obligations
Some SEARCH work is subject to agreements with sponsors, partners, or the University, including confidentiality and publication terms. Where such an agreement applies to a project, it takes precedence over the general permissions in this section. Ask club leadership before sharing project material externally if you are unsure.
5.5 Copyright complaints
If you believe material on our site infringes your copyright, email purduesearch@gmail.com identifying the material and your rights in it. We will review and remove infringing material promptly.
6. Third-party services
Constellation works with services operated by other companies — including Slack, GitHub, and Google — and the public site links to external sites such as Instagram, LinkedIn, BoilerLink, and Purdue's giving portal.
- Your use of those services is governed by their own terms and privacy policies, not by ours.
- We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, availability, or practices.
- If one of them changes or becomes unavailable, related Constellation features may stop working.
- Where you connect an account — for example linking GitHub — you are responsible for having the right to do so, and you may disconnect it at any time.
The Google Drive integration runs on a single Google account controlled by the club, not on members' personal accounts. How we handle data from it is described in our Privacy Policy.
7. AI-assisted features
Constellation includes optional features that use generative AI to draft task descriptions, answer questions about a project, suggest deadlines, generate training material, and assist with writing.
AI output is a suggestion, not an authority. It can be wrong, incomplete, out of date, or confidently misleading. Review it before you rely on it.
- Do not treat AI output as engineering analysis, safety guidance, legal advice, medical advice, or a substitute for review by a qualified person. SEARCH works on hardware, analog missions, and human-factors research where an unchecked error can matter.
- You remain responsible for anything you accept into a project, publish, or act on, whether or not AI helped produce it.
- Content you submit to these features is sent to a third-party AI provider for processing, as described in our Privacy Policy. Do not submit material you are not permitted to share with a third party.
- Features that make changes to a project — such as executing a suggested action plan — act under your account and with your permissions. Read what you approve.
8. Availability and changes
The services are maintained by student volunteers alongside coursework. We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of them at any time, with or without notice. There is no guaranteed uptime, support window, or response time.
We try to keep backups, but you should not treat Constellation as the only copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. Keep your own copies of work that matters to you.
9. No warranty
The website and Constellation are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory. To the fullest extent permitted by law, SEARCH disclaims all implied warranties, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement.
We do not warrant that the services will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that any content — including AI-generated content — is accurate, complete, or reliable.
10. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither SEARCH nor its officers, members, or volunteers will be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages, or for any loss of data, profits, goodwill, or opportunity, arising out of or relating to your use of the website or Constellation — even if we have been advised that such damages are possible.
Because the services are provided free of charge by a volunteer student organization, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to them is limited to one hundred United States dollars (US$100).
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
11. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless SEARCH and its officers, members, and volunteers from any claim, demand, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the services, or content you contributed that infringes the rights of a third party.
12. Suspension and termination
We may suspend or terminate your access to Constellation at any time — including immediately and without notice — if you breach these terms, if your SEARCH membership ends, if your access to the club's Slack workspace is removed, or if we reasonably believe your access poses a risk to the club, its members, or its data.
You may stop using the services at any time and ask us to close your Constellation account. Sections 5, 9, 10, 11, and 13 survive termination.
13. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Indiana, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that the state and federal courts located in Tippecanoe County, Indiana have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from these terms or the services, and you consent to their jurisdiction.
If any provision of these terms is held unenforceable, the rest remain in force, and the unenforceable provision will be applied to the maximum extent permitted.
Before starting formal proceedings, please contact us at purduesearch@gmail.com — most issues can be resolved informally.
14. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms as the club's systems change. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above and increment the version number. If a change is material, we will give members notice in Constellation or by Slack message. Continuing to use the services after a change takes effect means you accept the updated terms.
15. Contact us
Questions about these terms:
SEARCH — Space and Earth Analogs Research Chapter
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Email: purduesearch@gmail.com
Web: purduesearch.github.io/contact