Comment Policy for New Media Platforms
We encourage and look forward to an active exchange of ideas. To maintain a respectful dialogue, we ask that everyone follow these guidelines:
- Be respectful. Personal attacks, profanity, and aggressive behavior are prohibited.
- Stay focused. All viewpoints are welcome, but comments should remain relevant to the conversation at hand.
- Tell the truth. Intentionally spreading false or misleading information is prohibited.
- Do not post:
- Solicitations, advertisements, or commercial endorsements
- Defamatory or fraudulent information
- Spam (includes repeated posts, comments, and links to other sites)
- Copyrighted or trademarked images or graphics
- Documents of any kind
- Comments or images that suggest illegal activity or that contain illegal content
- Partisan political views
- Discriminatory, racist, offensive, obscene, inflammatory, unlawful or otherwise objectionable statements, language, or content
- Participate at your own risk. You should take personal responsibility for your comments, your username, and any information provided.
Comments are welcome at any time; however, NICHD will only moderate and post comments during regular business hours.
NICHD retains the right to remove comments that violate its comment policy at any time. Repeated violation of this comment policy could result in the offending user being blocked from access to the NICHD-managed forum.
This comment policy is valid for all discussions on all NICHD-managed forums, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others. We encourage your participation in our discussion(s) and look forward to an active exchange of ideas.
Reporters should not post questions or requests on any new media platform; instead, those questions and inquiries should be sent to the NICHD Office of Communications.
Copyright and Reuse Text, Images, and Logos
Text
Most text appearing on the NICHD website has been either prepared by employees of the U.S. government as part of their official duties or prepared under contracts for NICHD. In both instances, the text is in the public domain and not subject to copyright. The same is true of most publications available for downloading from this website. You may freely copy that material and credit NICHD with the following notation: "Courtesy: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development."
Occasionally, the NICHD site may contain documents or links to documents, such as full-text journal articles, that are copyright-protected. Web users may view and print these documents but should contact the copyright owner for any other uses.
Images
With the exception of logos (see below), permission to use NICHD graphics is granted on a case-by-case basis. Some are public domain, some are created by NICHD contractors, some are copyrighted, and some are used by NICHD with specific permission granted by the owner. Therefore, the logos, photos, and illustrations found on the NICHD website should not be reused without permission.
To request permission to reuse a particular graphic on the NICHD website, contact the NICHD Information Resource Center.
Granting the right to use a graphic from the NICHD website does not explicitly or implicitly convey endorsement of the site where it is used. If an NICHD-owned image includes an identifiable person, using the image may infringe on that person's right of privacy, and permission should be obtained from the person.
If you receive confirmation from NICHD to use an image from the NICHD Safe to Sleep® campaign, you may use the following citation: "Photos courtesy of the NICHD Safe to Sleep® campaign."
If you receive confirmation from NICHD to use an image that is not part of the Safe to Sleep® campaign, you may use the following citation: "Courtesy: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development."
Use of the NICHD Logo
NICHD-funded researchers may credit NICHD on their websites. However, the NICHD logo should not be used without explicit permission from NICHD. For questions on the reproduction or use of the NICHD logo or any graphics, contact the NICHD Information Resource Center.
The NICHD logo should not be combined with other design elements to create a new logo for any office or program.
Use of the NICHD Safe to Sleep® Logo
The Safe to Sleep® name and logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Use of the campaign name must always include the registered trademark indicator (®). The logo cannot be used or reproduced without express written authorization. To request to use the Safe to Sleep® logo, complete the Safe to Sleep® Logo Request Form (PDF - 75 KB) and send it to the NICHD Information Resource Center.
Additional Information
For more information, see U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines on the use of logos, seals, symbols.
Endorsement Disclaimer - Links to Other Sites
Our web site has links to many other federal agencies, and in a few cases we link to private organizations. You are subject to that site's privacy policy when you leave our site. We are not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private Web sites.
Reference in this web site to any specific commercial products, process, service, manufacturer, or company does not constitute its endorsement or recommendation by the U.S. Government or HHS. HHS is not responsible for the contents of any "off-site" web page referenced from this server.
New Media Information Disclaimer
Information (including text, visuals, audio, and user comments) shared through new media platforms does not necessarily represent the views of NICHD, NIH, or HHS. Official NICHD information is available through NICHD's website.
NICHD may provide users with health information for educational purposes only. Consult with a qualified health care provider for diagnoses and for answers to your personal medical questions.
Unauthorized Intrusion Policy
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system uses software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.
Website Information Disclaimer
The information and resources on the NICHD website are for educational and informational purposes only. They are not intended as a substitute for professional medical care. Consult with your health care provider(s) to answer specific questions about your personal health. Information on this website also is not intended to take the place of written law or regulations.
NICHD staff cannot provide medical diagnoses or personalized medical advice to people outside of a clinical research environment. Instead, NICHD offers resources and information to help people better understand their health. Staff also are prohibited from rating, making referrals to, or endorsing a specific person, health care provider, service, organization, or facility.
Webmaster
If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, contact the NICHD webmaster.
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is committed to making its information technologies accessible to individuals with disabilities by meeting or exceeding the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 794d), as amended in 1998. Section 508 is a federal law that requires agencies to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to electronic information and data comparable to those who do not have disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. The Section 508 standards are the technical requirements and criteria used to measure conformance within this law. More information on Section 508 and the technical standards can be found at www.section508.gov.
If you have feedback, comments, or concerns related to the accessibility of any content on this website or about the NICHD Section 508 program, contact the NICHD webmaster. If applicable, provide relevant URL(s) and the specific problems you have encountered.
Document Viewers
- Adobe Reader (link is external)
- Microsoft Word Viewer (link is external)
- Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer (link is external)
- Microsoft Excel Viewer (link is external)
Social Media
NICHD uses multiple social media platforms to communicate its messages about health , disabilities, diseases, research, and more. The NICHD website offers the ability to share content using these platforms.
Social media platforms are "external" websites—ones that are not maintained by NICHD or the federal government. NICHD cannot verify the accuracy of other material posted there.
The links to these platforms are provided only for your convenience. Linking to these external sites is not an endorsement from NICHD, NIH, or HHS.
Note that when you go to an external website, you will be subject to that site's privacy and other policies. In addition, the external site may not address Section 508 (accessibility) requirements in the same way as NICHD does.
Protecting your privacy is very important to us. Our website links to other National Institutes of Health (NIH) sites, federal agency sites, and, occasionally, to non-government sites. Once you leave NICHD's primary website, you are subject to the privacy policy for the site(s) you are visiting. We do not collect any personally identifiable information about you during your visit to NICHD websites, unless you choose to provide it to us. We do, however, collect some data about your visit—see details below—to help us better understand how people use the site. NICHD never collects information for commercial marketing or any purpose unrelated to the NICHD mission and goals.
When visitors send email containing personal information to nichdwebmaster@mail.nih.gov, NICHD staff responds to the letters and files them for response-tracking purposes. Only those staff members approved to respond to such emails may view or answer them.
When you browse, read, and/or download information on any website, that site can collect certain information about your visit. NICHD automatically collects and stores the following types of information:
- Domain from which you access the Internet
- Internet Protocol (IP) address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to a computer when surfing the Web)
- Operating system and information about the browser used when visiting the site
- Date and time of your visit
- Pages you visited
- Address of the website that connected you to an NICHD website (such as google.com or bing.com)
- Domain or search term that referred you to our site
We use this information to measure the number of visitors to our site and its various sections and to help inform changes that make our site more useful to visitors.
NICHD websites use a variety of different web measurement software tools.
They use Google Analytics software to collect the information listed in the section above. It does not collect personal information about you. NICHD staff conducts analyses and reports on the aggregated data from Google Analytics. The reports are only available to website managers, members of the NICHD Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff and personnel who need this information to perform their duties.
NICHD sometimes uses online surveys to collect opinions and feedback from a random sample of visitors. NICHD uses the ForeSee Results' American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) online survey to obtain feedback and data on visitors' satisfaction with the website. This survey does not collect personal information about you.
Though the survey invitation pops up for a random sample of visitors, it is optional. If you decline the survey, you still have access to the same site information and resources as those who take the survey. The survey reports are available only to website managers, members of the NICHD Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff who need this information to perform their duties.
NICHD retains the data from Google Analytics and ACSI survey results as long as needed to support the mission of the website.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memo M-10-22, Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies allows federal agencies to use temporary and persistent cookies.
When you visit any website, its server may generate a piece of text known as a "cookie" to place on your computer. The cookie allows the server to "remember" specific information about your visit while you are connected.
The cookie makes it easier for you to use the dynamic features of webpages. Cookies from NICHD webpages only collect information about your browser's visit to the site; they do not collect personal information about you.
There are two types of cookies: single session (temporary) and multi-session (persistent).
- Temporary Cookies: Session cookies are temporary, lasting only as long as your web browser is open. Once you close your browser, the session cookie disappears. NICHD uses session cookies for technical purposes, such as to enable better navigation through our site. These cookies let our server know that you are continuing your visit to our site. The OMB Memo 10-22 Guidance defines our use of session cookies as "Usage Tier 1—Single Session." The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of single session web measurement and customization technologies."
- Persistent Cookies: Persistent cookies are multi-session cookies that are stored on your computer for longer periods, including after you close your web browser. The NICHD website only uses persistent cookies to identify whether you have participated in the Foresee user survey (we do this so that you do not continue to get prompted after you have participated).
How to Opt Out or Disable Session (Temporary) Cookies
If you do not wish to have session cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them in your web browser. If you opt out of session cookies, you will still have access to all information and resources at the NICHD website.
Instructions for disabling or opting out of cookies in the most popular browsers are located at http://www.usa.gov/optout_instructions.shtml. Note that by following the instructions to opt-out of cookies, you will disable session cookies for all websites, not just the NICHD website.
You do not have to give us personal information to visit NICHD websites. However, if you subscribe to our mailing lists, order publications and materials, or register for events, we may collect your email address and other information about you to complete the process.
If you choose to provide us with personal information through an email message, request for information, paper or electronic form, questionnaire, customer satisfaction survey, etc., we will maintain the information only for as long as needed to respond to your question or fulfill the request.
If NICHD operates a record management system designed to retrieve information about you, a Privacy Act Notification Statement should be prominently and conspicuously displayed on the public-facing website or form that asks for such information. The notice must address the following five criteria:
- Legal authorization to collect information about you
- Purpose of the information collection
- Routine uses for disclosure of information outside of NICHD
- Whether the request made of you is voluntary or mandatory under law
- Effects of non-disclosure if you choose to not provide the requested information
Publication Ordering
If you order publications from our website, we request that you provide certain information about yourself. Collection of this information is authorized under Title 5 USC Section 301 and Title 44 USC Section 3101.
If you place an order, we collect your shipping and contact information only to process your order. We use your email address and phone number only to contact you about your order. We may also collect a shipping number. This information is collected from you only so that we can fulfill the order.
The online publications ordering process also includes a few optional questions (such as "How did you hear about the NICHD?") to help us evaluate our communications efforts. Answering these questions is completely voluntary; opting not to answer the questions does not affect your ability to order materials or to access information or resources on the NICHD website.
If you order materials from one of the NICHD campaigns or programs, your email address is automatically added to the emailing list for that specific campaign or program. You will receive about one email per month with information related to that specific campaign or program. You can opt out of the emailing list at any time by selecting the "UNSUBSCRIBE" link in the footer of the emails.
Other than as stated above, we do not disclose information submitted in ordering publications. We never share information for commercial marketing purposes.
Any information provided by you in connection with the publications-ordering process is provided voluntarily and is not mandatory under any law. Please note that if you choose not to provide the information necessary for shipping, we will not be able to ship the requested publications to you. If you order publications from our website, we retain data from you and your order for two years, after which time, we remove all identifying data from your order. The data generated from these activities falls under the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) General Records Schedule (GRS) 20-item IC 'Electronic Records,' and are handled per the requirements of that schedule (http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/grs/grs20.html).
Event Registration
If you register for an event, NICHD collects your contact information, as authorized under Title 5 USC Section 301 and Title 44 USC Section 3101.
We use your email address and/or phone number only to contact you about the event or your registration. We may also collect information about whether you need any special accommodations to participate fully in the event.
We sometimes share registration information with a third-party vendor who is helping to manage the event. We never share information for commercial marketing purposes.
Any information provided by you in connection with the event-registration process is provided voluntarily and is not mandatory under any law. However, if you choose not to provide the requested information, we may not be able to register you for the event.
As part of the OMB Memo M-10-06, Open Government Directive, NICHD uses a variety of new technologies and social media options to communicate and interact with citizens. These third-party websites and applications (TPWAs) include popular social networking and media sites, open source software communities, and more. TPWAs are web-based technologies that are not exclusively operated or controlled by NICHD, such as applications not hosted on a .gov domain, or those that are embedded on NICHD webpages. Users of TPWAs often share information with the general public, user community, and/or the third-party operating the website. These actors may use this information in a variety of ways. TPWAs could cause personal information to become available or accessible to NICHD and the public, regardless of whether the information is explicitly solicited or collected by NICHD.
The following list includes the TPWAs we use and their purpose. Your activity on the TPWAs that NICHD uses is governed by the security and privacy policy of those sites, which we have linked to below. You should review the privacy policies before using the sites and ensure that you understand how your information may be used. If you have an account with a third-party website, and choose to follow, like, friend, or comment, certain personal information associated with your account may be made available to NICHD based on the privacy policy of the website and your privacy settings within that website. Therefore, you should also adjust privacy settings on your account to match your preferences.
For any TPWA that collects personal information, the list below also includes details on the information NICHD collects and how we will protect this information.
Third-Party Websites and Applications
AddThis: NICHD uses the AddThis service to allow you to bookmark and share website content on a variety of social media sites. If you use the AddThis service to share content, you do not need to register or provide any personal information. AddThis collects non-personal data, including the aggregate and summary statistics on browsers and usage patterns. AddThis also uses non-personal data to manage the service and diagnose server problems. Although AddThis offers some analytics and usage data to NICHD, these reports do not include any personal information. The reports are password-protected and only available to NICHD website managers, system owners, communications staff, web staff, and other designated staff who need this information to perform their duties. The AddThis Privacy Policy is available at http://www.addthis.com/privacy.
Facebook: NICHD has a Facebook page managed by NICHD staff members who post news and other items that may be of interest to the public. If you have a Facebook account, you can log in to your account to post comments, and 'like' NICHD Facebook pages and individual entries. If you click on the NICHD Facebook page and then comment on or 'like' something, your personal information will be visible to NICHD staff and other Facebook site visitors. The amount of personal information displayed will depend on your Facebook privacy settings. You can completely avoid displaying personal information by not creating a Facebook account, not posting comments, not clicking on the 'like' options, or not interacting with NICHD Facebook accounts in any way (i.e., private messaging, sharing NICHD posts, etc.). NICHD staff do not collect, use, or disclose any personal information about visitors who comment on or 'like' NICHD Facebook sites. However, our comment moderation policy requires the removal from NICHD Facebook pages any comments that contain spam or are improper, inflammatory, off-topic, or offensive. Repeat offenders may be subject to blocking. The information is then saved on a password-protected shared drive accessible to NICHD managers, system owners, communications staff, web staff, and other designated staff who need this information to perform their duties. The Facebook Privacy Policy is available at http://www.facebook.com/policy.php.
Twitter: NICHD uses Twitter to send short messages or 'Tweets' that share information about NICHD research and to respond to comments and inquiries. While you may read NICHD Twitter feeds without subscribing to them, if you want to subscribe to (or follow) NICHD Twitter feeds, you must create a Twitter account. To create an account, you must provide some personal information, such as your name, user name, password, and email address. You have the option to provide additional information, including a short biography, location, and/or picture. Most information you provide for a Twitter account is available to the public, but you can modify how much of your information is visible by changing your privacy settings at Twitter.com. NICHD staff members monitor the number of subscribers and respond to comments and queries via Twitter, but the staff does not take possession of the personal information belonging to you as a Twitter follower. However our comment moderation policy requires the removal from NICHD Twitter pages any comments that contain spam or are improper, inflammatory, or offensive. The information is then saved on a password-protected shared drive accessible to NICHD managers, system owners, communications staff, web staff, and other designated staff who need this information to perform their duties. The Twitter Privacy Policy is available at http://twitter.com/privacy.
YouTube: NICHD posts videos on YouTube to make them available to the public. You do not need to register with YouTube to watch these videos. YouTube may record non- personal information about site usage, such as channels used, videos watched, and data transfer details, to improve its services. If you log on to the YouTube site before watching NICHD videos, YouTube may associate information about your site usage with your YouTube account. If you log on to YouTube and comment on an NICHD video, any personal information you included on your YouTube profile page will be visible to visitors who click on the comment field. If you do not log in before watching NICHD videos posted on YouTube, you cannot comment on NICHD videos and your site usage will not be associated with you or a YouTube account. The YouTube Privacy Policy is available at http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy.
Pinterest: The NICHD Pinterest page is managed by NICHD staff members who post news and other items of interest to the public. If you have a Pinterest account, you can log in to your account to post comments, like, and 're-pin' NICHD postings and individual entries. When you chose to like, comment, or 're-pin' an item from the NICHD Pinterest account, your personal information will be visible to NIH staff and other Pinterest site visitors. You can avoid displaying any personal information by not creating a Pinterest account, not posting comments, not clicking on the 'like' options, and not sharing items from the NICHD Pinterest page. NICHD staff do not collect, use, or disclose any information about visitors who comment, share, or 'like' the NICHD Pinterest site or its posts. However, our comment moderator policy requires the removal from the NICHD Pinterest page of any comments that contain spam or are improper, inflammatory, or offensive. The Pinterest Privacy Policy is available at http://about.pinterest.com/privacy/.
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