About this site

1. Copyright
2. Authorship of resources
3. Editorial process
4. Review process
5. Conflict of interest
6. Policy on advertising
7. Consultation
8. Compliance with standards

1.  Copyright

Information and materials on the Black Dog Institute website, including data, pages, documents, online graphics, images and web pages, audio and video are protected by copyright, unless specifically notified to the contrary.

Use of Materials and Information

You may download, store in cache, display, print and copy a single copy or part of a single copy of information or material from this site only for your personal, non-commercial use and only in an unaltered form.

Any permitted reproduction made must acknowledge the Black Dog Institute source of any selected passage, extract, diagram or other information or material reproduced.  Any reproduction made of the information or material must include a copy of the original copyright and disclaimer notices as set out here.

Commercial and Other Use

You are not permitted to re-transmit, distribute or commercialise the information or material without seeking prior written approval from the Black Dog Institute. For written permission to use the information or material from this site, please contact Black Dog Institute. You may not use the Black Dog Institute to sell a product or service, or to increase traffic to your website for commercial reasons, such as advertising sales.

Linking to this Site

You may link to this site, but permission is restricted to making a link without any alteration of the site's contents.  Permission is not granted to reproduce, frame or reformat the files, pages, images, information and materials from this site on any other site unless express written permission has been obtained from the Black Dog Institute.

The Black Dog Institute reserves the right to prevent linking by giving notice.

2.  Authorship of resources

Information on this website comprises information falling into the following broad categories:

• Information about the Institute, its staff and its activities
• Clinical information.

The principal author of information about the Institute, its staff and its activities is the Project Manager, Community & Consumer Programs, who has day-to-day responsibility for management of the website and who is an Internet professional and a communications professional.  Where appropriate the information must also be approved by the Institute Business Manager prior to it being published on the website. 

Clinical information is initially prepared by one or more highly experienced clinicians (either psychiatrists or psychologists) who are specialists in depression and/or Bipolar Disorder and who are consultants to the Black Dog Institute. 

Prior to clinical information being published on the Black Dog Institute website, it must be approved by the Institute’s Executive Director, Professor Gordon Parker (Psychiatrist), who has overall responsibility for approval and review of all clinical content on the Black Dog Institute website.

3.  Editorial process

Editing of the Black Dog Institute website occurs at two levels:

1. Strategic development of new website services and features, which is overseen by the Institute’s Website Steering Committee, comprises the following Institute staff:
   • Executive Director
   • Business Manager
   • Project Manager, Community & Consumer Programs.
2. Regular content editing, for which the usual editorial process is as follows:
   • Preparation of new content by the relevant Project Manager, or clinician
   • Review and editing of new content by the Institute's Website Officer and Project Manager, Community & Consumer Programs
   • For non-clinical information, information must be approved by the Project Manager Community & Consumer Programs or the Business Manager, as appropriate
   • Clinical information must be approved by the Executive Director.

4.  Review process

The Black Dog Institute has a regular review process for information on its website according to its nature:

• Regularly changing information, such as home page teasers, staff contact details, calendars of events, dates for professional education and training programs which are reviewed and updated whenever the need arises (usually weekly or more often).
• Internal and external links are checked monthly.
• Periodic reviews of the clinical content are scheduled to occur annually, but may be reviewed more regularly as the need arises.

5.  Conflict of interest

It is the policy of the Black Dog Institute to avoid conflicts of interest in its activities including the operation of the website.  The Institute has management processes in place to confirm that conflicts of interest are not present in relation to the management of the website and materials made available via the website. 

If a situation does arise where a potential conflict of interest exists the conflict will be fully explored and disclosed.

6.  Policy on advertising

The Black Dog Institute website does not receive any funding from advertising products or services of others. 

The Black Dog Institute makes information available on its website with the primary objective of providing a helpful service to users of that information and not to promote the interests of any person or organisation who may financially benefit as a result of information placed on the website.

Occasionally the Institute may highlight a book or other publication on its site that has been authored or co-authored by a member of staff, but only where such promotion serves a useful public purpose and not with the intent of financially benefiting the author of the book or publication.

7.  Consultation

Where relevant it is the Black Dog Institute’s policy and practice to consult with the community on the development of its website through the Consumer & Community Advisory Committee, professional groupings and other appropriate channels.

8.  Compliance with standards

The Black Dog Institute seeks to comply with relevant external standards for websites, including:

• the HONcode principles of the Health On the Net Foundation
• the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes

The Black Dog Institute also has its own internal quality assurance standards for the website (covering tone and style of language, accuracy, attribution and verification of sources and links among other things).