Rules and Instructions of the Website

Date: 2nd July 2014

Registration:

� In order to use this website, you have to register. Then you will receive a confirmation email to activate your account.

� You are not allowed to have more than one account in this website.

� If you want to cancel your account, please contact the administrator:

� The administrator of the website is allowed to cancel your account at his discretion if you don �t follow the rules of the website.

The points system:

� This is a sharing website. All users have to contribute if they want to use other members � contributions.

� If you send a printable or a powerpoint, it will be published the next day. Whenever someone downloads your worksheet, you �ll get one point, although you �ll have to wait two days to receive those points.

� You can use your points to download other users � contributions. For example, if you have 14 points you will be able to download 14 worksheets.

� When you reach 30 points you will become a premium user (not automatically, but the next day). Then you will have 30 free downloads every day (without using your points). These 30 free downloads can only be chosen from the recent contributions (previous day contributions), not from the whole collection.

� New users are allowed to upload one worksheet per day. Premium users are allowed to send three worksheets per day.

� The recent contributions can be found on this page: http://www.eslprintables.com/recentcontributions.asp

� You can also get points by creating online exercises. We have an easy-to-use tool to make them. You can find all the information and tutorials here.

� The online exercises will be rated by the other users the day after publication, and you �ll get points according to the average rating:
- Average rating 5: you will get 10 points
- Average rating 6: you will get 20 points
- Average rating 7: you will get 30 points
- Average rating 8: you will get 50 points
- Average rating 9: you will get 100 points
- Average rating 10: you will get 150 points
- Average rating under 5: the contribution is not approved and will be removed.

� The approved online exercises will be published in www.englishexercises.org, and they can be used by you and your students for free (no points needed).

� At www.englishexercises.org, you can make "online notebooks" for your students. You can make passwords for them, and assign them online work. Then you can see all their answers and results. More information here

Contributions:

� You can get points by uploading printables, powerpoints, or online exercises.

� Your contributions must be 100% in English language.

� Your contributions must be your own creations. You can use free images from clipart or other free sources. You can also use images that you have subscribed to and paid for.

� You can �t publish any document including pictures or contents taken from iclipart.com, since it �s against their terms of use.

� Worksheets containing watermarked clipart are not allowed and will be removed from now on.

� Please, don �t use pictures taken from other ESL websites or books, even if you add your own exercises.

� If you have a worksheet that you didn �t make yourself (borrowed from a colleague teacher, for example), don �t send it. It might be taken from a website or book, and your account could be banned on account of it.

� You can use texts from other websites or books in your worksheets if you add your own exercises or activities (For example, reading comprehension questions, etc). Please don �t take texts from other ESL websites or books; it would be unfair.

� If your worksheet is just a reading text, it will only be accepted if the text is written by you.

� It is acceptable to take a text from other sources (not ESL websites or ESL books) and add your own exercises or activities, but you are not allowed to take an exercise from another source and add more exercises of your own. All the exercises must be yours.

� You can use songs (traditional or modern) but make sure that you add your own exercises or activities. If your worksheet consists of just the song with a beautiful decoration, it will be considered a copy, since the content is not yours. Of course, if you write your own song, it will be gladly accepted, even if you don �t add any exercises.

� Worksheets consisting just of lists (such as "Phrasal verbs list" or "Irregular verbs list") are allowed, although they are not recommended because everybody can find them in other websites for free. Of course, they are not allowed if you have copied them from another source.

� You are not allowed to send the same worksheet twice.

� Answer keys are highly appreciated, but they must be included in the same document as the original worksheet, not uploaded as a different one.

� There will be two special categories: templates and tutorials. No points will be needed to download them (new users are the ones that might need them most). The generous members who upload contributions for these categories will get no points from them.

� You are allowed to use templates from the "templates page" to make your own contributions, but it is not allowed to use other members � worksheet as templates.

� If you want to contribute with templates or tutorials, just upload your printable or powerpoint and choose the category "Other printables > templates" or "Other printables > tutorials". Remember that you �ll get no points from them.

� If you want to send a colour and a BW version of the same worksheet, they have to be in the same document.

� In the past, members were permitted to send the colour and the BW versions in different documents. Those worksheets will not be removed, but members are no longer allowed to do so.

� Single flashcards (a document with a single picture) are not allowed. There must be at least four flashcards in the same document for it to be considered a flashcard set and be accepted. In the past we had many flashcards uploaded separately, and they will not be removed, but it is not allowed anymore.

� Your contributions must be ESL resources. For example:

� If three of your contributions are confirmed as copies by the moderators, your account will be reviewed by the administrator of the website, who might cancel your account at his discretion, taking into account the percentage of your work has been copied, if you have been warned previously, etc.

� In order to save space in the web server, worksheets and powerpoints with 0 downloads after one month will be automatically removed.

The uploading system:

� Printables must be under 1 MB. They must be .doc or .docx files.

� Powerpoints must be under 3 MB. They must be .ppt or .pptx documents.

� If the uploading system does not work, first check that your document meets the previous conditions. Even when it does, the uploading system may fail sometimes. In that case it is recommended to wait and try again 1 hour later.

� After uploading your document, you will have to enter the title, description, category, keywords, etc. Please, be descriptive and accurate, it will help your worksheet to be found by the members who need it, enabling you to get more points.

The forum:

� You are free to use the forum to express yourself, ask for help, make suggestions, etc.

� If you start a new topic, please write a descriptive title and keywords. It will be easier for other members to find it later.

� Don �t start a new topic when you are replying to a previous post.

� Please do not make multiple posts on the same topic. If you do so, please delete the duplicate posts.

� Don �t use the forum to advertise your worksheets or other users � worksheets. (You can do it if another member asks for a specific content or topic).

� Don �t use the forum for personal attacks. That kind of posts will be removed by the administrator.

� Never insult other users or try to hurt them.

� Never publish Private Messages in the forum. They are private.

� Those messages which are considered spam by the administrator will be removed (such as using the forum with the sole purpose of advertising your website).

� If you want to share photos, wishes, funny videos, etc. please use the "teachers � cafe", not the forum.

� Do not publish your email, telephone number or address in the forum. Anybody could see it. It is not safe.

The moderators:

� Users with over 5000 points are moderators. This is a voluntary activity that you can participate in to help keep the website fair and clean.

� The moderators will review the contributions that have been reported by members, and confirm if they are against the rules or not.

� The moderators can also inform the administrator if there are forum posts that go against the rules.

� The activity of the moderators will be supervised by the administrator, who can decide to revoke the moderator privileges of anyone who does not moderate according to the rules.

The reporting system:

� Any user with 30 or more points can report contributions, if they think that they are against the rules.

� Reported contributions will be reviewed by the moderators.

� Reported contributions will be "frozen" (not downloadable) until they are reviewed by the moderators. If the moderators decide that the worksheet is not against the rules, it will be included in the "recent contributions" the next day.

� The reports will also be supervised by the administrator, who can decide to revoke the reporting privileges of anyone who reports worksheets without justified reasons.

The private messenger:

� You can contact other users through the private messenger.

� If someone is bothering you with unwanted messages, you can add his/her username to your ignore list, and he/she won �t be able to send you any more messages.

Copyrights:

� The documents included in this website are property of their authors. When you send us a printable you agree that other people can download and use it.

� The documents included in this website can be downloaded for personal use only. You are not allowed to use them for commercial purposes, nor to publish them by any means whatsoever. That includes publishing them on your website for your students � use.

The rules that have changed will not be applied to older contributions.

These rules and instructions are subject to further change. All the members of the website will be informed of the changes.