Policies

Intended Use

Campus Office of Software Licensing (COSL) is provided for the use of University faculty and staff for business/academic services. Our billing is handled using the University accounting system; therefore we can accommodate only purchases made through University departments. When individual faculty, staff, and student licenses are available, they may be made under the auspices of their host department using their department's account numbers. Students may purchase personal copies of most software titles at the UCSB Bookstore.

Purchase Approval

Purchases made through the COSL's  coordinated licenses will require approval of the appropriate departmental budget controller for each account.

Orders that have been approved by your budget controller and placed may not be canceled or returned. COSL is not a retail store and we have no guarantee of being able to return all items to a reseller or the manufacturer.

Purchase Records

Your purchase order records constitute proof of your right-to-use the software you've acquired from our office. COSL maintains historical records for purchases made through the Software Depot order management system archived records. Records of participants in site licenses and volume purchases are also maintained. However, as time passes and personnel change it may be difficult to track such records. Although we will always make a best-effort attempt to locate order records, we strongly encourage you to carefully manage and maintain your license records locally.

Any purchases made through the Gateway system are not maintained by COSL. The Purchasing Department is the office of record for any software purchases made through Gateway.

Technical Support

COSL does not provide technical support for any of the products we manage. For computing support contact your departmental technical support staff.

Your Responsibilities and a Disclaimer

COSL is pleased to provide software service and coordinte large licenses. However, neither COSL nor the University of California make any warranty as to the fitness or usability of any software products available. Refunds will not be issued if a user determines after the purchase that a product does not perform as they expected. It is the user's responsibility to research and purchase the correct software needed for their particular computer system.

Additionally, please note that it is entirely the responsibility of the user to read and understand the terms of a license agreement (the "end user license agreement"). COSL accepts no responsibility for the actions of any user who might abuse a software license through misuse, over-installation, illegal copying and distribution, misunderstanding of laws and regulations, etc. All users accept full responsibility for their usage of software products including understanding of the software license guidelines.