About This Policy

Web Sites Covered

Reference to "CIHT" or "We" means the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation, including any company that we control (for example a subsidiary that we own). Reference to "website" means our internet website, ciht.org.uk. We have an about us section on our site where you can read more about our company, what we do and find out how to contact us.

This Editorial Policy applies to ciht.org.uk. You should read the editorial policy at each website that you visit after you leave ciht.org.uk. We are not responsible for how other websites handle editorial once you leave ciht.org.uk.

Editorial Policy Changes

Minor changes to the policy may occur that will not affect the overall goals this policy is designed to achieve. When the policy changes in a way that significantly affects the way we handle editorial matters, we will clearly draw the attention of our users to the change. We will post policy changes on our websites in a timely manner.

Editorial Policies

CIHT are committed to providing you with balanced, accurate information. CIHT employs editorial professionals who are responsible for content selection, development and maintenance process. We recognise the importance of maintaining a clear separation between our independent editorial content and any materials that are advertising or any content that may be influenced by our sponsors. We also have organised the operations of our website to provide for appropriate separation of our education and promotion programs from an editorial perspective. We manage our educational activities for our members and highways and transportation professionals, and individuals who work on educational matters are not involved with promotional activities.

Sources of Our Information

All material on our website that we present as our own is either created by us or is obtained from content providers whose editorial processes we have evaluated and find to be acceptable. Material we create is written either by our staff writers or by highways and transportation professionals and writers whom we commission. Our content has been evaluated by in-house editors and all submitted content is reviewed for fair balance and whether learning objectives are met by the content. Sources for third party editorial content include government agencies, not-for-profit organisations, universities, and key stakeholders that provide transport related news and information. Our editorial staff reviews most content from outside sources for accuracy, balance, completeness and timeliness before we make it available on our sites. In the cases where a complete review is not possible, we rely on spot-checking and our previous evaluation of possible sources of information and of the editorial procedures used by the information provider (for example, in the case of the use of government agency news releases). In most cases, content we obtain from others has also been reviewed by the provider's own in-house staff, or subjected to review by independent authorities in the field. In some areas of our website, we make content available that comes from corporate partners and conference organisers. We design these areas to make it clear to the user that the content has not gone through our editorial process. CIHT reviews site content regularly to ensure that it remains relevant. Where necessary, content found to be incorrect or out of date is corrected, updated, moved to an archive (where it remains available), or purged. We can use editor's notes to indicate when this has occurred.

Linking to other sites

We provide company logos or links to other websites throughout our website. These logos and links are not intended to imply that we approve of or recommend these entities to users. Where we are making a recommendation, we clearly state that fact in connection with the logo or link. We design our website with the goal of making it clear to you when you are leaving our websites for another website, so that you will know that another site's advertising, editorial policy, privacy policy, and terms of use are in effect.

Financial Information and Outside Influence

Currently CIHT, unlike most information sites on the World Wide Web, do not rely on advertising and sponsorship, including banner advertising, grants, and sponsorship of ongoing education programs. Advertising is discussed later in this policy. With respect to sponsorship or other financial relationships, we observe the following principles:

• Appian Trading is the trading subsidiary of the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation, information on the company is available here or you may visit the Companies House website www.companieshouse.gov.uk and use their "Webcheck" service to view our listing.
  
  
• We will also make clear who owns any website we operate, and to the extent that some content on or areas of our website are sponsored or controlled by others, we will identify those areas and provide the name of the sponsor. Examples might include an area where a partner offers products or services in a co-branded area of our Web site (like books on transport or a job search feature), or a project-specific area that includes sponsored content from a company with products in that area. We also clearly disclose funding we might have received to support the development of content or features, even when they are under our editorial control. We will disclose any cases where we have placed content on our website because of sponsorship or other support from a third party.
      
• We may obtain revenues from third parties related to advertising sponsored by others on our website, including advertising revenues, commissions on consumer purchases, fees based on consumer use of links to other websites.
      
• We do not intend any links to other websites, logos, or marks of other companies, or any co-branding to constitute recommendations unless we specifically indicate that we recommend them.
      
• For research content on our website, we will clearly disclose the author or source of the material and the date of the material or its last update. Where we present content as the result of case studies, projects or academic research, we will clearly disclose the actual author of the content and others who have had a substantial role in writing, editing or otherwise preparing the material.
      
• We require authors who write for us to complete a conflict of interest form that requires disclosure of any financial interests and affiliations that may influence, or have the appearance of influencing, the specific content they provide. If the conflicts, in our judgment, are significant, then we require their public disclosure in connection with the content on our website. We require the same of those who serve on our various editorial boards.

Feedback

We welcome any comments, questions, or complaints you have about this editorial policy or our Web sites. Please feel free to contact us by sending an email to info@ciht.org.uk