document: title: privacy and cookies
text: ## Cookies

This website make use of cookies to help provide certain features. You can restrict or block the use of cookies using settings in your web browser.

Our use of cookies falls broadly into two categories

### Personal information

Blackboard

Users of Blackboard should be aware that when accessing the virtual learning environment, Blackboard will deliver cookies to your connected device (e.g. web browser, smartphone, etc). The system uses this technology to provide secure learning experiences, track usage and manage application performance. If you delete these cookies or choose not to accept them you will not be able to use Blackboard.

OpenAthens

For some online journals and databases the university uses a login service called OpenAthens provided by an organisation called Eduserv. The cookies used by this service are as follows:

Cookie Name

| 

Purpose

| 

Duration

| 

Domain  
  
---|---|---|---  
  
ath_Idom

| 

For OpenAthens customers, this contains the organisation number of the user’s selected home organisation.

| 

5 years

| 

.athensams.net  
  
ath_ltoken

| 

Opaque session identifier, denoting that a user has a valid session in OpenAthens MD

| 

End of session

| 

.athensams.net  
  
ath_username

| 

Logged in username

| 

End of session

| 

.athensams.net  
  
ath_da

| 

A numerical value representing the type of login

| 

End of session

| 

.athensams.net  
  
MyAthensCt

| 

Opaque session identifier, denoting that a user has a valid session in MyAthens

| 

End of session

| 

.athensams.net  
  
ath_tbactive

| 

Set if user has the Athens toolbar

| 

End of session

| 

.athensams.net  
  
### Not personal information

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to track the performance of our website and patterns in use. We do not link statistics collected by Google Analytics to personally identifiable information. Find out more on the Google Analytics privacy policy and how to opt out of tracking.

Third Party Social Media Sites

We may embed "widgets" from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook or Google+ into our sites. These sites use cookies to track who is logged in and will know details of which pages on our site use these "widgets".

Managing your privacy

You can block or remove cookies in the browser. Blocking cookies may prevent you from accessing online services from Swansea University. Removing cookies will log you out of an existing session. Find out how to block and manage cookies at All About Cookies.

You can use the "incognito" or "private browsing" mode in your web browser to restrict the type of cookies that are set and how they are used to track. This creates a fresh session and you will look like a new user unconnected to other sites, for example social media sites will see you as a signed out user (unless you explicitly login to them) and Google Analytics will see you as a new visitor.

## Third Party Cookies

This site uses cookies to allow customisation and to collect anonymous web metrics - click here for more information ACCEPT