What are cookies?

When you visit some web pages, your computer may be issued with a small file - a ‘cookie’, which is placed on the hard drive of your computer. The information the cookie contains is set by the server (of the website you are using) and it can be used by that server whenever you visit the website. The server uses cookies to recognise your browser session if you visit multiple pages during your interaction with the website.

Read more about cookies

Types of cookies

Cookies can be ‘session cookies’ or ‘persistent cookies’.

  • Session cookies are temporary and should be deleted by your browser when you quit. They’re often used to help you to navigate websites efficiently and use functionality.
  • Persistent cookies can remain on your hard drive indefinitely (how long will depend on the lifetime of the specific cookie) and may continue to be accessed via your browser.
  • First party cookies are set by the website you visit and can be session or persistent cookies.
  • Third party cookies are set by other websites who run content on webpages that you view and can also be session or persistent cookies.

Can I turn off cookies?

Some people find the idea of a website storing information on their device intrusive. Although generally harmless, you might not want to see advertising targeted to your interests.

However, if you opt to disable cookies, a number of important functions and services could be unavailable to you and our websites will not operate correctly in your browser.

All modern browsers allow you to change your cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in the 'options' or 'preferences' menu. To understand these settings, the following links may be helpful, or select the use the 'help' option in your browser for more details.

If you’re concerned about third party cookies generated by advertisers, you can turn them off by going to the Your Online Choices site.

What cookies does the University use?

We use a range of first and third party cookies for a range of purposes. 

Advertising

We may use persistent third party cookies to target advertisements to you after you have visited our website and as you browse the internet. These advertisements are web-based and the University will not contact you directly without prior consent being given. Advertisements will relate to University courses or other University services in which you have expressed an interest by visiting those areas of the website. Cookies used for advertising purposes are anonymous and don’t store your personal information and enable us to see how many people have seen our advertisements or have clicked on them. Companies that generate these cookies have their own privacy policies.

Some anonymous session information may be collected via cookies and with help from third parties give us an understanding of how people are using the website and enable us to target web-based advertisements for University courses and services.

Website and blogs

Almost every website which offers advanced features uses cookies.

We use a number of session cookies across our digital properties to provide you with the best possible browsing experience, help you find the information you need and to use our services.

We may use session and persistent cookies to understand where you entered the website, and to analyse and track which advertising campaigns work effectively. This is done anonymously and the University will not use cookies to store or process personal information about you. 

We utilise cookie awareness notifications to confirm that you understand that the University uses cookies throughout the site. These pop-up notifications will no longer be displayed after you have confirmed that you recognise our site uses these cookies, unless our use of cookies changes, in which case we will notify you via the pop-up notification.

To maintain and improve the quality of our websites, mobile apps and blogs we use Google Analytics, HotJar and Chartbeat, which uses third party cookies and they may be persistent. Google Analytics, HotJar and Chartbeat cookies may connect with advertising and cross-device session stitching data which helps us understand how visitors use multiple devices to access our website so we can provide the best online experience.

Content that is embedded on our website from other platforms e.g. YouTube and Flickr may also set cookies.

MyDetails / MyStudents

The ‘MyDetails’/’MyStudents’ webpages of our website uses 10 essential cookies, which allows us to ensure that the ‘MyDetails’/’MyStudents’ pages can only accessed by authorised users. They are sessional cookies and are not used to collect personally identifiable information about you.

StudentHub and StaffHub

StudentHub and StaffHub sets first party cookies, which are used for the following reasons:

1. Essential cookies

Some cookies are essential for the operation of PortalPlus. For example, some cookies allow us to identify authenticated portal users and so give them full access to the portal site. There are several portal servers, so we also use a cookie to make sure you are connected to the correct one during a portal session.

2. Performance Cookies

We utilise other cookies to analyse how our visitors use the portal and to monitor performance. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular.

3. Functionality Cookies

We use functionality cookies to allow us to extend the portal's functionality. For example, cookies enable us to pass you between different University systems (e.g. the portal and the library system) so that each system can identify you and offer you a customised and authenticated experience.

Summon

For students and staff using Summon to access e-resources, a session cookie is stored once you have logged in to the system. The ‘Remember me’ option stores a normal cookie with a 30 day expiry. If you are accessing the system offline, session cookies are also used once you have logged in.

Anyone logging in to MyReading to update the reading list will also have a session cookie applied once they have logged in.

UniLearn (Blackboard)

UniLearn (the University’s Virtual Learning Environment) uses persistent cookies when you access the service, but deletes them when you log out. All users are encouraged to log out when they have finished using any system to which they have logged in. UniLearn will be implementing their own system whereby you have to consent where cookies are used for more than strictly necessary purposes. Cookies are necessary to identify individual users and ensure that personal data within the system is handled securely i.e. by ensuring that only they can access materials associated with their user profile.

ePrints

ePrints is our electronic archive for storing research output, which  is known as the Repository. ePrints uses a session cookie to store a session ID (UUID) when you log in, so that it can recognise who you are in your subsequent interactions. This cookie is deleted when you log out and no personal information is stored by the University.

Personal information

The University of Huddersfield does not use cookies to store or process personal information about you. The University of Huddersfield may use URLs stored in session and persistent cookies to analyse the performance of advertising campaigns; however this is done at an anonymous level.

Some University systems, which require the user to register or "log in" by entering a username and/or password, use your personal information for information system security purposes.

Cookie review

The University carried out an audit of its use of cookies to enable compliance with an amendment made to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations in May 2011. The audit was reviewed and updated in May 2016.

Cookie Audit