Cookies

Information about our cookies

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer’s hard drive or mobile device when you access the Abertay website. They cannot harm your computer and they cannot be used to identify you personally, just the computer used.

‌Abertay University will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by the Abertay website, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.allaboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer as well as more general information about cookies. 

Why do we use them?

We use cookies for the following:

  • To deliver specific functionality to the user allowing the website to work properly
  • To gather anonymous data on user behaviour on the website so that we can better understand user journeys and improve the website as a consequence

Additionally, cookies may be placed on a user’s device by a third-party. Some examples of these third-party services:

  • We use Google Analytics to collect data on website traffic mentioned above
  • We use YouTube to embed videos onto University web pages
  • We use Google Maps to provide location information to users

We have no control over these third party cookies.

The following sections highlight the types of cookies we use to help improve the services on the site and describe briefly what they do.

SiteImprove

Abertay uses SiteImprove for quality assurance, accessibility and search engine optimisation. It helps us improve our website in a number of ways so visitors have a better experience, such as identifying broken hyperlinks, recording search terms, mapping user journeys so we can better understand which pages users find interesting, and improving the site for users with specific accessibility requirements.

This information is then used by us to help to improve the user experience for you on the website.

SiteAnalyze may set these cookies:

Namenmstat
Host/domain             .abertay.ac.uk
Expires3 years
DetailsThe SiteAnalyze nmstat cookie contains a randomly generated ID used to recognise your browser when you read a page. It collects statistics about site usage such as when the visitor last visited the site. The cookie contains no personal information and is used only for web analytics.

Google Analytics

Used to monitor visitor traffic and behaviour on the university website. This enables us to estimate more accurately the numbers of visitors to particular pages and plan for revisions or archiving. See gaConceptsCookies for more information.

Google Analytics may set these cookies:

Name_ga
Host/domain             .abertay.ac.uk
Expires3 years
Details

By default, the analytics.js library uses a single cookie named _ga to store a unique client identifier (Client ID), which is a randomly generated number. Once the ID is generated it's stored in the cookie and is included with each hit / request sent to Google Analytics. This ID is later used by Google Analytics servers to calculate user, session, and campaign data.                 

In addition, Google Analytics now has the ability to tap into data collected via remarketing and the Google advertising network (as described below). No user will be personally identifiable, however this service will collect information about gender, age and areas of interest where appropriate.

This information will not be collected if you use the Google opt out plug-in for browsers.

Name__utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmv, __utmz, _gat_UA-
Host/domain             .abertay.ac.uk
ExpiresThe longest lasting cookie expires 2 years after your last visit to the website. Others are deleted 6 months, 30 minutes and the moment you close your browser. (See details below)
Details

__utmz keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine you used, what link you clicked on, what keyword you used, and where they were in the world when you accessed a website. It expires in 6 months. This cookie is how Google Analytics knows to whom and to what source / medium / keyword to assign the credit for a Goal Conversion or an Ecommerce Transaction. __utmz also lets you edit its length with a simple customization to the Google Analytics Tracking code.

__utmb and __utmc cookies work together to calculate how long a visit takes. __utmb takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site, while __utmc takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site. __utmb expires at the end of the session. __utmc waits 30 minutes, and then it expires. You see, __utmc has no way of knowing when a user closes their browser or leaves a website, so it waits 30 minutes for another pageview to happen, and if it doesn’t, it expires.

__utmv is used for custom segmentation, it gets set on the person’s computer, so that Google Analytics knows how to classify that visitor. This cookie is also a persistent, lifetime cookie.

__utmz keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine you used, what link you clicked on, what keyword you used, and where they were in the world when you accessed a website. It expires in 6 months. This cookie is how Google Analytics knows to whom and to what source / medium / keyword to assign the credit for a Goal Conversion or an Ecommerce Transaction. __utmz also lets you edit its length with a simple customization to the Google Analytics Tracking code.

_gat_UA- for analytics.js. Used to throttle request rate. Expires after 10 minutes.

YouTube

We embed videos from our official YouTube channel. This may set cookies on your computer once you click on the YouTube video player, but YouTube will not store personally-identifiable cookie information for playbacks of embedded videos using the privacy-enhanced mode.

NameVISITOR_INFO1_LIVE, YSC, PREF, GEUP
Host/Domain             .youtube.com
ExpiresEnd of session to 2 years
DetailsGoogle set a number of cookies on any page that includes a YouTube video. While we have no control over the cookies set by Google, they appear to include a mixture of pieces of information to measure the number and behaviour of YouTube users, including information that links your visits to our website with your Google account if you are signed in to one. Information about your use of our website, including your IP address, may be transmitted to Google and stored on servers in the United States. This cookie does not identify you personally unless you are logged into Google, in which case it is linked to your Google account.

Online Store

The following cookies are set set by the third-party company WPM Education for the operation of the University's Online Store.

NameASPSESSIONIDCSATRQTD, WPM%5FStore, WPM%5FStore%5FSession, cc_cookie_accept, _ga, _gat_UA-, __utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmz, __utmt
Host/Domain             .onlinestore.abertay.ac.uk
ExpiryVaries from the end of session to 2 years
Details

ASPSESSIONIDCSATRQTD - Session ID - Used to maintain the security of your browsing session - Expires when you close your browser.

WPM%5FStore - Used to maintain the security of your browsing session - Expires when you close your browser.

WPM%5FStore%5FSession - Used to maintain the security of your browsing session - expires after 20 minutes.

cc_cookie_accept - Permission cookie that stores that you have accepted the cookie message.

_ga, _gat_UA-, __utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmz, __utmt - refer to the section above on Google Analytics

Olark Help & Feedback

Olark lets us talk to the people on our website. We use it to help answer any questions users might have about for example the application process and student funding.

Namehblid, wcsid, olfsk, _okbk, _ok, _oklv, _okla, _okgid, _okac, _okck
Host/Domain             .abertay.ac.uk
ExpiryRanges from end of session to 2 years.
Details

_okbk - extra state information (e.g. chat box being open/closed)
_ok - most recent Olark site ID (security measure)
_oklv - the Olark loader version (for improved caching)
_okla - used for caching purposes (loaded from CDN vs. loaded from our infrastructure)
_okgid - group id the visitor is locked to
_okac - used for caching by setting a hash for assets to determine if they have changed and if they need to be refreshed
_okck - used to test whether the visitor's browser allows cookies to be stored

Description of Olark cookies

Hotjar Analytics

We make use of the Hotjar service to understand how users navigate around individual pages on our site.

Further information on how Hotjar uses cookies is available here: https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/cookie-information.

Cookie Consent

The University is required to provide clear information, informing people how it makes use of cookies on its websites, and to provide details on how individuals can opt out of using those cookies, if they so choose. The requirement to do this is set out in Regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR). For further information please refer to www.allaboutcookies.org

NameABERTAY_COOKIE_CONSENT
Host/Domain             .abertay.ac.uk
Expires1 month
DetailsThe ABERTAY_COOKIE_CONSENT cookie is used to ensure you don't keep seeing the cookie message at the foot of our pages once you have clicked to continue. By using our website we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on this website. If you don't want cookies to be used then please refer to the information above.

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