Terms of Use

Plain-English Summary (Non-Legal)

BIMei exists to share knowledge openly.

You are welcome to use, adapt, and build on BIMei materials for learning, research, and internal use, as long as:

• you credit BIMei,
• you do not sell or monetise the materials, and
• you share adaptations under the same licence.

Our tools and outputs are educational and decision-support materials, not professional advice. If you plan to generate revenue from BIMei materials (with limited educational exceptions), you'll need to talk to us first.

Two exceptions to note. First, organisations use our applications (such as Roles Profiles Flows) to prepare and publish their own reports and records. Those published outputs follow their own rules (section 6): they are decision-support materials prepared by the publishing organisation, they may include AI-assisted content, and the blanket CC licence does not apply to them. Second, the BIM Dictionary does not carry the blanket CC licence either: you are welcome to read, link to and cite its content, but wider reuse needs an item-level licence statement or a conversation with us first.

The formal terms below explain this in more detail.

1. About BIMe Initiative and These Terms

The BIM Excellence Initiative website (https://BIMexcellence.org/) ("Website") is developed, operated, and maintained by ChangeAgents AEC Pty Ltd, a company incorporated under the laws of the State of Victoria, Commonwealth of Australia (ABN 15 545 766 126) ("we", "us", or "BIMei").

In these Terms: "Applications" means the software applications operated by BIMei on or under the bimexcellence.org domain or otherwise identified as BIMei applications, including Roles Profiles Flows (RPF), the BIM Dictionary, the Macro Adoption Dashboard, and the BIMei Ontology. "Published Outputs" means the reports, records, diagrams, data feeds, and other materials generated through the Applications and made available to viewers, whether on a BIMei domain, in an embedded view on another website, as a downloaded file, or through an application programming interface (API). "Organisation Content" has the meaning given in section 10.

By accessing or using the Website, the Applications, their materials, tools, Published Outputs, or related services, you agree to these Terms of Use. These Terms apply to Published Outputs wherever they are viewed or consumed, and accessing a Published Output constitutes acceptance of the provisions of these Terms that apply to viewers. If you do not agree, please do not use the Website, the Applications, or the Published Outputs.

2. Purpose of the Website and Applications

BIMei provides open educational resources, research outputs, frameworks, tools, and thought leadership related to Building Information Modelling (BIM), digital transformation, and organisational performance. The Applications additionally enable organisations to prepare, manage, and publish their own decision-support materials using BIMei frameworks.

All content and tools are provided for educational, informational, and decision-support purposes only.

3. No Professional Advice; Decision Support

All materials, tools, assessments, outputs, indicators, scores, visualisations, and guidance provided through the Website, the Applications, or associated platforms:

• are not professional advice;
• do not constitute certification, accreditation, or endorsement; and
• are not a substitute for professional, legal, technical, financial, or other expert advice.

Published Outputs are decision-support materials. They are not legal, contractual, statutory, or project-specific requirements, they do not create obligations of any kind, and no viewer, including a viewer who accesses an output on a third-party website or through an API, may treat an output as advice from BIMei.

You remain solely responsible for how you interpret and use BIMei outputs. BIMei is not liable for decisions or actions taken based on their use.

4. Licence and Use of Materials

4.1 Default Licence

Unless otherwise stated, BIMei-authored materials published on the Website are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

This licence allows you to:

• Share: copy and redistribute the material;
• Adapt: remix, transform, and build upon the material;

provided that you:

• give appropriate attribution;
• use the material for non-commercial purposes only; and
• license derivative works under the same licence.

The full licence text is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

The default licence does not apply to: (a) Published Outputs, which carry their own conditions under section 6; (b) third-party material reproduced on any BIMei surface (section 4.3); (c) Organisation Content (section 10); or (d) the BIM Dictionary (section 7). Where an item is expressly marked with its own licence, that licence prevails for that item.

4.2 What "Non-Commercial" Means at BIMei

To reduce ambiguity:

• Permitted without permission:
  • Personal learning and research
  • Academic and educational use
  • Internal organisational use (including government and consultancy internal work)
  • Teaching by educational institutions, even where tuition fees are charged
• Not permitted without permission:
  • Selling BIMei materials or tools
  • Packaging them into paid products or services
  • Using them as part of revenue-generating offerings

If BIMei materials contribute to the creation of commercial value, a licence must be sought in advance. Use of the Applications' publication, embedding, download, and API features by an authorised organisation, within the access granted to it, is permitted use and does not require a separate licence under this section.

When unsure, ask. We prefer conversations to cease-and-desist letters.

4.3 Third-Party Material

Third-party quotations, source excerpts, standards material, and other externally owned content remain subject to their owners' rights and conditions wherever they appear: on the Website, in the Applications, or in Published Outputs. Their presence on a BIMei surface does not grant permission to reproduce them, and nothing in these Terms licenses third-party material.

5. Tools, Data, Applications, and External Repositories

BIMei provides tools, datasets, and applications through this Website, the Applications, and external platforms such as GitHub or similar repositories.

Key points:

• All tools and outputs are provided "as is" and "as available".
• No guarantee is made regarding accuracy, completeness, or suitability.
• Outputs are educational and decision-support illustrations, not definitive evaluations.

Some repositories, datasets, or tools may include specific licence notices or usage conditions (e.g. in a README.md file). Where present, those notices prevail and must be reviewed individually.

6. Published Outputs of the BIMei Applications

6.1 Preparation and Responsibility

Published Outputs prepared by an organisation using the Applications are prepared by, and are the responsibility of, that organisation. BIMei provides the frameworks, templates, structure, and software, and retains its rights in them; the organisation retains its rights in its Organisation Content within the output. A statement that an output was prepared using RPF or another Application records the tool used; it is not certification, verification, or endorsement of the output's content by BIMei.

6.2 Viewing Licence

Unless an output is expressly marked with its own licence, a Published Output may be viewed, printed for personal or internal reference, and linked to, but not otherwise reproduced or redistributed. An output expressly marked with its own licence carries that licence.

6.3 AI-Assisted Content

Some content available through the Applications is produced or enriched with the assistance of artificial-intelligence systems, working from source material supplied by the publishing organisation and from BIMei frameworks. AI-assisted content may be incomplete, out of date, or incorrect, including where it has been reviewed. Labels such as "sourced" or "reviewed" describe how content was prepared; they are not a warranty of accuracy. AI-assisted content is provided for decision support only, is not a statement of fact or advice by BIMei or by the publishing organisation, and must be verified against the underlying sources before being relied on.

6.4 Third-Party Material Within Outputs

A Published Output may quote or excerpt standards material, publications, and organisation-supplied documents. Section 4.3 applies to those passages: they remain their owners' property and are reproduced for reference within the output only.

6.5 Embedding on Other Websites

Published Outputs may be embedded on third-party websites only where the publishing organisation has enabled embedding for that site. An embedding site must present the output without alteration, must not obscure or remove the attribution, disclaimers, or links it contains, and must not present the output in a way that implies BIMei's endorsement of the site, its owner, or its offerings. BIMei and the publishing organisation may withdraw or restrict embedding at any time.

6.6 Downloads

Where an output offers a download, such as a diagram extract, the downloaded file is part of the Published Output and carries the conditions in section 6.2, together with any licence or attribution note included in or alongside the file.

6.7 API Access

Access to BIMei APIs is granted per organisation through access keys. You must keep keys confidential, use them only for the organisation they were issued to, and not share, sell, or expose them. API responses are provided as is, without warranty of availability, accuracy, or continuity, and their format may change. BIMei may apply rate limits and may suspend or revoke keys in cases of misuse, security risk, or breach of these Terms. Data obtained through an API may be used within the receiving organisation and its own systems, but may not be resold or republished as a standalone dataset without permission.

6.8 Linked Resources

Published Outputs and Application pages may link to third-party materials, courses, and references. These links are provided for convenience and are not endorsements; the linked content and its terms remain their owners'.

7. The BIM Dictionary

The BIM Dictionary (https://BIMdictionary.com) is an editorial reference work operated by ChangeAgents AEC as part of the BIMe Initiative. This section applies to the BIM Dictionary in addition to the rest of these Terms; where it differs (most notably on licensing, see 7.2), this section prevails for BIM Dictionary content.

7.1 Terms of Use

The BIM Dictionary is provided in good faith as an editorial reference. It is not professional, legal, contractual, statutory or project-specific advice. Definitions describe curated usage of terms and may be corrected or extended over time.

Published BIM Dictionary term identifiers are permanent. Once published, an identifier is not reassigned to a different concept. Where a pinned version is available, cite that version when you need a fixed reference.

You may read, link to and cite BIM Dictionary content. You must not:

• misrepresent altered material as BIM Dictionary content;
• imply that BIM Dictionary, ChangeAgents AEC or the BIMe Initiative endorses your work, product or organisation;
• use the service in a way that disrupts, damages or places unreasonable automated load on it; or
• use private reader or organisation content without authority.

Reader sign-in does not grant curator authority. Curator and organisation permissions are checked separately.

To the extent permitted by law, the BIM Dictionary is provided "as is" without warranty. Nothing in these Terms excludes rights that cannot lawfully be excluded, including rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

7.2 Licensing and Attribution

Unlike the default licence described in section 4.1, the BIM Dictionary does not apply one blanket reuse licence to every item shown or transmitted by the service.

BIM Dictionary-authored descriptions and editorial notes, factual labels and aliases, permanent identifiers, citations and bibliographic metadata, machine-readable schemas, software, names and marks may each have different reuse conditions. Unless an item is expressly accompanied by a licence statement, no licence is granted beyond reading, linking to and citing the material as permitted by law.

Third-party quotations, source excerpts, standards material and other externally owned content remain subject to their own rights and conditions. Their presence in the BIM Dictionary does not grant permission to reproduce them.

Private reader content, including personal lists and notes, is not published or licensed by the BIM Dictionary.

When citing a BIM Dictionary term, use its permanent identifier and do not imply endorsement of altered content. For reuse, quotation or licensing questions, please use the BIMe Initiative contact page.

8. How to Attribute BIMei (Required)

When using BIMei materials, attribution must be clear and visible.

• A recommended attribution format is: "Source: BIM Excellence Initiative (BIMei), licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0."
• Where possible, include a link to https://BIMexcellence.org/ and the applicable licence page.
• For adapted materials, clearly state: "This work is adapted from BIM Excellence Initiative materials, https://BIMexcellence.org".

9. User Accounts, Registrations, and Events

Your BIMei account. You may need a BIMei account to access the BIMei applications or a Site registration to participate in events or contribute content. One identity per person: do not share accounts. You agree to provide accurate information, keep your credentials and any multi-factor device secure, and use the Sites and Applications responsibly; you are responsible for activity under your account.

Organisations. Access to the BIMei applications is granted to organisations and their members. Organisation owners and administrators manage their members and accept these Terms on the organisation's behalf.

BIMei reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts or organisations in cases of misuse, abuse, security risk, or breach of these Terms. You may close your account at any time by contacting us.

10. Organisation Content

Content that an organisation or its members supply to the Applications, including uploaded documents, source materials, notes, and configuration ("Organisation Content"), remains the property of the organisation or its licensors. BIMei processes Organisation Content only to provide and secure the Applications, to generate the outputs the organisation requests, and as otherwise agreed with the organisation. Organisation Content is treated as confidential to the organisation's workspace and is not published unless the organisation publishes it; section 11 does not apply to it.

The organisation warrants that it holds the rights needed for the Applications to store, process, excerpt, and, where the organisation chooses to publish, display its Organisation Content, including any third-party material within it.

11. User Contributions

Users may submit comments, feedback, data, or other content ("Contributions"). Organisation Content (section 10) and Published Outputs (section 6) are not Contributions.

By submitting Contributions, you confirm that:

• you have the right to submit them;
• they do not infringe third-party rights; and
• they are lawful and appropriate.

Unless covered by another contract or agreement, you grant BIMei a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use, reproduce, adapt, publish, and analyse Contributions for educational, research, and knowledge-sharing purposes, including in anonymised or aggregated form.

Contributions are not confidential.

12. Acceptable Use

You must not:

• misuse, scrape, disrupt, or overload the Website, the Applications, or tools;
• attempt to access data, accounts, or organisations you are not authorised for;
• share, sell, or expose API access keys, or use a key outside the organisation it was issued to;
• remove attribution, licence notices, or the disclaimers carried by Published Outputs;
• misrepresent BIMei materials as certified, endorsed, or proprietary;
• imply BIMei endorsement of products, services, or organisations without permission.

Authorised use of a BIMei API with a valid key, within its rate limits, is not scraping for the purposes of this section.

13. Intellectual Property

Except as permitted under the applicable licence:

• BIMei branding, names, and logos may not be used without prior consent.
• The BIMei frameworks, templates, report structures, and software underlying the Applications remain BIMei's property.
• Rights not expressly granted are reserved.

14. Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• BIMei excludes all warranties, express or implied.
• BIMei is not liable for any loss, damage, or claim arising from use of the Website, the Applications, materials, tools, Published Outputs, or API responses, wherever accessed.

Each organisation indemnifies BIMei against third-party claims arising from the Organisation Content it supplies and the Published Outputs it publishes.

Nothing in these Terms limits consumer guarantees under Australian law that cannot be excluded.

15. Organisation Agreements

Where an organisation has a separate agreement with BIMei covering its use of the Applications, that agreement prevails over these Terms to the extent of any inconsistency.

16. Privacy

Use of the Website and the Applications is subject to the Privacy Policy, available at: https://BIMexcellence.org/privacy/

Published Outputs may display limited personal information, such as the name or identifier of the member who prepared a scenario, where the publishing organisation includes it. The Privacy Policy explains how to request removal of personal information from a published page.

17. Changes to These Terms

These Terms may be updated from time to time. Continued use of the Website constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

18. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Victoria, Australia, and applicable Commonwealth legislation.

19. Contact

Questions regarding these Terms, attribution, or licensing may be raised via the contact details provided on the Website.