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, not professional advice.
If you plan to generate revenue from BIMei materials (with limited educational exceptions), you’ll need to talk to us first.

One exception to note: the BIM Dictionary does not carry the blanket CC licence — 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

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”).

By accessing or using the Website, its materials, tools, applications, or related services, you agree to these Terms of Use. If you do not agree, please do not use the Website.

2. Purpose of the Website

BIMei provides open educational resources, research outputs, frameworks, tools, and thought leadership related to Building Information Modelling (BIM), digital transformation, and organisational performance.

All content and tools are provided for educational and informational purposes only.

3. No Professional Advice

All materials, tools, assessments, outputs, indicators, scores, visualisations, and guidance provided through the Website 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.

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 materials 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/

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.

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

5. Tools, Data, Applications, and External Repositories

BIMei provides tools, datasets, and applications through:

- this Website, 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 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. 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 6.2) — this section prevails for BIM Dictionary content.

6.1 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.

6.2 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.

7. 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".

8. 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.

9. User Contributions

Users may submit comments, feedback, data, or other content ("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.

10. Acceptable Use

You must not:

• misuse, scrape, disrupt, or overload the Website or tools;
• attempt to access data, accounts, or organisations you are not authorised for;
• remove attribution or licence notices;
• misrepresent BIMei materials as certified, endorsed, or proprietary;
• imply BIMei endorsement of products, services, or organisations without permission.

11. Intellectual Property

Except as permitted under the applicable licence:

- BIMei branding, names, and logos may not be used without prior consent.
- Rights not expressly granted are reserved.

12. 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, materials, or tools.

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

13. Privacy

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

14. Changes to These Terms

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

15. Governing Law

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

16. Contact

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