Terms of Service
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Scholar Sync plugin and the scholar-sync.org cloud service (collectively, the "Service"), provided by Scholar Sync ("we", "us", or "our"). By installing the plugin, creating an account, or connecting your site to our service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
1. What Scholar Sync Is
Scholar Sync is a WordPress plugin that connects to the scholar-sync.org cloud service to automatically retrieve, store, and display academic publication data for researchers and academic groups. Publication metadata is sourced from OpenAlex, an open scholarly database. Scholar Sync does not scrape, reproduce, or redistribute copyrighted content — only bibliographic metadata (titles, authors, years, DOIs, citation counts) is retrieved and displayed.
2. Accounts and API Keys
When you connect your WordPress site to scholar-sync.org, a unique API key is issued to your site. This key authenticates all communication between your site and our service. You are responsible for keeping your API key confidential. Do not share it publicly or expose it in client-side code. If you believe your key has been compromised, contact us immediately at support@scholar-sync.org to have it rotated.
3. Plans and Limits
Scholar Sync offers a free plan and paid premium plans.
- Free plan: Supports up to 2 researcher profiles, each with up to 50 automatically synced articles. Additional articles may be added manually without limit.
- Premium plans: Higher limits and additional features as described on our pricing page.
Plan limits are enforced by the cloud service. The plugin itself contains no feature gates — all functionality is available regardless of plan, subject only to the service-side limits associated with your account. If you exceed the limits of your current plan, syncing will be suspended for the accounts over the limit until you upgrade or reduce the number of profiles.
4. Payment and Billing
Paid plans are billed through Freemius, our payment processor. By purchasing a premium plan you agree to Freemius's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Freemius handles all payment card data; we never store or process payment card details ourselves.
Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled before the renewal date. Refunds are handled in accordance with Freemius's refund policy. To cancel, use the account management portal accessible from within your WordPress dashboard under Scholar Sync → Account.
5. Data We Collect and Send
When you connect your site to scholar-sync.org, the following information is transmitted to our servers:
- Your site URL (used to identify your account)
- The API key assigned to your site
- Researcher names and OpenAlex IDs you add to the plugin
- Requests to sync or retrieve publication data
We do not collect visitor data, page view data, or personally identifiable information about the users who view your published researcher pages. We do not sell your data to third parties. For full details see our Privacy Policy.
6. Third-Party Data Sources
Publication metadata is retrieved from OpenAlex (openalex.org), which is operated by OurResearch and published under a CC0 license. We are not affiliated with OpenAlex or OurResearch. The accuracy, completeness, and availability of publication data depends entirely on OpenAlex and is outside our control. If a researcher's publications are missing, incomplete, or incorrect in OpenAlex, the data displayed through Scholar Sync will reflect that. Corrections must be submitted directly to OpenAlex.
7. Content Disclaimer
Scholar Sync is a retrieval and display tool. We do not create, verify, edit, or curate any of the publication content shown through the Service.
We expressly disclaim all responsibility for:
- Missing articles — publications may not appear if they are absent from or not yet indexed in OpenAlex, regardless of whether they exist in other databases.
- Inaccurate metadata — titles, author names, publication years, journal names, DOIs, citation counts, and any other bibliographic fields are displayed exactly as provided by OpenAlex. We do not check them for correctness.
- Sync failures — we do not guarantee that automatic synchronization will run on any particular schedule, complete successfully, or reflect the most recent state of OpenAlex at any given time. Network conditions, service availability, and third-party API changes can all affect sync outcomes.
- Decisions made based on displayed data — you bear full responsibility for verifying the accuracy of any data before relying on it for academic, professional, or any other purpose.
By using the Service you acknowledge that Scholar Sync is not a substitute for authoritative academic databases and that you will not hold us liable for any loss, reputational harm, or other consequence arising from inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, or missing publication data.
8. Acceptable Use
You agree not to use the Service to:
- Misrepresent authorship or academic credentials
- Automate requests to our API at rates that interfere with service availability for other users
- Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the scholar-sync.org backend
- Resell or sublicense access to the Service without our prior written consent
- Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable regulations
We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms without prior notice.
9. Intellectual Property
The Scholar Sync WordPress plugin is open-source software released under the GNU General Public License v2 (or later), as required by the WordPress.org plugin directory. The scholar-sync.org cloud service, its API, backend infrastructure, and branding are proprietary and are not covered by the GPL.
Publication metadata displayed through the Service is sourced from OpenAlex and remains subject to its CC0 license. We claim no ownership over bibliographic data.
10. Service Availability
We aim to keep the Service available at all times but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. Scheduled maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, or events outside our control may cause temporary downtime. We will make reasonable efforts to notify users of planned maintenance in advance. During outages, previously synced data stored in your WordPress database remains accessible to your visitors.
11. Disclaimer of Warranties
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements, that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that defects will be corrected.
12. Limitation of Liability
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Scholar Sync shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including loss of data, loss of revenue, or loss of goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Our total liability for any claim arising under these Terms shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim.
13. Termination
You may stop using the Service at any time by deactivating the plugin and requesting deletion of your account by emailing support@scholar-sync.org. Upon account deletion we will remove your site's API key and associated configuration from our servers. Publication data already stored in your WordPress database is not affected.
We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms, fail to pay for a paid plan, or if we discontinue the Service. We will provide reasonable notice where possible.
14. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where the changes are material, notify connected sites via an admin notice in the WordPress dashboard. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
15. Governing Law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Israel, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any disputes arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in Israel.
16. Contact
If you have questions about these Terms, please contact us:
- Email: support@scholar-sync.org
- Website: scholar-sync.org