Company–Faculty & Freelancer
Collaboration Policy

Vidyawan, operating under the registered legal entity Shiva Tech Innovations (hereinafter referred to as "the Company" or "Vidyawan"), is an MSME-registered (UDYAM-WB-14-0205610) and ISO 9001:2015-certified educational technology platform headquartered in West Bengal, India. The Company provides structured learning programmes, virtual internships, competitive examinations, and skill certification services to engineering students and learners across India.

This document — the Company–Faculty & Freelancer Collaboration Policy (hereinafter referred to as "the Policy" or "this Policy") — constitutes the comprehensive and legally binding framework that governs all collaborative relationships between Vidyawan and individuals engaging with the platform in the capacity of faculty members, freelancers, subject matter experts, session instructors, content creators, or any other form of external contributor (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Collaborators" or individually as "Faculty Member", "Freelancer", or "Contributor" as context demands).

The Policy is structured into twelve (12) principal clauses, each addressing a distinct dimension of the collaboration relationship. In the event of any conflict or ambiguity between this Policy and any verbal or informal communication, this Policy shall take precedence unless explicitly overridden by a formally executed, separately signed written agreement that specifically references and amends the relevant clause of this Policy.

• 1
  A predefined percentage of the net revenue generated from a specific course, module, or live session shall be shared with the Collaborator who authored, created, or delivered the said content or session, subject to the conditions set forth in this clause.
• 2
  The applicable revenue-sharing percentage shall be mutually agreed upon in writing prior to publication or delivery of the content or session. No verbal agreement shall constitute a binding revenue-sharing arrangement. A written confirmation via official email or signed agreement is the minimum acceptable standard of documentation.
• 3
  Revenue sharing is calculated exclusively on Net Revenue, defined as: Total Gross Revenue MINUS Platform Fees MINUS Payment Gateway Charges MINUS Applicable Taxes MINUS Promotional Discounts Applied MINUS Refunds Processed MINUS Any Other Documented Operational Deductions. Collaborators acknowledge and accept this deduction framework as a precondition of engagement.
• 4
  Mandatory Revenue Ceiling: Under no circumstances whatsoever shall any Collaborator — whether a faculty member, freelancer, session instructor, or external expert — receive more than 40% (forty percent) of the net revenue from any single course, module, session, or deliverable. This ceiling is absolute, non-negotiable, and applies regardless of any informal communication to the contrary.
• 5
  Revenue-sharing eligibility arises only upon verified completion of the deliverable — meaning the course is fully published, the session is fully delivered, and all associated content quality checks by Vidyawan have been passed. Partial or incomplete deliverables shall not attract revenue-sharing entitlement unless explicitly agreed otherwise in writing.

The following illustrates the maximum permissible revenue distribution. Actual percentages will vary as per individual written agreements.

• 1
  Vidyawan exclusively and irrevocably retains all rights related to course pricing, promotional strategies, discount campaigns, bundling of offerings, and any commercial decisions affecting the listed price or effective selling price of any content associated with the platform. No Collaborator may set, negotiate, modify, or influence the pricing of their content independently.
• 2
  Promotional discounts applied by Vidyawan at its discretion shall be deducted from gross revenue prior to net revenue calculation. Collaborators acknowledge that promotional pricing is a legitimate business decision and shall not constitute grounds for a revenue-sharing dispute.

Vidyawan maintains a structured proposal and approval framework to ensure content quality, curriculum coherence, and non-duplication across its platform. All Collaborators are required to adhere to the submission standards set forth herein.

Every course or session proposal submitted to Vidyawan must include, at minimum, the following components:

• 1
  Title and Learning Objectives — A precise, measurable statement of what the learner will be able to do upon completion.
• 2
  Target Learner Profile — Engineering stream, academic year, knowledge prerequisites, and geographical or demographic targeting (if applicable).
• 3
  Content Structure or Session Plan — A module-by-module or level-by-level breakdown covering topics, estimated duration per unit, and assessment strategy.
• 4
  Market Relevance Analysis — Evidence of learner demand, gap in existing platform content, or industry relevance justification for the proposed subject.
• 5
  Technical Requirements — Any software, hardware, simulator access, or platform tools required for content delivery or student practice.

All Collaborators engaged with Vidyawan are bound by the following professional, operational, and ethical responsibilities. Failure to comply with any responsibility set forth herein may constitute a breach subject to the provisions of Clause 10 (Termination).

• 1
  Prior Written Authorisation: Collaborators must obtain formal written authorisation from the Vidyawan administration before updating, modifying, removing, or substantially restructuring any published or scheduled content or session. Unauthorised modifications to live content shall constitute a material breach of this Policy.
• 2
  Professional Conduct: All Collaborators must maintain the highest standards of professional conduct, academic integrity, punctuality, and respectful communication in all interactions with Vidyawan learners, staff members, and platform administrators.
• 3
  Material Preparation: Collaborators are required to prepare all relevant teaching materials, assessments, code examples, presentations, or live session demonstrations to the quality standard specified by Vidyawan prior to publication or delivery.
• 4
  Live Session Scheduling: Live sessions may be scheduled on demand. Payment terms for each live session must be formally agreed upon — either in writing via official email or in a signed document — before each engagement commences. Post-delivery payment disputes arising from the absence of prior written agreement shall not be adjudicated in the Collaborator's favour.
• 5
  Promotional Compliance: Collaborators may promote their courses and sessions through appropriate personal and professional channels. However, all promotional material must comply strictly with Vidyawan's branding, visual identity, and promotional guidelines. Misrepresentation of platform credentials, unofficial claims of affiliation, or promotions that conflict with Vidyawan's messaging are strictly prohibited and may result in immediate termination.
• 6
  Confidentiality: Collaborators must treat all non-public Vidyawan information — including platform architecture, student data, revenue figures, pricing strategies, unreleased content, and internal communications — as strictly confidential. Disclosure to third parties without explicit written consent from Vidyawan constitutes a serious breach and may expose the Collaborator to legal liability.
• 7
  Accuracy of Information: Collaborators are responsible for the factual accuracy and currency of all content they produce. Content found to be materially inaccurate, outdated, or misleading after publication must be corrected promptly upon notification from Vidyawan. Repeated accuracy failures may be treated as grounds for content removal and collaboration termination.
• 8
  Third-Party Licences: Where content includes third-party media, code libraries, datasets, or references, the Collaborator is solely responsible for securing all necessary licences, permissions, and attributions. Vidyawan shall bear no liability for third-party licence violations arising from content submitted by Collaborators.

• 1
  No Exclusive Departmental Assignment: No department, subject area, course domain, or content vertical shall be exclusively assigned to, or considered the intellectual territory of, any single Collaborator. Vidyawan reserves the unqualified right to engage multiple contributors within any subject area simultaneously.
• 2
  Multi-Contributor Departments: Multiple Collaborators — including faculty members, freelancers, and external subject matter experts — may work concurrently within the same department, contributing to different levels, modules, or short-term training programmes.
• 3
  Revenue Distribution in Collaborative Offerings: Where revenue must be distributed across contributors within a department or collaborative programme, Vidyawan shall make the final determination based on four factors: (a) quality and originality of the specific content contribution, (b) teaching effectiveness and delivery quality as measured by platform analytics, (c) learner engagement, completion rates, and feedback scores, and (d) overall contribution to the Vidyawan brand and measurable learner outcomes.
• 4
  External Expert Engagement: Vidyawan reserves the right to independently engage external content creators, subject matter experts, or short-term session instructors at any time, in any subject area, without prior notice to existing Collaborators in that domain. Such engagement shall not constitute a breach of any arrangement with existing Collaborators.

• 1
  The Referral Reward Program ("the Program") is available exclusively to registered students and learners of Vidyawan who hold a verified, active account on the platform at the time of making and claiming a referral.
• 2
  Faculty Members and Freelancers are expressly excluded from receiving referral rewards under this Program. Collaborators may share course or session links to increase visibility and learner enrollment; however, any resulting enrollment revenue shall be shared only as per the mutually agreed revenue-sharing terms under Clause 1 of this Policy, and not as a referral reward.
• 3
  There is no upper limit on the number of valid referrals a registered student may make. Multiple successful, verified referrals may be claimed as per full compliance with the conditions set out in Sections 6.2 through 6.6.

The following four-step process constitutes the complete, mandatory, and sequential procedure for a referral to be recognised as valid and eligible for reward processing. Deviation from any step — in any order — shall render the referral invalid.

• 1
  Rewards shall be processed only after successful verification and internal compliance review by Vidyawan's Student Support & Compliance Team. The review period may vary and Vidyawan does not guarantee same-day or fixed-period processing.
• 2
  To maintain financial transparency and audit safety, rewards will be transferred exclusively to the original payment method used by the Referrer during their own enrollment. Reward transfers to third-party accounts, alternative payment methods, or digital wallets not associated with the original enrollment transaction shall not be processed.
• 3
  Vidyawan reserves the full, unilateral right to approve, reject, delay, suspend, or investigate any referral reward request in cases of suspected policy violations, suspicious activity patterns, verification discrepancies, or system anomalies.
• 4
  Vidyawan may modify, update, restructure, or terminate the Referral Reward Program at any time, with or without prior notice. Participation in the Program at any time constitutes acceptance of the latest published version of the Program terms. No vested rights to future rewards arise from past participation or pending referral status.

The following financial terms govern all payment-related matters between Vidyawan and its Collaborators. These terms apply in addition to any individually negotiated and documented revenue-sharing percentages under Clause 1.

• 1
  Timely Disbursement: Vidyawan shall ensure timely disbursement of earnings to Collaborators as per the mutually agreed payment schedule documented in each individual engagement agreement. Where no schedule is explicitly agreed, payment shall be processed within a reasonable period following the close of the applicable billing cycle, as determined by Vidyawan.
• 2
  Fixed Operational Cost Coverage: All fixed operational costs, including but not limited to domain registration, platform hosting, software licences, cloud infrastructure, and productivity tools, shall be borne exclusively by Vidyawan. These costs shall not be charged back to any Collaborator.
• 3
  Transactional Cost Deductions: All transactional costs, including payment gateway fees, platform service charges, processing fees, and similar variable charges incurred in connection with student enrollment payments, shall be deducted from gross revenue prior to the calculation of the Collaborator's net revenue share.
• 4
  Tax Deductions: All applicable taxes, including Goods and Services Tax (GST), Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), and any other statutory levies applicable under Indian law, shall be deducted or withheld as required. Collaborators are responsible for their own income tax obligations arising from payments received.
• 5
  Dispute Window: Collaborators must raise any payment-related dispute or discrepancy within thirty (30) calendar days of the disbursement date or scheduled disbursement date. Disputes raised outside this window may not be considered, and Vidyawan shall bear no obligation to investigate or rectify claims submitted after the lapse of this period.
• 6
  No Payment for Rejected Content: Content or sessions that are rejected by Vidyawan's quality review process, or that are not approved for publication or delivery, shall not attract any payment entitlement, regardless of the effort invested by the Collaborator in their creation.
• 7
  Refund-Adjusted Revenue: Where a student successfully claims a refund for a course or session, the refunded amount shall be deducted from the gross revenue pool for that deliverable prior to net revenue calculation. Collaborators acknowledge that learner refund policies are within Vidyawan's exclusive commercial discretion.

• 1
  Company Ownership: All content, course materials, assessment papers, recorded live sessions, study notes, code examples, quizzes, presentations, and any other deliverables produced by a Collaborator in connection with their engagement with Vidyawan shall, upon acceptance and publication, vest exclusively in Shiva Tech Innovations as the Company's intellectual property, unless a separately executed written IP assignment agreement explicitly provides otherwise.
• 2
  Prohibition on External Republication: Collaborators expressly and irrevocably agree that they shall not reproduce, distribute, sublicense, publish, upload to third-party platforms, sell, or otherwise commercially exploit any content that has been accepted and published on the Vidyawan platform, without obtaining prior explicit written permission from the Vidyawan Management Team.
• 3
  Pre-Existing IP: Where a Collaborator incorporates pre-existing intellectual property (created before or independently of their Vidyawan engagement) into their submitted content, they warrant that they hold all necessary rights to include such material and grant Vidyawan a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use it as part of the submitted content.
• 4
  Prohibited Uses: Collaborators shall not, under any circumstances: (a) use Vidyawan-published content to create competing courses on other platforms; (b) claim individual authorship credit in a manner that implies independent ownership of Company IP; (c) use Vidyawan's branding, logo, MSME registration, or ISO certification in personal portfolios or third-party platforms without written authorisation.
• 5
  Dispute Resolution — IP Matters: In the event of any dispute regarding ownership, attribution, or usage rights of any content, the signed collaboration agreement and the terms of this Policy shall serve as the primary reference documents. Where ambiguity exists, the interpretation most protective of Vidyawan's interests shall prevail.

In the course of their engagement with Vidyawan, Collaborators may have incidental access to student data, platform analytics, financial information, or other personal and sensitive data. The following obligations apply absolutely and without exception.

• 1
  No Unauthorised Data Access: Collaborators shall only access student data, platform analytics, or financial information that is directly relevant to and required for the performance of their specific engagement. Accessing data beyond one's operational scope constitutes a breach.
• 2
  No Data Exfiltration: Collaborators are strictly prohibited from extracting, downloading, copying, or transferring any student personal data (names, emails, phone numbers, enrollment records, performance data) for any purpose outside their immediate platform engagement function.
• 3
  No Third-Party Disclosure: Student data accessed in the course of any Vidyawan engagement shall not be shared with, sold to, or disclosed to any third party — including competing platforms, educational institutions, advertising networks, or any other entity — under any circumstances.
• 4
  Compliance with Applicable Law: Collaborators must comply with all applicable Indian data protection laws and regulations, including the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA), as they apply to any personal data encountered in connection with their engagement.
• 5
  Breach Reporting: Any accidental or suspected breach of data security or student privacy discovered by the Collaborator must be reported to Vidyawan at support@vidyawan.in within 24 hours of discovery. Failure to report a known breach constitutes an independent violation of this Policy.

Vidyawan is committed to maintaining fair, transparent, and professionally respectful collaboration relationships. However, the Company reserves the unqualified right to terminate any collaboration arrangement where the conduct, output, or actions of a Collaborator are in conflict with this Policy, the Company's standards, or the interests of its learners and brand.

Vidyawan reserves the right to terminate any collaboration engagement with formal written notice (delivered by email to the Collaborator's registered address) in cases including, but not limited to, the following grounds:

• 1
  Upon termination, the Collaborator's access to all Vidyawan administrative tools, content management systems, student data, and platform resources shall be immediately revoked.
• 2
  Content already published on the platform may, at Vidyawan's sole discretion, remain published, be modified, be transferred to another Collaborator, or be removed. Revenue sharing on retained published content post-termination shall cease unless explicitly addressed in the termination notice.
• 3
  Any pending payments due at the time of termination shall be calculated and disbursed in accordance with Clause 7, minus any applicable deductions for breach-related losses, disputed content, or costs incurred by the Company as a result of the Collaborator's breach.
• 4
  Post-termination confidentiality, data protection, IP ownership, and non-compete obligations set forth in this Policy shall survive termination and remain binding on the Collaborator indefinitely.

• 1
  Stage 1 — Internal Resolution: All disputes or disagreements arising from this Policy or any collaboration engagement shall first be referred to Vidyawan's management team in writing at support@vidyawan.in. Vidyawan shall endeavour to respond within fifteen (15) working days.
• 2
  Stage 2 — Governing Law: If the dispute is not resolved through internal communication, it shall be subject to the laws of India, and the courts of West Bengal shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all disputes arising from or related to this Policy or any engagement governed by it.

By engaging with Vidyawan under this Policy, each Collaborator represents, warrants, and undertakes the following:

• 1
  They have the full legal capacity and authority to enter into the collaboration arrangement and are not bound by any agreement with a third party that would prevent or restrict such engagement.
• 2
  All content, materials, and deliverables they submit are original, do not infringe any third-party intellectual property right, and do not contain plagiarised, misappropriated, or unlicensed material.
• 3
  All factual claims, technical content, and academic information included in their deliverables are accurate, up-to-date, and appropriate for the target learner audience at the time of submission.
• 4
  They have disclosed all material information relevant to their engagement, including prior or concurrent engagements with competing educational platforms.

If any provision or sub-provision of this Policy is found to be unenforceable, invalid, or contrary to applicable law by a court of competent jurisdiction, such provision shall be severed from the Policy to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect.

This Policy, together with any individually executed written collaboration agreement, constitutes the entire understanding between Vidyawan and the Collaborator with respect to the subject matter herein, and supersedes all prior verbal or written communications, representations, or understandings on the same subject.