Terms & methodology

Acceptance of these terms

By accessing or using CourseTrees, you agree to these terms and to our privacy notice. If you don't agree, please don't use the site. We may update these terms as the project evolves; the “last updated” date above reflects the current version, and continued use after a change means you accept it.

A study aid, not official advice

CourseTrees is independent and student-built. It is free to explore, and optional paid plans may be offered in the future; CourseTrees will never sell data or paywall public catalog data. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any university. It helps you explore and plan, but it is not an official advising tool. Catalogs change and our data can lag or contain errors, so always confirm requirements with your school's registrar and advisor before you register. We provide the site “as is,” without warranty.

AI advisor content

Cam's answers are generated from catalog data and may be incomplete, outdated, or wrong. They are not academic advice. Confirm requirements in the official catalog and with your registrar or advisor before you register.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• scrape, bulk-download, or systematically harvest the site beyond normal personal browsing;
• disrupt, overload, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to the site or its infrastructure;
• use the site to break the law or to infringe anyone's rights;
• misrepresent the site as an official university tool or as providing official advising.

We may suspend or limit access that threatens the site's availability, security, or integrity.

How the data is sourced

We gather factual course information from public university catalogs, at a respectful rate, and attribute it to each school with a link back to the official catalog. We review each source's terms and robots rules. Coverage varies by school: some have a full prerequisite graph and offering history, others currently have only the catalog. See the ethics and data sourcing section for detail.

Intellectual property

Factual course information (codes, titles, prerequisites, offerings) is sourced from each school's public catalog and belongs to the respective institutions. The CourseTrees name, design, original written content, and software are ours. You're welcome to use the site for personal, non-commercial study and planning; please don't copy or repurpose our branding or original materials without permission.

Your data

We don't require an account. Your school choice, courses taken, and plans stay in your own browser, all traffic is encrypted in transit, and we never sell your data. Full detail is in our privacy notice.

Disclaimer of warranties

The site and all data are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, or uninterrupted availability. You use CourseTrees at your own discretion and rely on it for academic decisions only after confirming with official sources.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, CourseTrees and its creators will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, or for any academic, scheduling, financial, or other decisions made in reliance on the site. CourseTrees is a free study aid, and our total liability for any claim relating to it is limited accordingly.

Corrections and takedown

If a course detail looks wrong, use the report button in any course panel. If you represent a university and want data corrected or removed, email coursetrees@gmail.com and we will respond promptly.

Security

To report a security issue, see our security.txt or email coursetrees@gmail.com.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email coursetrees@gmail.com.