What Tillyard is

In short

• Tillyard is a website, and it is an Ohio nonprofit corporation. One person runs it day to day. It is for adult college students and recent graduates. Joining is not open yet.
• It does not teach. No credit, degree, certificate or grade comes from taking part.
• It is not an employer, and being a member is not an internship. Titles such as Published Author and Session host are not internships. Only the Tillyard Internship program is an internship. It is unpaid, it ends on a fixed date and it has its own written agreement. Outside the program, nobody directs your work, sets your hours or pays you.
• Tillyard Research is a student publication. It is not a peer-reviewed journal.
• It is not part of any college, and no college endorses it.
• The IRS has not recognized it as tax-exempt, and we do not say that it has. We cannot yet say whether a tip is tax-deductible.
• A record says what a member did and who confirmed it. It is not a qualification, a reference or a background check.
• The college email line is not proof of enrollment, age or identity.
• It does not promise an interview, an offer or any other result.
• It is free to students today. That describes the present arrangement and is not a promise about every year to come.

If this summary and the full text below ever differ, the full text governs. Section 1.3 says which documents govern this page.

1 What it is, briefly

1.1 Who runs it

Tillyard is an Ohio nonprofit corporation. In this page we, us and our mean Tillyard. At present one person, the owner, runs it day to day. That person is also the editor of Tillyard Research.

1.2 What members can do here

• Work alongside other students in The Shop, a text-only coffee shop with rooms, tables, shared timers and a chat that opens during breaks.
• Write to members they are connected with in Notes.
• Write a paper for Tillyard Research, a student publication. Students who chose to read score it and the editor decides whether to publish it.
• Take up tracks in Pursuits: rounds, portfolio pieces, team projects in booths, hosting scheduled tables, roles in student organizations, public-good service.
• Keep The Record: a page for each thing they did, saying what it was and who confirmed it.
• Use free résumé tools in The Workbench and read guides in The Almanac.

Parts of the site open in stages, so something described here may not be available yet.

1.3 What kind of page this is

This page explains. It adds no rules. The agreement with members is the Terms of Use and the policies it names, including The Record and Verification Policy and the Eligibility and Verification Policy. If this page and one of those differ, that document governs.

2 Learning and credit

2.1 Courses

We do not teach. Nothing here is a class, a course, a curriculum or a program of study. When a member hosts three evenings on one subject, that is a three-part table series: members talking to each other at a table. A peer help table is one student helping others with something they have already learned.

2.2 Credit, degrees and grades

We do not award academic credit, continuing-education credit, degrees, diplomas, certificates, completion awards, grades, levels or pass marks, or any other written evidence of proficiency or achievement in a course of study. We offer no course of study, and we take no charge, fee or other payment for anything recorded on The Record. We do not test anyone. If the site offers a practice exercise, the result is shown to the member alone and goes nowhere else.

2.3 No accreditation

No accrediting body has reviewed us, and we do not accredit or approve anyone's work, skill or program.

2.4 If your college gives you credit

Some colleges give credit for things a student does on their own. If yours gives you credit for something you did here, that is your college's decision under its own rules, and we have no part in it. We do not sign credit forms, practicum agreements or learning plans, because we do not supervise what members do.

2.5 Homework and academic honesty

Tables are for working alongside other people and for explaining things to each other. Nobody here does your coursework for you. Your college's rules on academic honesty are yours to follow, here as anywhere.

3 Work, pay and titles

3.1 Employment

Being a member is not a job. Nothing you write, publish, read, host, build, confirm or share here makes you our employee, intern, trainee, apprentice, fellow, volunteer worker, contractor, agent or partner. No title on your Record changes that. The one exception is the separate, unpaid Tillyard Internship program. A member accepted into a term signs a written agreement and is an unpaid intern for that term. That is not employment.

3.2 What decides it

A label does not decide whether something is employment. These facts do:

• You choose everything. We do not assign topics, tasks, hours, deadlines or numbers to reach. You decide whether to take part, in what, when, and how much.
• Nothing is owed either way. You are not paid and are not promised pay, a reference, a role with us, or a better chance of one. You owe us no work.
• Your work is yours. You keep ownership of what you make. We hold a limited licence to show it, which you can end. We do not direct your work or supervise it.
• You cannot act for us. You have no authority to speak for us, sign for us or commit us to anything.

3.3 Hosts, readers and officers are members

A member who hosts a table chose to. A member who reads a paper chose to. Neither has a schedule, a target, a duty or any power over other members. No member can moderate, remove, mute or approve another member. Staff accounts are held only by the owner and by people working under a paid contract. The board's trustees, who are unpaid, and sponsors have console accounts of their own kinds.

3.4 Pay and rewards

Nobody is paid for anything they do as a member, in money or in kind. Stamps, mugs, founding numbers and postmarks are keepsakes for showing up. They cannot be exchanged for anything, and none of them is given for how much someone writes, reads or hosts.

3.5 References and verification

We do not write letters of reference or recommendation. We do not answer employment-verification requests, because there was no employment to verify. A record page is the whole of what we say about what a member did.

3.6 The research cohort

You may see a page where you can say you would be interested in a small research cohort if we ever run one. That page takes names and nothing more. It is not an application, an offer or a promise that a cohort will run. If one is ever offered it will have its own written terms.

3.7 If you are an international student

Taking part here is not employment, practical training or volunteering for an employer, and ordinary membership is not an internship. The Tillyard Internship program is separate. It has its own rules for students on an F-1 visa. We do not give immigration advice and cannot tell you how your visa rules treat any activity. If you hold an F-1 or other student visa and have any doubt, ask your college's international student office first.

3.8 What this means for a résumé

Nothing from Tillyard goes under Experience, Employment or Internships. How to list this on a résumé says where each kind of item does go.

3.9 Volunteering and service

Nothing here is volunteer work for us. Hosting, reading and writing here are things members do for themselves and for each other.

Service on a member's Record is something else: unpaid work for an outside charity or a public body, which the member arranged with that organization. We keep the record and do nothing more. We find no placements, list no requests, set no tasks, count no hours and supervise nobody. We are not a volunteer agency, and the organization a member serves is not our partner.

4 Recruiters, opportunity links and trade

4.1 Placement

We do not find work for anyone or place anyone with an employer. We are not an employment agency, a recruiter or a staffing service.

4.2 Recruiter accounts

There are no recruiter accounts. Nobody can pay to search members, to contact them or to see more than a member chose to make public. A recruiter who wants to check an item uses the same public record page as anyone else.

4.3 Opportunity links lead somewhere else

The Almanac links to other organizations' own listings. We do not write those listings, check them or vouch for them, and applying is between you and the organization.

4.4 Outcomes

Using the site, publishing a paper or holding a title does not come with a promise of an interview, an offer, an admission, a scholarship or anything else. Recruiters weigh experience with a real employer most, and nothing here stands in for that. What you get is something real to point to and a page where a reader can see who confirmed it.

4.5 Buying and selling

Members do not buy from or sell to each other here. A project in a booth belongs to the people who make it. Help-wanted cards are for finding teammates for a member's own project. They may not be used to find unpaid help for a business, and nobody may use the site to recruit members into unpaid work.

4.6 Raising money

Members may not use the site to ask for money or for investment, to advertise or sell goods or services, or to post openings for paid work. A project page is not an offer to invest in anything. The Terms of Use and the Community Guidelines govern.

5 Tillyard Research, Readers' Selection and rounds

5.1 Tillyard Research is a student publication

Tillyard Research publishes papers by members. Each paper is offered to students at other colleges who chose to read, and they score it against a published rubric. The editor then decides. The paper's page says exactly how many students read it.

Tillyard Research is not a peer-reviewed journal. Its readers are students rather than scholars in the field. Publication is the editor's decision to publish. It is not a finding that a paper is correct.

It costs nothing to submit a paper or to have one published.

5.2 Readers' Selection is a summary of readers' scores

Readers' Selection is not running at present. If we open it, it would list papers published in a term, chosen by a published rule from the totals their readers gave. Nobody would apply for it, there would be no prize, and no panel of experts would be involved. It is not an honor or an award, and it is not membership of an honor society.

5.3 Prizes in rounds

Rounds in Pursuits are free to enter. There is no prize, nothing to buy and nothing decided by chance. Entrants score each other's entries under rules published before anyone enters.

5.4 Scholarships and grants

We award no scholarships. A research grant for a project, under its own signed agreement, is the one way money can reach members, and none can be paid until Tillyard has a bank account.

5.5 Research involving people

We do not review or approve research involving people. If a paper draws on interviews, a survey or private information about identifiable people, the author is responsible for following their own college's rules, including review by its ethics board where the college requires that. What a paper's page says about this is what the author told us. The Author Agreement and Licence and the Editorial Policy of Tillyard Research govern.

6 Colleges, organizations and public bodies

6.1 Colleges

We are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any college or university. No college asked us to exist, pays us or supplies us with anything. A college's name appears on the site as text only, because a member studies there. We do not use college logos, seals, mascots or colors, and we ask members not to.

6.2 Organization entries are kept by their officers

A student organization's entry here is a record kept by that group's own officers. It is not a chapter of Tillyard. We do not run the group or speak for it, and the group's college has no connection with us.

6.3 Outside organizations named on a record

Where a charity, a public body or any other organization is named on a record page, the page says what a person there did, in exact words, and no more. Being named does not make an organization our partner.

6.4 Public projects

Some tracks involve contributing to a public project: an open-source project, a public transcription drive, an online encyclopedia, a federal comment docket. A member does that under their own account, on that project's own terms. Neither the member nor we are affiliated with the project or the institution behind it.

6.5 Government

We are a private nonprofit corporation. Nothing we record has official standing with any government agency.

7 The company, tips and sponsors

7.1 A nonprofit

Tillyard is an Ohio nonprofit corporation. It is not a foundation, and the IRS has not recognized it as tax-exempt. We do not say that it has.

7.2 A tip is a tip

Tips are not open yet. When they open, anyone who has used the site can leave a tip. A tip is a voluntary payment to Tillyard for a free service already used. The site's button calls it a donation. We cannot yet say whether it is tax-deductible. Tips go into Tillyard's general revenue. Tipping does not change your standing here, and not tipping does not either.

7.3 Larger tips and sponsors

Larger payments and sponsorships are arranged in writing. They give no ownership, no return, and no say over editorial decisions, reviews, records or anyone's standing. The Tips and Larger Payments Terms govern.

8 What a record says

8.1 Records state facts

An item on The Record says what a member did and who confirmed it. It does not say the member reached a level of skill, knowledge or proficiency, completed a course, or passed anything. It is not a certificate, a diploma or other evidence of proficiency or achievement in any course of study. The Record and Verification Policy sets this out.

8.2 Licences and qualifications

Nothing on The Record is a licence, a certification, a qualification or evidence of fitness for any role. Skills on a member's page are links to the items that involved them. Nobody tested them.

8.3 References

A record page reports facts on a stated basis. It does not assess anyone's character, ability or reliability, and we do not add to it by phone or email.

8.4 Background checks

We are not a consumer reporting agency and a record page is not a consumer report. We do not assemble information about people for employers, and nobody pays us to see a page. A member's pages show nothing about reports, warnings or suspensions, and the absence of a page says nothing about anyone.

8.5 The college email line

"Verified .edu email, checked October 2026" means a code sent to a mailbox at that college was typed back that month. It does not prove that the member is enrolled, how old they are, or who they are. We do not contact colleges and they tell us nothing. To confirm enrolment or a degree, ask the college.

8.6 Keepsakes

A stamp, a mug or a postmark records that someone showed up. It is not a title and is not part of The Record.

8.7 Hours

Records state counts and dates. They do not state hours, and we do not issue a statement of hours or sign an hour log for anything. If a school, a scholarship, a court or anyone else requires a documented number of hours, a record page will not meet that requirement.

9 AI, advice and emergencies

9.1 AI detection

We make no claim that AI-written text can be detected. We do not run papers through AI detectors and we do not act on a detector's score. Authors say how they used AI tools, and the editor's decision is editorial judgment. The AI-Use Policy governs.

9.2 Professional advice

We are not a law firm, an accountant, a financial adviser, a doctor, a therapist, an engineer, an immigration adviser or a careers counsellor. Guides in The Almanac are general information. Pages by members that touch law, tax, medicine, engineering or investments carry a fixed label saying they are a student exercise and not advice to anyone. Other members are not your advisers either.

9.3 The résumé checker is a checker

The Workbench checks a résumé against published conventions, such as a single column and real text. It does not promise that any employer's software will read a résumé a certain way, and it does not make any résumé succeed.

9.4 Emergencies

Reports are read by a person and that person is not always at a desk. If someone is in danger now, call 911. If you are thinking about suicide or are in crisis, call or text 988.

9.5 Disagreements between members

We decide what our own pages say. We do not decide who owns a project, who owes what to whom, or who is in the right in a disagreement between members, teammates or an organization's officers. Where a teammate disputes a line on a project, the page marks it as disputed until the people involved settle it or the line is withdrawn. The Projects and Collaboration Terms and the Disputes and Corrections Policy govern.

10 Messages, privacy and backups

10.1 Strangers cannot write to you

A member can write only to members they are connected with, and a connection takes an act from both sides. There is no random matching of members. Members appear under their real names beside a college, not under handles. It is not a dating service.

We do not check who members are beyond a college mailbox, and we run no background checks on members.

10.2 Who can read notes

Messages and threads are not end-to-end encrypted. They pass automated safety screening, and staff may read a conversation that is reported or flagged, and in the other limited situations listed in section 6 of the Messaging and Monitoring Notice, which governs.

10.3 Text, figures and receipts

We host no audio and no video. The only things that can be uploaded are figures in a paper for Tillyard Research and receipts for a research grant. When a résumé is brought into The Workbench it is read inside the member's own browser. If a table points to a call on another service, that call is outside Tillyard and we do not see, record or moderate it.

10.4 Backups

Keep your own copies of anything you care about. We may hold, hide or remove content, features can be paused, and the site can be unreachable.

10.5 Advertising, tracking and selling data

We show no advertising and run no tracking or analytics scripts. We do not sell personal information or share it for advertising. One outside script runs on forms that need it: a bot check. We do not use what members write to train AI models, and we do not license it to anyone for that purpose. Member text does pass through automated safety screening, which the Privacy Notice describes. The Privacy Notice governs.

10.6 Email addresses

We do not give members email addresses at our domain. An address at a company's domain suggests the sender works for it, and members do not work for us.

10.7 Feeds, followers and rankings

There is no endless feed, no count of followers and no ranking of members by hours or activity.

10.8 Meeting in person

Tables are online and in text. If members choose to meet in person, that meeting is outside Tillyard. It is not our event, we have no part in it, and nobody should describe it as ours.

11 Who it is for, and how long it lasts

11.1 Adults at United States colleges only

Members must be 18 or older, in the United States, and students or recent graduates of a college on our list. It is not for anyone under 18, and it is not for high-school students even where a college has given them an address. The Eligibility and Verification Policy governs.

11.2 One person and response times

Requests are read by a person who is not always available. We do not promise a response time for any request unless a law sets one, and where a law sets one we follow it.

11.3 Free to students today

Membership costs nothing and there is nothing to buy. That is the present arrangement. We may change, pause or close any part of the site, and the Terms of Use say what notice we aim to give.

12 If something seems to say otherwise

If a page on the site, an email from us, or a member's description of us seems to contradict this page, tell us at support@tillyard.org. If it is our wording, we want to correct it. If it is a member's, the Trademark and Brand Use Policy covers what we may do.

Changes to this document

We may revise this page. When we do, we change the version number and the effective date at the top. If the site changes so that an entry here stops being true, we aim to change the entry before the change takes effect.

Contact

• Questions about what Tillyard is: support@tillyard.org
• To dispute or correct something, with or without an account: tillyard.org/dispute
• Legal notices: legal@tillyard.org, or by post to Tillyard, 10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062
• Accessibility: accessibility@tillyard.org

Questions about this document

support@tillyard.org

Legal notices

legal@tillyard.org

By post

10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062

For anything else, see where to send what.

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