Software Terms & Conditions

The following general terms and conditions pertain to Technology Products software license agreements negotiated by the University of Minnesota and our practices related to software not included in these agreements. Additional terms and conditions apply to some items as listed on the individual pages for these items in our licensed software catalog; see Software.

  • In general, University of Minnesota departments, current faculty and staff, and in some cases, students are eligible to participate in annual software agreements. See individual software pages for details and restrictions.
  • Unless otherwise stated in the software license description, each software license comes with Work at Home rights. This means that under one license purchase, a single user may install software on their work computer as well as on one home computer, this is sometimes referred to as Work/Home rights or Desktop/Laptop rights. It is at the purchasing units discretion whether or not they will support the software installed on the ‘Home’ computer. It must be noted that the software CANNOT be running on both computers at the same time.
  • With little exception all software that OIT has licensed can only be used for UMN related teaching, learning or research.  If you need to use software for Administrative use please check with [email protected] to verify if that usage is allowable. 
  • Purchasing one software license does not authorize the purchaser to make multiple copies of the software. Installing software on more machines than you have software licenses for is in violation of the copyright law.
  • The lessee (usually a department of the University of Minnesota) signs a yearly software agreement for their specific number of requested software selections. Many of these software selections are available at discounted prices. In return for lower prices, some additional restrictions and/or requirements may apply.

Return & Refund Policy

  • Refunds must be requested within 2 business days of purchasing by emailing [email protected]. Note, refunds may not be available for some licenses.
  • For software, hardware or peripheral return requests purchased from a vendor or a reseller, please work directly with the entity that you purchased from, as their return policies may differ.  

Additional Information

If you are unable to find a certain software title in the current University of Minnesota software license list, or if you would rather purchase the software instead of "leasing" it through a software agreement, you may choose from the following options:

  • Technology Products offers discounted purchase options for software and other technology-related items. Vendors coordinate volume purchase agreements and offer special discounts available only to current University of Minnesota students, faculty, staff, and departments.
  • You may also send an e-mail to the OIT Software License Team requesting we research a software title. Include as many details as you can (e.g., software name, manufacturer, software description). When there are several requests for a certain type of software, we research vendor and site license options and send to collegiate unit representatives information about the software and possible system-wide license costs to determine if it makes sense for OIT to offer a University-wide license.