A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a unique identifier that is sent to your computer or mobile phone browser from a website's computer and is stored on your computer's or mobile phone's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, which the site can then access when you visit it again to track online traffic flows, for example. A website cannot access cookies sent by other websites.
This page supplements the information provided in The Open University's Privacy Notice.
We use cookies to make sure our websites work effectively and to improve your user experiences on them. Information supplied by cookies can help us work out how you use our sites; for example, which pages you look at, and whether you experience any errors. We also use cookies to remember your preferences and understand how you interact with our sites.
Each web browser has its own way of managing cookies. You can block or remove cookies yourself by altering the settings of your browser to block cookies or to send a warning notice before a cookie is stored on your computer. These changes will apply to all websites that you visit (unless you choose to block cookies from particular sites).
You should be aware that any preferences will be lost if you delete cookies. If you block cookies completely, many websites will not work properly and some functionality on these websites will not work at all. We do not recommend turning cookies off when using our websites for these reasons.
To find out more, consult your browser's help function. We've provided links to the relevant pages for some common browsers.
Our website uses the following analytics providers and you can opt out of their cookies by clicking on the following links. Please note that this will take you to the relevant third party's website and generate a 'no thanks' cookie, which will stop those third parties setting any further cookies. These changes will apply to all websites that you visit.
Don't forget that by not allowing analytics cookies, this stops us from being able to collect information about how visitors use our websites in order to improve them.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.