A cookie is created at the request of the website a user is viewing. The website requests the web browser create a small text file with a small amount of information, which it can access whilst you are viewing the website. The information is usually to provide some functionality... to enhance the users experience on the site."
aboutcookies.org.uk
How to Manage Cookies
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of certain parts of the University of Aberdeen's website.
Most standard web browsers may be configured to refuse cookies: consult your browser's help pages for instructions on how to do this. You may wish to visit aboutcookies.org.uk which contains comprehensive information on how to manage cookies on a wide variety of browsers.
University of Aberdeen Cookies
General Purpose Cookies
The following cookies may be set by certain pages within our website as necessary.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| 32 alphanumeric characters | PHP session ID Used to maintain the security of your browsing session |
When you close your browser |
| abdn_maps | Used to store geolocation, if you have agreed to share that information | 30 minutes |
| abdn_forms | SimpleForms Used to check that cookies are enabled so that the PHP session ID can be used without displaying it in the browser's URL |
1 hour |
| abdn_session_cookie_check | Intranet/standard SimpleCMS login Used to check that cookies are enabled so that the PHP session ID can be used without displaying it in the browser's URL |
1 hour |
| abdn_show_cookie_advisory | Used to determine whether the cookie advisory notice has been displayed | 1 year |
| UoAInfrastructure | Used for balancing of the session to a specific server | Immediately |
Confidential Reporting Service
The following cookies are set set by the Confidential Reporting Service.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| confidential_reporting_production_session | Used to temporarily store data relating to the Confidential Reporting form | After 30 minutes or when you close your browser |
Clearing
The following cookies are set by the Clearing website.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| abdn_clearing_session | Used to temporarily remember your chosen country of choice in order to determine eligibility | After 24 hours |
Online Store
The following cookies are set set by the third-party company WPM Education for the operation of the University's Online Store.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| ASPSESSIONIDCSBBRDCQ | Session ID Used to maintain the security of your browsing session |
When you close your browser |
| WPM%5FStore | Used to maintain the security of your browsing session | Immediately |
| WPM%5FStore%5FSession | Used to maintain the security of your browsing session | Immediately |
AURA
The following cookie is set when using the University's DSpace installation, the Aberdeen University Research Archive (AURA).
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| JSESSIONID | Session ID Used to maintain the security of your browsing session |
When you close your browser |
MyAberdeen
The following cookies are set when using MyAberdeen.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| JSESSIONID | Session ID Used to maintain the security of your browsing session |
When you close your browser |
| cookies_enabled | Used to store cookie setting | When you close your browser |
| NSC_301884.qspe1_wjq1.hspvq | Used to maintain the security of your browsing session | When you close your browser |
| s_session_id | Used to maintain the security of your browsing session | When you close your browser |
| session_id | Used to maintain the security of your browsing session | When you close your browser |
Additionally, MyAberdeen may occasionally display reminders related to your course in pop-up windows, and uses a cookie to determine whether you have already seen a given reminder. An example would be the scefpopup cookie. All such cookies expire when you close your browser.
Third Party Cookies
The University of Aberdeen makes use of external services within its website. Examples of such services include YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and these external services may also place cookies on your device.
Details of how to opt out of receving cookies from the main third parties whose content we use are available below:
To opt out of receiving cookies from other services, we recommend reviewing your browser's cookie settings as noted above.
Other Cookies
The University of Aberdeen relies on statistics generated by your visits to our webpages to plan further improvements to our website. The cookies which are set in order to enable us to collate these statistics are not strictly necessary for the operation of our websites. Links are provided below which will enable you to opt out of receiving these cookies if you wish.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to generate reports on the number of visits to pages on our website, and the resulting statistics help us to plan improvements to our website. Google Analytics is also used by third party widgets implemented on our website.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | Used to distinguish users | 2 years |
| _gid | Used to distinguish users | 24 hours |
| _ga_<container-id> | Used to persist session state | 2 years |
| _gac_gb_<container-id> | Contains campaign related information | 90 days |
| _gat | Used to throttle request rate | 1 minute |
| AMP_TOKEN | Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service | 30 seconds to 1 year |
| _gac_<property-id> | Contains campaign related information for the user | 90 days |
| __utma | Used to distinguish users and sessions. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utma cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics | 2 years from set/update |
| __utmt | Used to throttle request rate | 10 minutes |
| __utmb | Used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics | 30 mins from set/update |
| __utmc | Not used in ga.js. Set for interoperability with urchin.js. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether the user was in a new session/visit | End of browser session |
| __utmz | Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics | 6 months from set/update |
| __utmv | Used to store visitor-level custom variable data. This cookie is created when a developer uses the _setCustomVar method with a visitor level custom variable. This cookie was also used for the deprecated _setVar method. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics | 2 years from set/update |
Google Maps
We use Google Maps to provide location information to users of our website.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| NID | Random letters and numbers | 1 hour |
| PREF | Random letters and numbers | End of the year |
Google Tag Manager
We use Google Tag Manager to manage Google Analytics and other tracking cookies which may be used for marketing purposes or evaluating the effectiveness of our website.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _dc_gtm_UA-209114-1 | 1 | 10 minutes |
Hotjar
We use Hotjar to analyse online behaviour and improve user experience across our website.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _hjClosedSurveyInvites | Hotjar cookie that is set once a user interacts with an External Link Survey invitation modal. It is used to ensure that the same invite does not reappear if it has already been shown. | 365 days |
| _hjDonePolls | Hotjar cookie that is set once a user completes a survey using the On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the same survey does not reappear if it has already been filled in. | 365 days |
| _hjMinimizedPolls | Hotjar cookie that is set once a user minimizes an On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimized when the user navigates through your site. | 365 days |
| _hjShownFeedbackMessage | Hotjar cookie that is set when a user minimizes or completes Incoming Feedback. This is done so that the Incoming Feedback will load as minimized immediately if the user navigates to another page where it is set to show. | 365 days |
| _hjSessionTooLarge | Causes Hotjar to stop collecting data if a session becomes too large. This is determined automatically by a signal from the WebSocket server if the session size exceeds the limit. | Session |
| _hjSessionRejected | If present, this cookie will be set to '1' for the duration of a user's session, if Hotjar rejected the session from connecting to our WebSocket due to server overload. This cookie is only applied in extremely rare situations to prevent severe performance issues. | Session |
| _hjSessionResumed | A cookie that is set when a session/recording is reconnected to Hotjar servers after a break in connection. | Session |
| _hjid | Hotjar cookie that is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. | 365 days |
| _hjRecordingLastActivity | This should be found in Session storage (as opposed to cookies). This gets updated when a user recording starts and when data is sent through the WebSocket (the user performs an action that Hotjar records). | Session |
| _hjTLDTest | When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. | Session |
| _hjUserAttributesHash | User Attributes sent through the Hotjar Identify API are cached for the duration of the session in order to know when an attribute has changed and needs to be updated. | Session |
| _hjCachedUserAttributes | This cookie stores User Attributes which are sent through the Hotjar Identify API, whenever the user is not in the sample. Collected attributes will only be saved to Hotjar servers if the user interacts with a Hotjar Feedback tool, but the cookie will be used regardless of whether a Feedback tool is present. | Session |
| _hjLocalStorageTest | This cookie is used to check if the Hotjar Tracking Script can use local storage. If it can, a value of 1 is set in this cookie. The data stored in_hjLocalStorageTest has no expiration time, but it is deleted almost immediately after it is created. | Under 100ms |
| _hjIncludedInPageviewSample | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit. | 30 minutes |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit. | 30 minutes |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. | 30 Minutes |
| _hjFirstSeen | This is set to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. | Session |
| _hjViewportId | This stores information about the user viewport such as size and dimensions. | Session |
| _hjRecordingEnabled | This is added when a Recording starts and is read when the recording module is initialized to see if the user is already in a recording in a particular session. | Session |
Siteimprove
Siteimprove Analytics is a web analytics service. It allows us to recognise and count the number of visitors and so see how visitors move around the site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way the website works, for example by making sure users are finding what they need easily.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| nmstat | This cookie is used to help record visitors' use of the website. It is used to collect statistics about site usage such as when the visitor last visited the site. This information is then used to improve the user experience on the website. This Siteimprove Analytics cookie contains a randomly generated ID used to recognize the browser when a visitor reads a page. The cookie contains no personal information and is used only for web analytics. | 1000 days |
| siteimproveses | This cookie is used purely to track the sequence of pages a visitor looks at during a visit to the site. This information can be used to create User Journeys and enable visitors to find relevant information more quickly. | At end of session |
| szcookiechoice | This cookie is used to determine if the user has accepted or declined cookies. | At end of session |
| sz-feedback-should-hide | This cookie is used to hide/close a feedback widget for specific sessions (visits) on the Analytics Feedback feature. It is set when a user clicks a button in the feedback widget which indicates they don't wish to see the widget again. The cookie contains no personal information and is used only for web analytics. It simply contains the text 'true' when it is set. | At end of session |
| _cfduid | This cookie is set by the CloudFlare service to identify trusted web traffic. It does not correspond to any user id in the web application, nor does the cookie store any personally identifiable information. See: https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170156-What-does-the-CloudFlare-cfduid-cookie-do- | Never |
SoundCloud
SoundCloud provides a platform for sharing and promoting audio.
| Cookie Identifier | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| sc_anonymous_id | Random number separated by hyphens | 10 years |
| __qca | Random letters and numbers | 18 months |
| __utma | Random number | 2 years |
| __utmb | Random number | Immediately |
| __utmc | Random number | At end of session |
| __utmt | 1 | Immediately |
| __utmz | Letters and numbers with referral string | 6 months |
Author: Web Team
Last reviewed: 23 May 2018
Last updated: 09 Aug 2021