This Support and Maintenance Exhibit sets forth the standard support obligations for Pearson across all products sold pursuant to the Workforce Skills Agreement or other agreement between Pearson and Client governing use of the Pearson Services (the “Agreement”). The provisions of this Support and Maintenance Exhibit shall not modify or expand the representations and limited warranties set forth in the Agreement or the applicable Order Form.

1.     Pearson Support Services

1. General. Pearson support includes day-to-day end-user support, technical monitoring, and software updates.
   1. Pearson shall provide support to Users and Clients, take reasonable steps to resolve issues that are within Pearson’s power to resolve, and respond to support services questions and requests in a timely manner.
   2. Authorized Clients will initiate support activities through Pearson’s online support portal or by contacting the Customer Success Manager. The Pearson support team will be accessible between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and 6:00 P.M. Central Time (U.S.), Monday through Friday, excluding U.S. federal holidays.
2. Service Updates. Service updates and releases are provided on a scheduled basis. Pearson’s release process is designed to ensure that all of the proper testing, training, and approvals are in place prior to a production deployment. Pearson shall determine in its sole discretion what system maintenance and upgrades will be provided to the Pearson Service and to the hosting environment. Pearson reserves the right to modify, add, or subtract features or functionalities from the Pearson Service to provide a superior user experience.

2.     Service Level Agreements

1. Issue Triage. Pearson will prioritize issues based on the severity of the issue and the completeness of information provided about the issue. The service request severity level is identified by the Pearson Customer Success Manager based on the following severity definitions below.
   1. Severity 1 - Production use of the Pearson Service is stopped or so severely impacted that Client cannot reasonably continue work within the system, or Client experiences a complete loss of service. Reasonable efforts will be made to respond to Severity 1 service requests within twelve (12) hours of entry of the issue. Pearson will work continuously from the time the Severity 1 issue is appropriately entered into the Pearson Service until the issue is resolved, or as long as useful progress can be made.
   2. Severity 2 - Client experiences a severe loss of service in a critical function of the system. Reasonable efforts will be made to respond to Severity 2 service requests within twenty-four (24) hours. Pearson will work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week from the time the Severity 2 issue is identified until the issue is resolved, or as long as useful progress can be made.
   3. Severity 3 - Client experiences a system defect or temporary loss of service where the impact is an inconvenience that may require a procedure or workaround to restore or achieve functionality. Severity 3 service requests will be evaluated by Pearson within 2 weeks which will determine the approach to the issue including 1) a Pearson Service configuration change; 2) resolve through end-user training; 3) data problem to be resolved through hot fix; and/or 4) resolve in a future Pearson Service release.
   4. Severity 4 - Client requests an enhancement, information, or documentation clarification regarding the Pearson Service. Once the approach to the issue has been identified, the Pearson Customer Success Manager will update the Pearson Service accordingly. Subject to the mutually agreed change control process and payment of applicable costs, if any, the Pearson Customer Success Manager will coordinate the development and delivery of Pearson Service updates with the Authorized Client.
2. Uptime. The Pearson Service shall, subject to the exceptions listed below, be available 99.9% of the time each calendar month, measured according to the following formula: _100 x ((Total minutes in the month) – (Outage minutes))/(Total minutes in the month).
3. Monitoring. Pearson will maintain an independent monitoring solution that monitors the Pearson Service’s uptime and overall performance. The monitoring solution will monitor via the internet using equivalent connectivity to that which is available to the Client.
4. Remedies. Client's sole remedy and Pearson's exclusive liability for any failure to conform with the service levels set forth in this Exhibit shall be for Client to request a credit against future hosting fees due hereunder equal to a pro rata monthly portion of the fees paid for the month being measured, based on the difference between the percentage availability listed above and the percentage of availability for the given calendar month being measured.
5. Service Level Credits.
6. Process for Reporting an Outage. Provided that the relevant Authorized Client notifies Pearson’s support services help desk within 24 hours after failure to access the Pearson Service, or otherwise becoming aware of an outage or perceived outage, and Pearson determines in its reasonable commercial judgment that the Application was unavailable due to an outage caused solely by the items of service managed exclusively by Pearson, the number of minutes in that outage (“Outage Minutes”) will be applicable for that calendar month, subject to the exceptions listed below.
7. Definition of Outage. The Pearson Service shall only be deemed to be unavailable, and such outage will only count towards the Outage Minutes for the applicable calendar month, if none of the web servers respond to service requests issued by Pearson’s monitoring software as described in Section 2 of this Exhibit and none of the exceptions listed below apply. Pearson’s records and data shall be the basis for all Service Level Agreement calculations and determinations.
8. Exceptions. Unavailability of the Pearson Service shall not be considered an outage, and shall not count towards the Outage Minutes for the applicable calendar month, in the following circumstances:
9. Where unavailability is due to scheduled maintenance. If Client or Pearson needs a special exception to the performance of maintenance, it will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Scheduled maintenance means maintenance for which Client is notified 24 hours in advance or occurring weekly at a predefined time for a predefined window – Pearson schedules regular maintenance to occur sometime within a 6 pm Central time to 2 am Central time overnight period. Pearson’s scheduled maintenance will not exceed 12 hours in a given month;
10. Where unavailability is due to maintenance being performed at Client's request outside of the normally scheduled maintenance;
11. Where unavailability is due to Client's information content or application programming, acts of Client, Users, or Authorized Client.