Assessment+ — Privacy Policy

Assessment+ is a desktop application for Windows used to record and report the assessment of course and program outcomes: course outcome measures, grade distributions, assessment narratives, program-level aggregation, accreditation self-study material, and transfer-credit evaluations.

This policy explains what the application does with data. In short: your data stays on your computer, the developer receives nothing, and the only thing that ever leaves your machine is content you explicitly ask an AI provider of your own choosing to analyse.

1. Data stored on your computer

Assessment+ keeps everything in ordinary files on your computer, in a folder you choose (by default, a CIATLE folder in your Documents - the folder kept its name when the program was renamed). That includes:

• Course evaluation files (.ciafce): course outcomes, per-semester grade distributions, outcome measures and their results, and your narratives.
• Program assessment data: institutions, programs, program outcomes, academic years, aggregated results and accreditation self-study material.
• Generated reports, and the files those reports were produced from.
• Documents you attach to a measure, such as an assignment or a rubric.
• Application settings and log files.

There is no database, no server, no user account and no subscription. If you place your CIATLE folder on a shared or synchronised drive (OneDrive, a network share, or similar), that sharing is yours to manage, and the terms of whatever service you use apply to it.

2. Student information

Assessment+ is designed to record assessment in aggregate. A course evaluation holds counts - how many students were measured, how many met the threshold - and not individual student records.

Two features are exceptions, because the work requires it:

• Grade rosters. You may import a grade roster or gradebook export so that Assessment+ can match graded items to the columns you grade them in. That file is read on your computer only. If you choose to keep a copy so it can be used again, the copy is kept in your data folder, filed with the course - and if that folder is shared or synchronised, so is the copy. You can decline to keep one each time, and delete a kept copy from the course's Inputs.
• Transfer evaluations. You may open a transcript or a military Joint Services Transcript to evaluate incoming courses. That document is kept with the record, on your computer.

Neither is sent anywhere by Assessment+ except as described in section 4, and both are subject to the check described there. When a transfer evaluation is recorded against a course, only the external course is recorded with the course - not the student's name, grade or report.

3. AI provider API keys

Assessment+ can use a third-party AI service that you choose and configure (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral or xAI). You supply your own account API key. Keys are kept by AI Manager, a component Assessment+ shares with the developer's other programs (CourseBuilder+, Gamify+ and Author+), in an AiManager folder in your Documents, encrypted for your Windows user account so they cannot be read on another computer. A key you enter in one of these programs is available to the others on the same computer. A key is transmitted only to the corresponding AI service when you make a request. The developer never receives it.

AI Manager also keeps, on your computer, a record of each request - which program made it, which service and model answered, how many tokens it used and its estimated cost - so you can see what AI has cost (Tools > AI Usage and Cost). It does not keep the content of the requests.

Earlier versions kept AI keys in a settings file without encryption. On its first start, version 2.0 moves any such key into AI Manager and removes it from that file.

AI assistance is entirely optional. No part of recording or reporting assessment depends on it.

4. Content sent to AI services, and the check in front of it

When you run an AI-assisted analysis, the relevant content is sent to the provider you configured so it can produce what you asked for. What is sent depends on the analysis, and is always the smallest thing that will do:

• Outcome and narrative assistance: your course outcomes, the grade distribution as counts, your measures and your own narratives.
• Measurement assessment: the title, type and text of each graded item you selected, together with your course outcomes. Where you supply a gradebook, only its column headings and point values are sent - never the rows, and so never a student's name, identifier or score.
• Outcome extraction: the text of a document or a web page you chose - for example a catalog page, a syllabus, or a program page or document read for the program's educational objectives.
• Outcome alignment review: the course's code and title, the program's outcomes, and the course outcomes with how they are mapped.
• Transfer evaluation: the text of a transcript you chose, and the course descriptions being compared. A student's grade is not sent.
• Syllabus evaluation: the text of the syllabus you chose (a file, or a web page you gave the address of), the list of items your department requires, and the course's title, catalog description and outcomes.

The ADA (accessibility) report is not an AI analysis: it checks a course export on your computer and sends nothing anywhere.

Before any free-form content is sent - a spreadsheet tab, a document, a web page, a transcript - Assessment+ checks it for information that identifies a student: email addresses, identifier numbers, personal names, and roster column headings. If anything is found, the application stops, shows you what it found and what would be sent, and requires you to remove it or to cancel. There is no option to send it anyway.

This check is a safeguard, not a guarantee. It looks for the patterns that identify a person and cannot recognise every possible form. You remain responsible for what you choose to send, and for meeting your institution's obligations under FERPA or equivalent law.

Once data reaches a third-party service, its handling is governed by that provider's privacy policy, not by this one. Choose a provider you are comfortable with and read its terms.

5. Files you import and export

Assessment+ reads files you choose to import - Excel workbooks, grade rosters, course exports from a learning-management system, transcripts, catalog pages - and writes files you choose to export, including Excel workbooks, packages sent to a program coordinator, and reports saved as PDF or Word. These are local file operations performed at your direction.

Assessment+ keeps a copy of some files it reads, in its own folder, so that a report can be traced back to what produced it. Those copies are on your computer and are yours to delete.

6. Network access

Assessment+ makes network requests in three cases only, all of them at your request:

• Sending a request to the AI provider you configured.
• Fetching a web page whose address you supplied, for example a course catalog page you asked it to read.
• Where you set up sharing through a source-control service, exchanging your assessment files with the repository you nominated.

It makes no other connections. There is no automatic update check, no licence check and no usage reporting.

7. Information the developer collects

None. Assessment+ contains no analytics and no telemetry. The developer does not collect, receive or store your files, your API keys, your assessment data or any personal information.

8. Children

Assessment+ is a professional tool intended for faculty and academic staff. It is not directed at children and is not intended for use by them.

9. Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated from time to time. The "Last updated" date above indicates when it was last revised. Material changes will be described in the application's release notes.

10. Contact

Questions about this privacy policy:

Email: ron.eaglin@gmail.com
Source: https://github.com/reaglin/CIATLE