CIATLE-FCE — Privacy Policy

Who we are

This policy covers CIATLE-FCE (Continuous Improvement — Assessment of Course and Program Outcomes), a Windows desktop application published on the Microsoft Store by Dean Eaglin ("we", "us"), the publisher named on the app's Store listing. Contact: ron.eaglin@gmail.com.

Summary

CIATLE-FCE is used by college faculty and program coordinators to record and report the assessment of course and program outcomes: what each course outcome was measured by, how students performed in aggregate, the narratives that close the loop, and the program-level and accreditation reporting built on top of them.

Everything you record stays on your own computer, in ordinary files in a folder you choose. There are no accounts, no server of ours, no advertising and no analytics. We receive nothing.

The application contacts an outside service only when you ask it to, and only ever a service you set up yourself: an AI provider whose API key you entered, a web page whose address you supplied, or a source-control repository you nominated if you use CIATLE to share assessment files with colleagues. All three are described below.

What we collect

Nothing. No personal information, no usage or diagnostic data, no device identifiers, no location. The app does not ask you to sign in to anything of ours, has no in-app purchases, and contains no analytics or telemetry of any kind.

Your work, and where it stays

Everything you enter is your own work, written only to your own computer:

• Your CIATLE folder (by default Documents\CIATLE, or another folder you choose) — the course evaluation files (.ciafce: course outcomes, per-semester grade distributions, outcome measures and their results, and your narratives), the program assessment data (institutions, programs, program outcomes, academic years, aggregated results and accreditation self-study material), the reports the app generates, copies of the files those reports were produced from, and any document you attach to a measure such as an assignment or a rubric.
• %APPDATA%\CIATLE-FCE and %APPDATA%\CIATLE.PE — application settings, the list of files you opened recently, window sizes, and log files.
• Your AI provider's API key, if you set one up — stored on your own computer, encrypted with the Windows Data Protection API under your Windows user account, so it cannot be read by anyone signed in as somebody else.

None of it is uploaded or synchronised anywhere by us. If you place your CIATLE folder on a shared drive or a service such as OneDrive so that colleagues can work from the same data, that sharing is yours to set up and manage, and that service's own terms apply to it. Deleting these files, or uninstalling CIATLE-FCE, removes them from your computer. We have no copy and no way to obtain one.

Student information

CIATLE-FCE is built 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, and both stay on your computer:

• Grade rosters. You may import a grade roster or gradebook export so the app can match graded items to the columns you grade them in. That file is read on your computer only.
• Transfer evaluations. You may open a transcript, or a military Joint Services Transcript, to evaluate a student's incoming courses against a program. That document is kept with the record, on your computer.

Neither is sent anywhere by CIATLE-FCE except as described in the next section, and both are subject to the check described there.

AI features, and the check in front of them

CIATLE-FCE can use a third-party AI service that you choose and configure with your own account API key — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or Mistral. AI assistance is entirely optional: no part of recording or reporting assessment depends on it, and a suggestion changes nothing until you accept it.

When you run an AI-assisted analysis, the relevant content goes from your computer to that provider so it can produce what you asked for. What is sent 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.
• Transfer evaluation — the text of a transcript you chose, and the course descriptions being compared.
• 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 — CIATLE-FCE 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 either 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 an AI provider, 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. We are not a party to your account with them, and we never see your key, your requests or their answers.

Network use

CIATLE-FCE makes network connections in three cases only, each 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.
• Exchanging your assessment files with a source-control repository you nominated, if you set up sharing that way with colleagues.

There is no automatic update check, no licence check, no crash reporting and no usage reporting. Nothing is sent to us, ever.

Permissions

The Store package declares one capability, runFullTrust. That is the standard capability for any full desktop (Win32) application, and it is what lets CIATLE-FCE read and write your own files through ordinary Windows file dialogs. It is not used to reach any other application's data, and the app never needs administrator rights.

Third parties

CIATLE-FCE includes open-source and Microsoft components that run locally as part of the application — for example EPPlus for reading and writing Excel files, PdfPig for reading PDFs, and the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime for displaying reports. They transmit nothing of yours. Microsoft operates the Store you downloaded the app from, and Microsoft's own privacy statement covers that download.

The only third parties that ever receive your content are the ones you set up yourself: the AI provider whose key you entered, the website whose address you gave, and the source-control service you chose.

Retention and deletion

Because nothing is stored off your computer by us, there is nothing for us to retain or delete. Deleting your CIATLE folder, or uninstalling the app, removes everything it holds. Content you sent to an AI provider is held under that provider's own retention policy; ask them to delete it if you need that.

Children

CIATLE-FCE is a professional tool for college faculty and academic staff. It is not directed at children and is not intended for use by them. Because it collects no information from anyone, it collects none from children.

Changes to this policy

Updates will be posted on this page with a new effective date, and material changes are described in the application's release notes.

Contact

Dean Eaglin — ron.eaglin@gmail.com