Analytics & Usage Tracking Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 2025

University Privacy Statement: This policy supplements the University of Colorado Boulder Privacy Statement. We collect only the minimum information necessary to improve our services.

Purpose

We track how CU Boulder users (logged in with IdentiKey) and visitors use the Physics Undergraduate Labs website to improve our services and better serve your needs.

Our Service Mission: As a service organization supporting physics education, we use analytics to support faculty teaching, make reservations easier, grow our audience, and identify where we can better support learning.

What We Track

Basic Activity (All Visitors)

Tracked for both logged-in users and anonymous visitors:

Page views (demos, experiments, equipment, course content)
Search queries
Navigation patterns

Anonymous visitors are tracked using temporary session identifiers only. No personal information is collected.

Reservation Activity (Logged-In CU Users Only)

Reservation requests (cart actions)
CSV bulk upload usage
Login and logout events

Interaction & Engagement

To improve our service and better support faculty teaching:

External link clicks - Curate better teaching resources
Page scroll depth - Understand if faculty are discovering new demos or need better outreach/content formats
Print actions - Shows practical classroom use
Search result clicks - Improve search functionality
Cart abandonment - Identify barriers to remove
Reservation conflicts - Find system issues to fix
Device type and browser version - From user agent, for compatibility and optimization

Demo Bot (Optional Feature)

An optional natural language feature that helps faculty find demos using conversational requests (e.g., "I need ballistic pendulum for PHYS 1110 next Tuesday").

How it works: 100% local processing using on-premise AI models - no external services, no cloud APIs, no third-party data sharing.

Search queries and conversation history
Query classification type and confidence scores
Match results and confidence scores
User interactions (items accepted, rejected, refined)
Success metrics (whether you found what you needed)

Demo Bot Privacy Protections:

✅ 100% local processing - All AI computations happen on CU servers
✅ No third-party sharing - Data never sent to Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, or any external AI provider
✅ FERPA compliant - Data never leaves university systems
✅ Optional feature - You can always use manual cart building instead

Note: Unlike commercial AI chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot), your requests are never transmitted to external companies.

All data is analyzed as aggregate patterns to drive service improvements, not to track individual behavior.

What We DON'T Track

❌ IP addresses
❌ Activity outside this system
❌ Browser fingerprinting
❌ Tab visibility/focus
❌ Third-party analytics services

Why We Track

Service Improvement: Identify confusing patterns, fix broken links
Feature Adoption: Understand which features are valuable
Content Performance: Find popular demos, identify content gaps
Resource Planning: Plan staff coverage for peak times

Data Retention

Activity logs: At least 5 years for trend analysis across academic cycles.

Reservation history: Retained indefinitely for institutional knowledge, curriculum planning, and equipment lifecycle decisions.

Data Sharing

Individual data: Your individual activity data is only shared with Physics Labs staff who need it to perform their duties. We do not share individual user data outside Physics Labs or with third parties.

Aggregate statistics: We may share anonymized statistics publicly (e.g., "40% of visitors scroll deeply," "Most reserved demo: Newton's Cradle") at faculty meetings, conferences, or in reports. These contain no personally identifiable information.

Your Rights

You can request to see, correct, or delete your activity data by contacting physicslabs@colorado.edu.

Cookies & Browser Storage

Session Cookies: We use session cookies to maintain your login state. These expire after 24 hours or when you log out. They are not used for analytics tracking.

Browser Local Storage: Your preferences (like dark mode) are stored locally in your browser and never transmitted to our servers.

Legal Disclosures

Public Records: Information may be subject to the Colorado Open Records Act if it is a public record and not otherwise protected by law.

Mandatory Disclosure: We will disclose information when required by law (e.g., valid legal process, university policy, or emergency situations).

User Choice: You may choose not to use the reservation system. Analytics tracking is integral to system operation and improvement, and is required for all users.

Compliance

This system complies with the University of Colorado Boulder Privacy Statement, Colorado Open Records Act, university data policies, and FERPA. We track faculty/staff usage, not student educational records.