Privacy Notice

Last updated October 9, 2026

Coached Thinking is a learning tool that instructors use in their courses. An AI coach helps students think through case studies and programming assignments. This notice explains what the site keeps about you, why, and who can see it.

What we collect

• Your account: your first and last name and your email address. If you sign in with a password, we keep a protected (hashed) form of it, never the password itself. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and Google account ID from Google; we don't receive your Google password.
• Your courses: the courses and assignments you join.
• Your work: your answers to the questions in each assignment, your conversations with the AI coach (and any pictures you add to them, with the AI's description of each), your code and files, the programs you run and what they print, test results, the submissions you make for grading and their scores, and your final answers.
• How you worked: how your code and answers changed as you wrote them (including what was pasted, and whether paste was allowed), when you switched away from the page and back, when you ran or submitted your code, and when each step happened.

Instructors' accounts keep their name, email address and sign-in details, and the courses and assignments they create.

How it's used

• To run the assignments: to show you your work, coach you, run and grade your code, and keep your progress.
• For your instructor: to see and grade your work in their course, including how you worked, and AI-written notes and suggested feedback on your answers.
• To point out signs in how work was made that may be worth a closer look (for example, a long stretch pasted in, or typed from start to finish without a pause or a correction). The site analyses how your work changed as you wrote it, and shows your instructor a flag. A flag is a reason to look, not a finding: your instructor can replay your work to see for themselves.
• For research, if your course takes part in a study: as described in that study's informed consent form. Research data is retained for a minimum of three years after the study is completed.

We don't sell your information or use it for advertising.

Who can see it

• The instructors of your course, and the site's administrators. On programming assignments your instructor can open your code at any time, change it, and work in it with you live; while they're in your code you see Your instructor is here, and their changes are recorded as theirs, not yours. When grading, they may try changes in a copy of your code; the copy is kept with their grading, apart from your work, and never changes your files.
• Services that run parts of the site for us, only to do that work:
  • OpenAI writes the AI coach's replies, the questions about your code, and the notes and suggested feedback on your answers for your instructor, so your conversations (pictures included), answers and code are sent to it. OpenAI's API terms say it doesn't use this to train its models.
  • Microsoft Azure hosts the site and its database.
  • Resend sends the site's emails (confirming your address, sign-in links).
  • Google, if you choose to sign in with Google.

Cookies and your browser

The site uses cookies to keep you signed in and to keep track of the assignment you're working on. Your browser also remembers a few preferences, like light or dark mode and the size of the panes. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

Security

The site is served only over encrypted connections (HTTPS), all data is encrypted at rest, and access is limited to the people above.

Your choices

• You can sign in with a password or with Google.
• You may withdraw from a research study before submitting your final answer. Contact your instructor within 7 days of submission to request removal of submitted data.
• For any other question, or to ask for your account or work to be removed, contact your instructor.