How Module Pulse protects you
You do not sign in. Your browser holds a random code that lets us remember your course and which pulses you have done. That code is stored on our side only as a one-way hash.
What you write is saved in a separate table with no link to that code. The date is rounded to the day. Staff only see free-text comments once a pulse has at least five responses.
If you ask for a link to use on another device, we email it once and do not keep your address.
Who sees what
- Module coordinators see the sentiment split, the written comments (once there are at least five responses) and an AI-generated summary of recurring themes for the modules they run. They are the people who reply.
- Course leaders see the same for every module on their course, so they can spot patterns, but cannot reply or close themes on modules they do not coordinate.
- Six School of Computing staff (the School's senior team) can see every module.
- You and other students on a module see, under “What changed”, the public replies coordinators post and the short summary of the theme each reply answers. This is module-level public content for everyone on that module, not a reply to your own feedback. It never includes raw comments, example quotes, private staff notes, sentiment counts, or anything about your device.
- Student course reps see a read-only digest for their own course and year: the theme summaries, whether staff have seen or responded, and the staff replies. The School rep sees that digest for the whole School. Reps never see your individual comments, example quotes, sentiment on small cohorts, or anything about your device. This is so they can report “what was raised and what was done” at Student Voice Committees.
Who runs this
Module Pulse is written and maintained in-house by Dr Matt Dennis, Associate Dean for Students at the University of Portsmouth. It is not an external survey company. No third party receives your responses, and nothing you write is sold, shared or used for marketing.
Where your data lives
Everything is stored in the University's own Google Cloud environment, in European data centres, under the University's institutional agreement with Google. Only the people listed above can read it, each within their own scope; the one thing shown more widely is the public reply a coordinator chooses to post, which students on that module can read.
The theme summaries are produced by an AI model running inside that same institutional cloud. Your comments are sent to it only to be summarised, they do not leave institutional storage, and under the institutional agreement they are not used to train AI models. The full summaries, with example quotes, are only shown to staff who could already see the underlying comments; course reps see the summary text and staff replies without quotes; students on the module see only the summary text of themes that have a public reply, alongside that reply.
What we keep and for how long
- Your course, level and which pulses you have completed, keyed to the hashed browser code.
- Your sentiment choices and comments, with no link to that code, dated to the day.
- Aggregated results and theme summaries for each module and pulse round.
Responses are kept for the academic year they relate to plus one further year so staff can see what changed, then deleted. We do not keep email addresses, IP addresses or any account details.
Questions or concerns
Email matt.dennis@port.ac.uk. For the University's wider data protection information, see the University of Portsmouth privacy notices or contact the Data Protection Officer.