​Privacy Policy

Updated: 8/23/2022

Introduction

The Association for Institutional Research (AIR) is committed to informing its membership and the general public about resources, services, and professional development opportunities to advance data-informed decision making in higher education. We are committed to maintaining your trust by protecting your personal data and, to the extent possible, ensuring that your personal data is secure.

This Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, share, and protect personal data. It also describes the choices available to you regarding the use of your personal data. Please read this Privacy Notice carefully to understand our policies. If you do not agree with the data practices described in this Privacy Notice, we advise you not to use our website or services. 

Note: The AIR website, services, and apps are not intended for use by or designed for children under 13, and we do not knowingly or intentionally collect information about children under 13.

We recognize that information privacy is an ongoing responsibility and therefore will update this Privacy Notice from time to time as we undertake new personal data practices or adopt new privacy policies. We reserve the right to amend the Privacy Notice at any time, for any reason, without notice to you, other than the posting of the amended Privacy Notice at this site. We may email periodic reminders of our notices and will email members and all active records in our database of material changes, but you should check our website frequently to see the current Privacy Notice that is in effect. To help us communicate with you, you are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date, active, and deliverable email address for you.

What is personal data?

AIR acknowledges that there are many potential definitions of “personal data.” Our definition of personal data is any information about an identified or identifiable person, which can include direct identifiers, such as name, address, email address, and national identification numbers, or indirect identifiers such as location data or IP address. This list of data elements is not exhaustive, and we consider the definition of personal data in the broadest possible context.

AIR collects and uses information that, alone or in combination with other information, could be used to identify you (“personal data”) to deliver our programs and services and inform you of various resources related to data and analytics within higher education, as described in “How We Collect and Use (Process) Data” below. This data is collected in various online forms and throughout our business relationship.

How We Collect and Use (Process) Data

We collect and use personal data to ensure we provide you with information about news, services, community collaboration, and professional development opportunities that advance institutional research and data-informed decision making within higher education.

The information we hold enables us to engage in basic communication with you, helps us to enhance your experiences on our website, and allows us to improve our programs and services and the efficacy of our communications with you. AIR and its service providers (such as event contractors) collect and use the following types of information.

Personal information you provide to us in your profile and other engagements

  • When you become a member or engage with AIR by creating a profile, we collect personal data about you, including (but not limited to) your name, title, employer’s name, work address, email address, and phone number. We ask you to voluntarily provide additional information related to age, gender, ethnicity, and other demographics, which is used to help us better understand and better advance the diversity of our community. You may edit your profile at any time to change or remove personal data.
  • We process your personal data for member and nonmember administration, to deliver member benefits to you, and to inform you of AIR-related events, content, and other benefits or opportunities related to institutional research and data-informed decision making in higher education. We may also use this information to help us understand our stakeholder needs and interests to better tailor our programs and services.
  • We may use your information to personalize your experience through recommendations on our website or in email, apps, or other service platforms to provide you with more relevant information.
  • We may use your information to reply to communications you send us.
  • We may use your basic personal data from your profile to automatically fill out transactional forms with your personal data to save you time and effort.
  • We use your information to communicate essential information about transactions, such as an electronic receipt for a purchase or a confirmation of a conference registration.
  • We may inform you about AIR events, programs, and services of potential interest, unless you have opted out of such communications (see “Communication” below).
  • We include your name, your organization's name, and your contact information in the AIR Member Directory to facilitate networking, unless you opt to exclude your contact information.
  • We retain information about your transactional history and engagements, such as participation in events, webinars, volunteering, and courses to understand program and service use.
  • If you volunteer for a working group, committee, or elected leadership position, your name, title, organization name, and photo may be placed on the AIR website and within materials produced by the group. You may request to be excluded from the working group or committee listings.
  • If you voluntarily participate in an AIR survey, interview, or focus group to research a matter related to data-informed decision making in higher education or to gauge your satisfaction with AIR services, the information you provide is used in aggregate, unless otherwise noted, when producing research findings and reports, and to inform improvements to our programs and services.

Publications and resource use

  • AIR produces various publications, reports, and educational materials, which are linked on our website. Much of our content is open access, however, some material requires membership or a profile login for access. We use Google Analytics and login information to track how often people gain access to or read our content. This information is used in aggregate to help us understand what content is most useful for our members.

Online community participation

  • AIR offers community groups— online discussion communities for collaboration and networking purposes. These groups are open to the public; your name and email address are used for subscription purposes.

In-person events and web conferences

  • AIR hosts many events throughout the year. These include in-person meetings and conferences like the AIR Forum, as well as live online trainings (collectively referred to as “events”). If you register for one of our events, an AIR profile is required (regardless of your membership status), and we will access this data to provide you with information and services associated with the event. In addition, during the registration process, we may collect voluntarily shared personal data regarding accessibility and dietary requests.
  • If you are a presenter at one of our events, we will collect information about you including your name, employer, and contact information. We may also collect information provided by event attendees who evaluated your presentation and associate it with your record in our database. In certain instances, and with your approval, we will make and store a recording of your voice and likeness.
  • If you submit a proposal to present at an AIR event, we will collect information about you and your co-presenters (if relevant) including name, employer, contact information, proposed abstract, and other information associated with your proposed session.
  • If you evaluate proposals for an AIR event, we will collect information about you including your name, employer, contact information, and your evaluations of the assigned proposals.
  • If you are a participant at certain AIR events (e.g., webinar or preconference workshop) we may share basic registration information, including your name, title, institution name, and email with the designated presenter(s) and attendees for the purpose of planning for the event, tailoring the presentation, communication related to group assignments, and follow-up.
  • We keep a record of your participation in AIR events as an attendee or presenter, which may be used to provide you with information about other relevant AIR products and services, or to help us better understand your interests and tailor our offerings to meet your needs.
  • In association with attending the AIR Forum, you will have the option to download the AIR Forum mobile app to help you navigate the conference and plan your schedule. The mobile app may require the device identifier associated with your device but does not require the collection or use any other personal data—outside of what you choose to provide as part of your participant profile.
  • As a participant, to facilitate networking with colleagues, we may include your name, title, and organization in the event registration list, unless you opt out of sharing this information in the registration process. This list is only accessible by registered participants.
  • We are committed to connecting solution seekers with solution providers. Some of our events are sponsored or organized with partner organizations. Provided you opt in to corporate sponsor and partner communications during the registration process, we may share your name, title, organization/institution name, phone number, email address, and postal mail address with corporate sponsors and partners of AIR events. “Opting in” could also include but is not limited to session attendance, sponsored activities, exhibit hall booth visits, “matchmaking” and networking activities. We value your privacy and do not share your personal contact information without your consent.
  • We may provide you with a badge containing a bar or QR code at certain AIR events that contains your basic personal information. This badge allows you to pass on this information to exhibitors from whom you would like to receive more information. By allowing a conference exhibitor to swipe your badge, you give the exhibitor your name and contact information, including email address. For virtual conferences, your contact information may be shared with an exhibitor upon clicking on a corporate partner’s virtual exhibition or engaging with their content.

Visiting the AIR website and automatically collected data

  • As is common practice on most websites, AIR collects certain information automatically on our website and stores it in log files. As you interact on our website, we may collect information about your computer or device and visits to our website (“automatically collected data”) through cookies, Internet Protocol (IP) address tracking/URL tracking, and other tools (collectively referred to as “tracking technologies”). The types of automatically collected data on our website through the use of these and other tools include: the search terms you use, new or returning user information, browser information, computer or device type, operating system, internet service provider, website usage, referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, number of clicks, and ads viewed. We may use information about your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, analyze trends, track visitor engagements, and gather information that assists us in identifying visitor preferences. We also may use your IP address to enhance our security and investigate an actual or potential security incident. For EU data subjects, this use of your information is necessary for our legitimate interests in understanding how our website and our services are being used by you, to improve your experience on it, and to ensure network and information security.
  • Session cookies are used to enhance and make more efficient the user's experience during a site visit. Once the user closes the browser, the cookie terminates. 
  • Persistent cookies store small text files on the user's hard drive for extended periods of time and “remember” visit activities to help make subsequent visits more efficient. Users may remove persistent cookies by following internet browser help instructions. 
  • Please note that the AIR website offers some links to external sites, to which these privacy practices do not apply. We make no promises regarding the policies or business practices of these other websites.

Your correspondence with AIR

If you correspond with us by email, the postal service, or other form of communication, we may retain such correspondence and the information contained in it and use it to respond to your inquiry; to notify you of AIR conferences, publications, or other services; or to keep a record of your complaint, accommodation request, and the like. If you wish to have AIR refrain from communicating with you, please contact us at air@airweb.org. 

Purposes for processing your data

  • As explained above, AIR processes your data to provide you with the programs or services you have requested or purchased from us, including membership services, events, publications and other content, and professional development. Additionally, we use your information to refine our programs and services to better tailor them to your needs and to communicate with you about other services AIR offers that may assist you in your career or otherwise help you do your job. We also strive to facilitate communication among colleagues in the higher education institutional research and data community. To these ends, we collect and maintain data about our members and stakeholders to enable us to communicate with them, share information relevant to them, and allow them to communicate with each other.
  • AIR reserves the right to use the personal data that it collects to identify the source of any inappropriate use of information resources managed by the association, including but not limited to, offensive or illegal postings to online discussion lists, collaboration sites, and other communication vehicles; denial-of-service actions; unauthorized use of online services and network infrastructure; misuse or unauthorized use of the AIR name, logo, or other representations of the association; and to protect the personal safety and privacy of our employees and service providers, members, online users, and the public under the policies and practices described in this Privacy Notice.

Payment card information

  • You may choose to purchase goods or services from AIR using a payment card. Typically, payment card information is provided directly by users, via the AIR website, into the PCI/DSS-compliant payment processing service to which AIR subscribes, and AIR does not, itself, process or store the card information.

What happens if you don’t provide us your personal data

  • You can enjoy many AIR resources without giving us your personal data. Some information on our website, such as the IPEDS tutorials, are open access and does not require an AIR profile. Minimal data is required to attend some events or trainings. However, some personal data is necessary for AIR to supply you with services you have purchased or requested or to authenticate membership access.

Communication

We may contact you by the email, postal mail address, or phone number that you have on file with us for business purposes.

We send transactional emails to individuals with whom we have a business relationship; these emails regard a service you purchased or requested, and you may not opt-out of these emails.

We send marketing emails, which contain promotional material about our programs, resources, and services, and you may opt out of these communications. These emails provide valuable information about events, resources on institutional research, or new services that can help you. Where required by the applicable law (for example, if you are an EU or UK data subject), we will send you marketing information or notifications only with your consent, which is given at the time you provide us with your personal data. In such case, if you do not provide us with your consent to the processing of your personal data for this purpose, we will not send you this information. You may unsubscribe or remove your consent at any time by using the unsubscribe link located at the bottom of our emails, changing your communications preferences by logging in to your profile, or contacting us using the contact information below.

If there is a concern regarding your personal data, we will contact you when required to do so by law. To do this, we will use the email address on file for you.

If for any reason you think there is a problem regarding communications to you, please let us know by contacting air@airweb.org.

Third-Party Sharing

General Sharing

We do not share your personal data with third parties outside AIR-authorized subprocessors.

Subprocessors

We share your personal data with third parties that provide certain services to us to assist us in meeting business operation needs. These parties are authorized to process your personal data, on our behalf and pursuant to our instructions, only as necessary to provide these services to us. We use third-party service providers, including:

  • Association management software provider to help with management of business-related data
  • Email hosting services to send email
  • Event registration and presenter proposal submission service providers
  • Career center job board provider
  • Discussion platform provider to manage online forums
  • Providers of research and analytics services, including Google Analytics
  • Email marketing service provider
  • Billing and credit card merchant systems to process payments
  • Providers of cloud computing infrastructure services

These providers are authorized by AIR for our business operation needs; however, we make no promises regarding the policies or business practices of third parties and encourage you to familiarize yourself with their privacy policies before providing them with your personal data.

  • We may disclose your personal data to our agents or subprocessors for the purposes identified above. In such cases, the agent or subprocessors will be obligated to use that personal data in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Notice.
  • We will not sell, distribute, or lease your personal data to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.
  • We may disclose your personal data without your permission to the extent that it is required to do so by United States, European Union, or national law, in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings, and in order to establish, exercise, or defend AIR’s legal rights.

Data Subject Rights: Your Choice

Access to Personal Data

Upon request, we will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal data. You have the right to access the personal data we have about you, and you may request that it be corrected, amended, or not used in future processes by emailing air@airweb.org with the subject of “Access Request.” We require all our requests to be in writing. We will respond to your access request within a reasonable time, under 30 days. We may require additional information from you to allow us to confirm your identity or find your personal data.

If you believe that any personal data we are holding on you are incorrect, incomplete, or shouldn’t be processed, please contact us as soon as possible, at the contact information below, and we will promptly take the appropriate action.

Withdrawing Your Consent

You have the right to withdraw your consent for any marketing material. To do this, you may send an email to air@airweb.org, click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails, or change your preferences within your profile.

International Users

This website is operated and managed on servers located within the United States (U.S.). By visiting and using our website, residents and citizens of countries and jurisdictions located outside of the U.S. understand and consent to the transfer of their data to the U.S. for processing and use in accordance with this privacy notice. 

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your personal data is secure. To prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place appropriate technical and organizational measures to safeguard and secure the personal data we process. No system is 100% secure, and therefore we can’t provide assurance with 100% certainty that your personal data will be secure. Be mindful that you are responsible for protecting your username and password and that it is not to be shared with others. If, despite all our efforts, a data breach does occur, we will do everything in our power to limit the damage. In case of a personal data breach, and in accordance with state and federal laws, we will inform you about remedial actions that we are undertaking and that you should take to prevent any further damage. We will always inform the relevant data owner/controller and supervisory authority or authorities without undue delay.

Data retention

We will not store your personal data longer than necessary for the purpose for which we have processed your personal data. How long we retain your personal data depends on the type of data and the purpose for which we process it.

Changes to our Privacy Notice

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Notice on this page. In some cases, we provide additional notice of changes. If we make material changes to how we treat your personal data, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account and/or through a notice on the website. The date the Privacy Notice was last revised is listed at the top of this page. The effective date of this statement is April 29, 2020. AIR may change this Privacy Notice from time to time by updating this page.

Questions, Concerns, or Complaints

If you have a question about or complaint with how you believe we have handled a request under this Privacy Notice (including subject “Access Request”), please let us know, and we will work to fix it. You can email us at air@airweb.org or call 850-385-4155.

Further information

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or questions or complaints about the processing of your personal data by AIR, please contact us at:

Association for Institutional Research
2241 North Monroe St PMB 1413
Tallahassee, FL 32303

air@airweb.org
850-385-4155

FAQ

This Privacy Notice was revised on 8/23/2022.

How Can You Change How AIR Uses Your Information?

Balanced with our goal of sharing information with our constituents is our commitment to respecting preferences for how our constituents’ personal information will be used. Here are the various ways to control the use of your information.

Changing email and directory listing preferences

Log in to your AIR profile (“MyAIR”) to change your:

  • Promotional communications preferences
  • Listing status in the AIR Member Directory

You can create a personal AIR profile if you do not have one. If you would like to change any preferences listed above but do not wish to create a profile, please email your request to AIR at air@airweb.org or call 850-385-4155.

Removal from all nontransactional AIR emails

If you wish not to receive any communications from AIR (including newsletters, news announcements, and information about resources, services, and professional development opportunities), except those that pertain directly to transactions you conduct with AIR, please send a message with this subject line: REMOVE FROM ALL EMAIL or log in to manage your communications preferences and select “To be excluded from all communications, check this box.”

How Can You Update Your Personal Information?

Log in to your AIR profile (“MyAIR”)  to change your:
• Basic personal information
• Biographic information
• Username and password

You can create a personal AIR profile if you do not have one.  If you would like to change any information listed above but do not wish to create a profile, , please email your request to AIR at air@airweb.org or call 850-385-4155.

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