Knowledge Base for AI assistants, and updated privacy wording for an optional staff assistant connection

This week's thread is AI assistants: one new way for them to read what we publish, and the documents a university signs being brought up to date ahead of a connection that is not yet available.

The Knowledge Base can be read by AI assistants

Any AI assistant that supports MCP (the open standard assistants use to connect to outside sources), including Claude, ChatGPT and assistants built into developer tools, can now be pointed at the public Knowledge Base and search and read its articles. Every answer cites the article it came from, so a reader can check the source.

Access is read-only and needs no key. It returns only what the Knowledge Base already shows any visitor. A new article, the MCP server reference, lists what an assistant can do and the request limits that apply.

What did not change: nothing private is reachable this way. Student data, your console and your institution's settings are not part of it. Pages we deliberately keep out of search and navigation stay out for assistants too.

Privacy policy and data processing agreement: optional staff assistant connection

The student privacy policy, the in-app privacy policy and the data processing agreement now describe an optional connection that would let a university's staff use their own AI assistant with the console. The wording says what such an assistant could read (summaries of groups, not records that identify a student) and what it can do (prepare drafts that a person reviews, never publish).

This connection is not yet available and is off unless your university chooses to switch it on. The documents describe it now so that, when it is offered, the terms you signed already cover it and nothing has to be amended mid-agreement. The same wording was carried into the pilot charter, the security and procurement material, the subprocessor list, and the relevant Knowledge Base pages. These changes were reviewed and approved in-house; if you would like an external review of the wording as part of your procurement, we will arrange one.

What did not change: no student record, and nothing that identifies a student, is received by any AI surface. Nothing has been switched on for any university. The student privacy policy's effective date moves to 6 October 2026 and the page lists what changed.