Faculty FAQs

Genio's position is that the legality of content captured in the platform (audio recordings, slides etc.,) does not change just because it's in there. So, if the content legally belonged to the user, or, to a faculty member before being captured in Genio, this remains the case when it's in the platform. Ownership and intellectual property rights never transfer to Genio. Genio makes this clear in the Service Agreement that it enters into with the user during the account sign-up process, which can be viewed here (see Section 6 Your Data).

Ultimately, the user is responsible for the content they capture in the Genio platform, which is why it's important that a user and their institution work together to make sure that an individual's use of Genio complies with any recording and/or intellectual property policies that the institution has in place.

If you are concerned that a user's use of Genio has breached your institution's internal policy, our advice would be to reach out to the specific user directly and work with them to resolve the issue. A user does have the ability to delete Events (you can read more about Event deletion below).

Genio's take on this (and please note, this isn't legal advice) is that, if an individual wants to record in class to aid their learning, they will. This means recording may take place covertly without your knowledge, for example, by using a mobile phone's recording functionality.

With recording technologies becoming more and more popular in the classroom, especially post-COVID 19, Genio is proud to provide a comprehensive learning solution that includes the option to record in addition to upload files, input and mark-up notes, search and add images from the web, and transcribe content. Genio provides an institution with a secure and robust tool that meets the needs of its learners whilst also offering peace of mind to teaching staff, because it has been vetted and approved by the institution itself - there's nothing sneaky going on!

Further, Genio enters into separate contractual agreements with the customer (the institution) and the user. The agreements set out the obligations and responsibilities of each party. Genio encourages staff and students to work together to make sure the software is used in line with the specific rules and policies of their institution, so that everyone is on the same page.

We hear you - more tech usually means more distractions. In fact, reducing distractions in the classroom was one of our key goals when designing Genio.

The institution administers access to students that would like to use Genio tools. The number of students that can sign up to Genio tools depends on the number of seats purchased by your institution as part of your subscription package. 

Using the in-platform Genio Admin Portal, a Genio Administrator manages your institution's Genio account. The Genio Administrator is a designated employee at your institution, and you might even have multiple Genio Administrators depending on your preference. The Genio Administrator can invite a student to sign up to Genio tools by entering their institution email address into the Admin Portal. The student will then receive an email with a link to create their Genio user account.

Using the Genio Admin Portal, Genio Administrators are able to:

• invite a student to create a user account
• invite a fellow colleague to become a Genio Administrator
• withdraw an invite to a student or Genio Administrator
• expire a user's access
• reactivate a user's access if it has expired

Students don't have access to the Genio Admin Portal, only Genio Administrators do.

💡To find out about the Genio Admin Portal see our Help Center articles here.

• User role = end user access to the Genio platform
• Glean Administrator role = can invite and manage students and other Admins (there's only one Admin role).

💡A Genio Administrator also has standard end user access to Glean (and this doesn't count towards your subscription seat allowance).

Yes, our Privacy Policy is here.

While we do not knowingly collect or process PHI as part of our service, we recognize the possibility that users might inadvertently include such information in the data they provide.

To address this, we have implemented a comprehensive set of measures to ensure that any sensitive information is protected in accordance with the highest standards of privacy and security.

• Encryption: All data, including audio recordings, is encrypted both in transit and at rest.

• Access Controls: Restricted to authorized personnel with detailed audit trails.

• Training: Regular employee training on data protection best practices.

• Audits and Risk Assessments: Regular internal audits to identify and mitigate risks.

• Incident Response: A robust plan to address potential data breaches promptly.

We also comply with SOC 2 Type I and II standards and undergo independent security reviews.

More details are available at Genio Security.

Genio respects a user's privacy, and for this reason operates a strict access control policy. This means that Genio would only access an individual's recordings in specific circumstances where there is a clear need to do so and in line with the Privacy Policy. Access is limited to specific Genio staff that have the authority to access the data in accordance with their job role. Examples include: to provide technical support at the user's request, and to diagnose and fix any errors and/or bugs that Genio identifies. Any actions that are taken in a user's account are logged for auditing purposes.

For legal reasons we can't claim that Genio is unique, since the learning technology space is constantly evolving. What we can confidently say is that Genio has been designed specifically to improve learning outcomes - and it shows: 95% of students said using Genio helped improve how they learn. Rather than focus simply on productivity and efficiency like many other products, Genio is built around a learning method that scaffolds the study process, allowing users to capture everything from class, organize the information, refine it, and apply it to their studies. It’s a process built on learning best practice and years of research and feedback. Genio combines slides, audio, transcripts, images, definitions and more in an engaging study space to ensure students get the most out of class content.

Transcription is available to all Genio Notes users expect those on some legacy plans such as Genio Notes for Teams. The convert to text button will be automatically enabled in the platform when a user logs in.

On our security page, here.

Content created by a Genio user, like audio recordings and electronic notes, are stored locally on the user's device and then uploaded to Genio's cloud storage. The data is saved locally so that a user is able to record and edit their content while offline. Providing users with the ability to work offline was critical to the design of the Genio platform; we understand that notetaking shouldn't be dependent on having an internet connection.

Secure local storage:
Data saved locally is stored on hard disk in a Genio-readable format.

Secure cloud storage:
Data is uploaded to Genio's cloud storage, which is hosted across Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud platforms in UK data centers. At this time, Genio does not provide data storage in any other territory.

More important stuff:
Audio data is stored encrypted at rest and is only transmitted over encrypted channels between the browser and Genio's cloud servers.

When online, the browser uploads data to the cloud. An end user's audio data is sent directly to AWS S3 servers and all other data (such as electronic notes and audio visualization data) is sent to Genio's database via the backend.

All data is uploaded using a secure connection (HTTPS), and is saved in IndexedDB (a database built into the browser) so that Genio works offline.

Audio files are captured in binary long objects, or blobs as we call them, and are encrypted and stored on AWS S3. The blobs are decrypted on retrieval and reassembled on the end user's browser.

Communication between the browser and AWS S3 (for upload and download) is done via pre-signed URLs. The URLs are only valid for the upload of a particular blob (they are only valid for a single destination address in AWS S3), and are valid for a limited time.

Genio respects a user's privacy, and for this reason operates a strict access control policy.

This means that Genio would only access an individual's recordings in specific circumstances where there is a clear need to do so and in line with the Privacy Policy.

Access is limited to specific Genio staff that have the authority to access the data in accordance with their job role.

Examples include: to provide technical support at the user's request, and to diagnose and fix any errors and/or bugs that Genio identifies. Any actions that are taken in a user's account are logged for auditing purposes.

Yes, a user has the ability to delete Events from their individual Genio account. Genio retains deleted Events and their data for 90 days on its database so that anything that was mistakenly deleted can be recovered. When the 90 days is up, the deleted Event and associated data are gone for good. Genio also maintains backups of user data to aid in disaster recovery scenarios (e.g. data corruption caused by a bug, an issue with Genio's database hosting service, or a ransomware attack). The longest Genio retains any such backup is 90 days - and again, it's then gone for good.

💡The institution and/or the Genio Administrator isn't able to access an individual's Genio account and delete Events, since this would violate the terms of the end user Service Agreement and Privacy Policy that Genio has entered into with the user - a user's account is private to them.

Status which is one of the following: Invite Sent / Invite Expired / Signed Up. For more information about status click here.

Status history which means: a record of a user's different statuses. For example, if a student's access expired and the Genio Administrator needed to reactivate access, they'd be able to see the date they reactivated the user.

Last seen which means: User was last active in Genio X number of days / weeks / months / years ago.

• Status and status history
• Last seen
• Number of Events a user has created, including how many recordings have been made
• Number of Events that a user has transcribed

Genio also uses third party analytics providers (Pendo and Amplitude), which give more detailed information about user activity e.g. which in-app features are engaged with the most, what buttons users are clicking on within the platform, etc. Analytics are pseudo-anonymized (only a user ID is displayed). Genio does have the ability to view analytics data on an individual user level, however, this is rare and would really only be done in the event that a user encountered a technical issue or bug and needed support. Typically, analytics reports are aggregated. Analytics are essential for Genio to improve and further develop the software and service for its users.

Genio's list of current subcontractors can be provided on request by emailing legal@genio.co. These third parties process customer and end user data because they are central to Genio being able to deliver its software and service. Genio vets third party providers carefully and ensures that it has the appropriate data protection and data security contractual provisions in place with each one. 

No. This data is collected and used for internal purposes only, to understand how the software is being used and to improve and develop it further. Genio may sometimes publish completely anonymized, aggregated statistics on its website or in promotional materials such as, "X number of recordings were made in Genio this year across its entire user base". Genio would never sell customer or user data.

When an end user clicks the 'Transcribe audio' button within their Genio Event, the audio recording is sent securely to Genio’s third party provider, AssemblyAI, via a speech to text application programming interface (API).

AssemblyAI generates a transcript of the recording and sends this back to Genio’s servers. The end user will then see the transcript in their event.

Once the transcript has been generated and provided to Genio, the audio recording, and corresponding transcript, are removed from AssemblyAI’s servers.

AssemblyAI does not use the data we share with it to train its algorithm(s).

You can find out more here.