Let us help answer the most common questions you might have.
Kelvin was founded in September 2018 and we’ve been working with districts and schools since we launched “Pulse” January 2019. Prior to Kelvin, we led the engineering and product team for Illuminate Education’s flagship product “Data & Assessment” (DnA).
We take our role as stewards of Student Data very seriously. We are a proud signatory of the Student Data Privacy Pledge and are transparent in our data collection and use practices.We do not use Student Data for any purpose other than to provide the services on behalf of the schools that use Kelvin. Our collection, use, and disclosure of Student Data is governed by our Terms of Use, by the provision of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and applicable state laws that relate to the collection of Student Data. We do not rent or sell data or permit advertising. We do not sell or monetize Student Data. We do not display advertising to students on Kelvin. We do not allow behavioral tracking by any third parties on Kelvin for the purpose of targeted advertising or to show ads on Kelvin. Instead, we are able to provide Kelvin’s technology to school districts in exchange for a transparent per-school or per-district pricing mode.
No. Although these things can help add “color” the quantitative data you’re collecting and help build bridges to students, we recognize that not all schools have the resources to manage this type of feedback. That’s okay. Pulse is customizable so you can turn these things off until you’re ready.
Kelvin’s machine learning flags concerning comments like those related to self-harm and violence and notifies admins. However, no system is perfect. We recommend using other services like GoGuardian or Securly to monitor all web traffic for concerning comments and troublesome browsing activity. These tools were built for this purpose and can flag you of concerning comments in Kelvin as well as those made in other places like emails, search engines, chats, Google Docs, etc.
Kelvin is an open-ended, flexible system. You can add custom questions and create your own survey templates, so you can theoretically add any survey to our platform. Make sure to check if the content is open-source or request permission from the author. You can always write your own questions and add them to Kelvin Pulses for students, staff, or families at any time.
No. Although, this makes things easier. We have a number of schools who extend Pulse windows so that students have a chance to rotate through computer labs to respond. We want you to be successful, so no matter what technology you have (or don’t have) available we will work with you to come up with a plan.
We don’t right now, but we might some day. We like to listen to and respond to our customers’ needs. So far, all of the schools and districts we work with or have talked to have some form of technology in place to administer Pulses (either by extension, email, or text). Let us know if you feel strongly about this. We are always looking for feedback, and we have experience with making paper surveying technologically possible.
This depends on the surveys you’re using with the system. Many of today’s available instruments are only validated to certain grade levels (usually down to 4th grade in most cases). We’ve tested our technology and interfaces with children as young as Kindergarten, and you’d be surprised at how much they’re able to accomplish. However, they often lack the literacy skills to reliably interpret questions and respond accordingly. We are working with some partners on tools to make it possible to collect this data from younger students, so stay tuned.