About the Center for Graduate Career Success
BUSINESS STRUCTURE
The Center for Graduate Career Success is a mission-driven organization incorporated in Colorado. We partner with universities to scale career support to prepare graduate students for career and job search success.
Headquartered in Denver, many team members work remotely from locations in Canada.
OWNERSHIP
CGCS is owned by our founder and CEO, L. Maren Wood, PhD (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). Our team knows first-hand how difficult it is for graduate students and PhDs to access the resources and mentorship they need to launch careers inside and beyond academia. In building CGCS, they leverage their research, expertise, and personal experience to help graduate students and PhDs launch their next great careers.
HOW CGCS EARNS AND SPENDS MONEY
CGCS is funded by annual subscriptions to our career training platforms. There are no outside investors, shareholders, or funding.
Over 75% of CGCS revenue provides income for our employees. The balance sustains marketing and business development; developing, hosting, and maintaining platforms; and delivering effective programming.
PRIVACY AND USER DATA
CGCS takes great care to only collect essential information about its users and audiences to reach them, deliver services and programming, and efficiently operate its platforms.
Career Training Platforms
Beyond the Professoriate and Beyond Graduate School are e-learning platforms available by institutional or individual subscription. Users are limited to the individual students, postdocs, faculty, and staff of subscribing institutions, or individuals who purchase their own subscriptions. CGCS team and contractors create and maintain the platform.
There are no third-party users on the platform.
Users are presented with the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy the first time they access the platform. If any user wishes to have their user history deleted, they can contact CGCS at member@gradcareersuccess.com
CGCS has designed the platform to maximize the privacy of users.
What users can do on these platforms
Users can access programs that include on-demand videos to explore career options and learn job search strategies, download workbooks and worksheets, and register for live webinars and events.
Over time, CGCS will add additional modules and tools to the Platforms to further its mission of providing career education and professional development to graduate students and postdocs.
CGCS provides a safe learning environment to users. There are no opportunities for users of the Platforms to interact with each other or see other users who are active on the platform; no user can see the activity of, or interact with, other users on the platforms.
What CGCS sees
CGCS is integrated with, and accessed through, an institution’s Single Sign-On portal. The institution authenticates a user, allowing them to access the e-learning platform. The first time a user accesses the Platform, a user account is generated using the user’s name and institutional email address.
For individuals who purchase their own subscriptions, an account is automatically created for you when you pay your tuition. You’ll be sent information on how to log in through our portal for individual users.
To understand utilization and detect problems in performance, CGCS uses Google Analytics and a tracking plugin. These tools show which users are logging in and when, pages users visit, how long users spend on a specific page, devices used to access the platform (phone, laptop, tablet), and which browsers users choose (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc).
What CGCS does not see
No personal information other than a user’s name and email address, is released by subscribing institutions to Platform. CGCS does not receive demographic information, visa or employment status, or the home department, of a user.
Users registering for events provide CGCS with their academic discipline and student/postdoc status.
For individual users who purchase their subscription, your name and email address are passed to the Platforms, and you will be required to set up a password when you first log in.
How CGCS uses information from the Platforms
The CGCS team generates aggregate reports about an institution’s users for designated program administrators. The reports show how many users from an institution accessed the platforms, which programs and pages were viewed, how many videos were viewed, how many learners registered for events, and how many workbooks or worksheets were downloaded. Reports include a breakdown of the percentage of users by academic discipline and student/postdoc status.
ALL INFORMATION IS AGGREGATED. CGCS does not share information about individual users without user consent.
CGCS analyzes aggregate data to understand the efficacy of its programs, improve the functions and content of the platform, and to develop additional programming.
CGCS only sends emails to users of the Platforms to provide information about updates and changes to the platform, to help on-board a user, and to collect substantive feedback to improve the platform and develop additional programming.
CGCS will never sell any information about users to third-parties.
How data from the Platforms are stored
Data is stored on Amazon Cloud Services on servers located in the United States.
Team members view and analyze data on company laptops from locations in the United States and Canada.
When the CGCS team analyzes data, user information is anonymized; email addresses and names are removed and replaced with an unidentifying ID number.
Third Party Providers
CGCS uses the following third parties to deliver programming, products and services.
Vimeo
All videos embedded in the Platforms are hosted on Vimeo. When a viewer watches a video, they are watching that video on vimeo. Learn more about Vimeo’s privacy.
What CGCS sees and doesn't see
Vimeo provides CGCS aggregate data via a statistics dashboard. Information Vimeo shares with CGCS includes: the url of the website or platform the embedded video was accessed from, number of plays a video received, how long viewers watched a video, devices used to access the video (phone, laptop, tablet), and browsers viewers choose (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc).
Vimeo never shares individual user data with CGCS.
How CGCS uses information from Vimeo
CGCS analyzes aggregate data provided by Vimeo to refine programming and services to meet the needs of Platform learners, in service of its mission.
CGCS never sell personal information to any third party.
Zoom
CGCS hosts live webinars via Zoom webinar. Read Zoom’s privacy policy.
What CGCS sees and doesn't see
Attendee’s share their name and email address when they register for a webinar or meeting.
CGCS may ask additional questions when attendees register for a webinar, such as an attendee’s institution, academic rank (graduate student, faculty, postdoc), employment status, and academic area of specialization.
CGCS uses this information to refine programming and reach its targeted audience. We never share personal information with third parties, nor do we provide reporting to institutions.
Webinar attendees are in “attendee-only” mode, which means that the participant’s webcam and mic are disabled. Attendees only participate in the webinar via text-chat and Q&A.
CGCS team members who host the webinars, and guest panelists or speakers, see the names of attendees. Comments or questions an attendee asks in the text chat or Q&A are visible to webinar hosts and panelists. CGCS keeps a record of questions and comments shared during the webinar to inform future programming and research.
All webinars are recorded (video and audio); names of attendees, questions, or comments from the chat are not included in the recording.
How CGCS uses information from Zoom
CGCS team members analyze questions and comments asked by attendees to understand the needs of graduate students and PhDs, to refine programming, and to create additional content and services to meet the needs of the academic community.
CGCS never sells personal information to any third party. We may provide aggregate reports to institutions (the number of people who attend our events), but will never report on an individual’s participation.
Stripe
Stripe is a secure payment processing software that CGCS uses to manage individual subscriptions to the platform. Read Stripe’s privacy policy.
What CGCS does and doesn't see
Stripe shares with CGCS a member’s name, email address, the last four digits of a member’s credit card, and the expiration date on that card.
Stripe does not share with CGCS a member’s address or full credit card information.
How CGCS uses this information
CGCS uses information provided by Stripe to assist members with billing issues and to verify a member’s subscription to the Platform.
CGCS never sell personal information to any third party.
Active Campaign
CGCS sends weekly newsletters through Active Campaign to platform users. Learn more about Active Campaign and read its privacy policy.
Platform users can unsubscribe at any time simply by clicking the “unsubscribe link” at the bottom of any email campaign.
What CGCS does and doesn't see
Active Campaign provides CGCS with analytics about each email campaign, including which subscriber opened an email, and if the subscriber clicked on links included in the email.
How CGCS uses this information
CGCS uses this information to curate events and resources shared with newsletter subscribers.
CGCS never sells personal information to any third party.
Please direct any questions to L. Maren Wood, PhD, Director & CEO of The Center for Graduate Career Success