Privacy and analytics

This book is a free, open educational resource. We use a small amount of website analytics to understand which chapters are actually used, so we can improve the book and report on its reach as an OER. This page explains exactly what that means.

What we collect

The site uses Google Analytics 4. When you accept analytics cookies, it records:

  • which pages you visit and how long you stay;
  • which files you download (for example the datasets and the PDF edition);
  • your approximate location (country or region — not your street address);
  • the site or search engine that referred you, if any;
  • your browser and device type (e.g., “Chrome on Windows”).

What we do not collect

  • No names, emails, or student records. Nothing in this book asks who you are, and analytics is not connected to Canvas or to any UBC system.
  • No IP addresses are stored. Google Analytics 4 does not log or retain IP addresses; location is derived and then discarded.
  • No quiz answers. The self-assessment quizzes run entirely in your browser. Your answers are never sent anywhere.
  • No advertising. We do not run ads, and analytics data is not used for ad targeting.

Your choice

When you first visit, a banner asks whether to allow analytics cookies.

  • Decline, and no analytics cookies are set and nothing about your visit is recorded — no page views, no downloads, nothing. The entire book — every chapter, dataset, and quiz — works exactly the same either way. No content is gated behind consent. (To be precise: your browser still fetches Google’s analytics script file, as it would any script on a page, but if you decline it never runs and no measurement takes place.)
  • You can also block analytics with a browser extension, or with Google’s own opt-out add-on. We consider this entirely reasonable.

Where the data goes, and for how long

Analytics data is processed by Google, which stores it on servers outside Canada (primarily the United States). It is retained for 14 months and then deleted automatically. Only the author has access to the reports, which show aggregate totals (for example, “Chapter 5 was viewed 240 times last month”) — never individual readers.

Questions or concerns

If you would rather this book collected nothing at all, or you have a privacy question, please open an issue on the GitHub repository or email the author. We take the point seriously — analytics here exists to improve a teaching resource, nothing more.