Privacy Statement

Summary

Thank you for visiting the U.S. Department of Education’s International Resource Information System (IRIS) website and reviewing our privacy policy. We collect only the information you 1) choose to provide via Contact Us forms, or 2) the information required to administer grants. We do not give, share, sell, or transfer any personal information to a third party.

IRIS Grant Performance Reporting

One of the core administrative activities of the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) office of International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) is to award continuation grants under the fourteen discretionary programs cited in this information collection.

Our capacity to conduct this activity is contingent upon the availability of information that grant recipients submit in annual performance reports. The Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) stipulates that a recipient that wants to receive a continuation award shall submit a performance report that provides the most current performance and financial expenditure information. The IRIS system provides grantee institutions with a centralized repository for inputting their performance report data and narrative information.

There are several additional legal or administrative requirements that make this collection necessary, including the program reporting and evaluation requirements in the Department of Education’s Visual Performance Suite (VPS) and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993.

VPS is the Department’s strategic planning performance data collection system. IRIS gathers and maintains the information that program managers use to help them align program operations level with the Department’s overall strategic goals and objectives. The VPS contains the performance and efficiency measures for each of the 14 programs as well as the results of each measure, if available at this time.

The GPRA requires all federal agencies to develop annual performance plans for their programs, in which the agencies specify the outcomes to be achieved, the indicators of success, and strategies to be followed to accomplish the plan. GPRA further requires the submission of an annual performance report to Congress.

If you are a visitor to the unlogged-in public part of the website, we collect no personal information about you unless you choose to provide that information to us via a contact email. We do not give, share, sell, or transfer any personal information to a third party.

If you are a grantee who logs into the website to fulfill your reporting responsibilities, we collect your name and email address, and, in some cases, details of the grant performance information. Most grant performance information is accessible on the public section of the IRIS website.

If you want to know more about how we record non-personal information about your visit or how we use information that you voluntarily submit, read on.

Non-personal Information We Record

If you visit the website, the operating and/or analytics system will automatically record some general information about your visit.

1. The Internet domain for your Internet service, such as "xcompany.com" or "xcompany.net" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a college or university domain.
2. The type of browser (such as Chrome or "Microsoft Edge ") that you are using.
3. The type of operating system that you use (such as Macintosh, Unix, or Windows).
4. The date and time you visit our site, and the web pages that you visit on our site.
5. The address of the previouswebsite you were visiting if you linked to us from another website.
6. Your IP address.

We use this information for statistical analysis and to help us make our site more useful to visitors. This tracking system does not record information about individuals.

Sessions and Cookies

The office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memo M-10-22: “Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies” allows Federal Agencies to use sessions and persistent cookies.

IRIS Web Application (Sessions) - The IRIS web application relies on session functionality, which temporarily stores information related to your logged-in session on the IRIS server. The fact that you logged in, as well as any data you entered and saved during your visit is retained on the IRIS server. Any other data in the temporary session file is destroyed when the session times out after 30 minutes, or you close your browser window.

Google Analytics (Persistent Cookies) – Google Analytics (a third-party analytics provider) uses persistent cookies to enable them to differentiate between new and returning visitors to our site.

A Google Analytics persistent cookie remains can remain on your computer for up to two years from your most recent visit.

Knowing if a user visited IRIS.ed.gov within the past six months tells us the difference between visitors and "unique visitors" or those who visit our website more than once during this time). This is an industry standard and provides high-level information on the breadth of traffic to and content usage of our digital services. It is a powerful, invaluable metric because it's the only measure that accurately calculates how many individual users visited IRIS.ed.gov in a given time. Combined with total visits, it tells a more comprehensive story about IRIS.ed.gov users and their visit patterns.

Information from E-mail You Send to Us

If you decide to send us an electronic mail message (e-mail), the message will usually contain your return e-mail address. If you include personally-identifying information in your e-mail because you want us to address issues specific to your situation, we may use that information in responding to your request. In other limited circumstances, including requests from Congress or limited other parties, we may be required by law to disclose information that you submit.

Also, e-mail is not necessarily secure against interception. Please send only information necessary to help us process your request.

Information Collected from Web Forms

As mentioned earlier, a significant portion of the IRIS system is devoted to web forms that enable grant recipients to report on project performance per stipulated IFLE program requirements.

Links to Other Sites

Our policy discloses the privacy practices for the IRIS website. But IRIS provides occasional links to other websites, including ED.gov When you leave the IRIS website (www.iris.ed.gov), you will be going to sites that are beyond our control. These other sites may send their own cookies to users, collect data, or solicit personal information. The privacy policies and procedures described here for IRIS do not apply to any external links. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any site you link to from ours, especially if you share any personal information. Be informed. You are the person best qualified to protect your own privacy.

Social Media

The IFLE team uses third-party social media sites to provide content in formats that may be useful or interesting.

Using these third-party sites does not constitute an endorsement by ED or any of its employees of the sponsors of the sites or the information or products presented on the sites. Also, please be aware that the privacy protection provided at IRIS.ed.gov may not be available on these third-party sites. Please note that when IFLE uses social media sites, IFLE does not collect or in any way use personally identifiable information.

Questions?

If you have questions about this policy, please contact IRIS_Help_Desk@ed.gov.