Privacy Notice
CCS HPC Support Assistant · Last updated July 25, 2026
This notice explains what information the CCS HPC Support Assistant handles, how it is used, and how the system is built. The University of Kentucky Center for Computational Sciences (CCS) operates this assistant.
What this assistant is
The CCS HPC Support Assistant is an AI tool that answers questions about the CCS high-performance computing clusters (LCC, MCC, and ECC) at the University of Kentucky. It combines large language models with a curated knowledge base of official CCS documentation (retrieval-augmented generation), and for some questions it consults live cluster status.
Responses are generated by AI and may be incorrect or incomplete. The assistant is a convenience tool, not an authoritative source—always verify important steps against official CCS documentation or open a ticket through the CCS Support Portal.
What information is collected
When you use the assistant, the following information is handled:
| Data | Where it's handled | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Your questions & uploads | Sent to the CCS backend and processed on CCS on-premises infrastructure | Processed by on-premises AI models to generate a response |
| Conversation context | Stored server-side on CCS infrastructure, tied to your session | Keeps recent turns and a short running summary so the assistant can follow up in context |
| Query log entry | Stored in the CCS conversation log (anonymous — no name, LinkBlue ID, or email) | Records the question, response, cluster, which internal models ran, whether a tool was used, and a general user type — used for aggregate, anonymous usage and quality reporting |
| Your rating (if provided) | Sent to the CCS backend | Answer-quality review and service improvement |
| Sign-in event | Recorded in a separate login log | Authentication and access; kept separate from the query log |
What is NOT collected or linked
Your identity is not associated with your questions or answers. The query log stores questions and responses anonymously, with only a general user type and cluster-access flags. It does not store your name, your LinkBlue ID, or your email alongside your questions.
- Login and conversation records are kept apart. Sign-in events live in a separate login log and are never joined with the conversation log, so there is no stored link between who signed in and which questions were asked.
- No personal account lookups are tied to your questions. Personalized commands (such as your disk usage, your queue status, or your job history) are disabled; the assistant does not pull your individual account data to answer questions.
- The assistant does not request or store passwords, and you should never enter them.
How your information is used
- To generate answers to your questions during your session.
- To produce aggregate, anonymous reports on usage and answer quality so CCS can maintain and improve the service.
- To review feedback and correct or improve the knowledge base and responses.
Your questions are not used for advertising, and they are not sold or shared for marketing.
How the system is implemented
Every AI model in this assistant runs on CCS on-premises infrastructure. Your questions, uploads, and chat history are processed on CCS hardware and are not sent to any external or third-party AI provider.
All of the models in the pipeline are self-hosted on CCS systems—this includes the language model that writes answers, the supporting models that rewrite and summarize conversations and screen questions, the model that describes uploaded images, and the embedding model used for search. No commercial or cloud AI API is called at any stage.
To answer a question, the assistant searches a curated knowledge base of official CCS documentation using a combination of keyword and semantic (meaning-based) search, and it may run read-only live-status commands—for example, checking partition or queue status—to ground its answer in current cluster state. The language model then composes a response and cites the source documentation where applicable.
Third-party services
- Sign-in (CILogon / InCommon). Authentication is handled through CILogon and your institution's identity provider (for University of Kentucky users, your LinkBlue credentials). You enter your credentials at your identity provider, not with this assistant, and the assistant does not receive or store your password.
- Support tickets. If you choose to open a support ticket, that request is handled by the CCS Support Portal (Atlassian), which is a separate system with its own handling of the information you provide there.
This assistant does not embed third-party advertising or web-analytics trackers.
Sensitive and regulated data
Do not enter sensitive or regulated data. This assistant is not certified or approved for protected, confidential, or regulated information—including HIPAA protected health information (PHI), personally identifiable information (PII), FERPA education records, export-controlled data, or Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). Enter only non-sensitive information you are comfortable sharing.
Your choices
- You can start a new session at any time to clear the on-screen conversation.
- You can choose not to submit feedback and not to attach files.
- Because the query log is anonymous and is not linked to your identity, CCS generally cannot single out which entries came from you.
Changes to this notice
We may update this notice as the assistant evolves. Material changes will be reflected here with a revised "last updated" date.
Contact
Questions about this notice or about how the assistant handles information can be sent to CCS through the CCS Support Portal.