Your research and PaperPrep
Short answers to the questions researchers ask about their work in PaperPrep. The Privacy notice has the full detail.
- Who owns my work?
- You do. Your studies, drafts and the words you write in PaperPrep are yours. PaperPrep keeps them to show them to you and to do what this page and the Privacy notice describe.
- Who can see my work?
- You, when you sign in. If you turn on sharing to help improve PaperPrep, the PaperPrep team can also read your conversations with Paige and the drafts you attach to them, on a review page that shows no name or email address. It is off unless you turn it on, and turning it off hides them again.
- Who else receives my text?
- When you send a message or check a draft, its text goes to Duke's AI Gateway, which runs the AI models, or to OpenAI directly when the gateway is unavailable. Your name, email address and account are not sent. The gateway keeps a record of each request, including the text sent, in a restricted Duke security audit log for 180 days. When OpenAI is used as the fallback, it may keep the request for abuse monitoring for up to 30 days, unless the law requires longer.
- Is my work used to train AI models?
- No. Your text is not used to train AI models.
- Is my work encrypted?
- Yes. Your studies, conversations, attached drafts, peer reviews, readings, searches and feedback are encrypted with a key that belongs to your account. People with access to the database or its backups cannot read them without the app's own key. This is not end-to-end encryption: PaperPrep holds the keys, so it can show you your work and send your messages to the AI service.
- What does PaperPrep keep when I check a draft?
- The reading: each item's status, the lines it quotes from your draft and the arithmetic checks, with the draft's word count and a fingerprint of its text. Not the draft itself. A draft you attach in a conversation is different: it is kept, encrypted, in that study so Paige can refer back to it, until you delete it.
- Can I delete it?
- Yes. You can delete one reading, a study's conversation, a whole study, or your account and everything with it. Deletion from the active database is immediate. Database backups can keep a copy for up to 7 days. Deleting your account also destroys its key, so a copy left behind cannot be read.
- Can I take my work with me?
- Yes. You can download a study, its conversation, or everything at once as a ZIP of text files. Once a file is on your device, it is yours.
- What happens if I stop using PaperPrep?
- After 12 months without activity, we schedule your account's deletion and send reminders 30 days and 7 days beforehand. Signing in and working renews the period.
- Can I paste patient or participant data?
- No. Use de-identified text, and do not paste anything that identifies patients, participants or other people. For an analysis, share summary output, not data with one row per participant. The identifier check can miss things.
- Will PaperPrep write my paper?
- No. Paige explains, questions and comments, and you write your own work. About PaperPrep explains why.
- Do I need to disclose that I used PaperPrep?
- Check your target journal's or course's policy on AI-assisted work. PaperPrep does not decide whether you need to disclose it.
- Does PaperPrep approve my study?
- No. It gives educational guidance. It does not approve a study or replace ethics review or the permissions your work requires. Its feedback can contain mistakes, so check consequential advice against reliable sources.
- Who runs PaperPrep?
- Duke University, in Azure, East US 2. Write to support@paperprep.org with questions.