Terms of Service

Terms of Service: AI Aware Writing Environment

Last Updated: May 20, 2026

Welcome to AAWE (AI-Aware Writing Environment), operated by AI Aware Writing Environment, LLC (“AAWE,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). Through our web application and related services (collectively, our “Services”), we provide tools that support writing instruction, including typed and uploaded submissions, handwriting digitization (scan and OCR), configurable assignment workflows, multi-round AI feedback, revision and draft-comparison tools, PDF and email delivery, writing analytics, and process-based AI detection where enabled.

This document outlines the terms and conditions governing your use of AAWE’s Services. By accessing or using AAWE, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and all applicable policies referenced herein. If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not access or use our Services. We encourage you to read this document carefully, as it explains your rights and responsibilities as a user of AAWE, as well as our commitments to protecting your privacy, maintaining security, and ensuring ethical use of our platform.

Your Right to Use The Services

You may visit our public website without creating an account.

To access the instructor dashboard or related Services, you must create an instructor account with the understanding that you:

• Are at least 18 years of age,
• Provide accurate registration information (name, university-affiliated email, institution at which you are employed, and password), and
• Maintain the confidentiality of your account credentials.

Your account is personal to you and may not be shared. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your login credentials.

If you are using AAWE on behalf of an Institution, you agree that your use—and that of any students invited under your course or license—is governed by these Terms and by any applicable institutional agreement or addendum (e.g., Student Data Policy, Data Processing Agreement, or Research Consent Addendum).

Students typically access assignments through a course link or access code provided by their instructor. AAWE does not require students to create independent accounts for standard course use. Depending on assignment settings, students may submit typed text, upload documents, digitize handwriting through the OCR workflow, receive up to two rounds of AI feedback when enabled, and deliver results to their instructor by download or email.

If your Institution elects to enable student participation (e.g., through pilot studies or research integrations), your Institution represents that it has obtained all necessary permissions and provided any required notices to students, parents, or guardians under applicable laws (including FERPA, and state student privacy statutes).

Assignment Workflows and Platform Features

Instructors configure how students complete each assignment. Available steps may include submitting typed or uploaded work, digitizing handwriting (when enabled), receiving AI feedback (up to two rounds when enabled), revising drafts, and delivering final materials to the instructor. You agree to use only the submission methods and AI settings your instructor enables for each assignment.

OCR workflow (handwriting digitization). When enabled, students may photograph or upload images of handwritten pages. Images and machine-readable text produced by OCR are stored to support editing, feedback, and delivery. OCR output may contain errors; students are responsible for reviewing and correcting recognized text before submitting. Camera access requires browser permission and a compatible device.

Delivery. Students may download PDFs or send results by email when an assignment allows delivery. You are responsible for verifying recipient addresses and attachment contents before sending. Email delivery uses your mail client or configured institutional mail services as described in our Privacy Policy.

Your Responsibilities When Using AI-Generated Content

AAWE’s AI tools are designed to generate formative guidance, not final evaluations or grades.

When using these tools, instructors agree to:

• Use professional judgment. Review all AI feedback before sharing it with students or incorporating it into any formal assessment.
• Check for accuracy and bias. AI-generated suggestions may contain factual, stylistic, or interpretive errors. Always verify the appropriateness of any output for your instructional context.
• Ensure pedagogical alignment. You are responsible for ensuring that AI-assisted feedback aligns with your course objectives, institutional policies, and ethical standards for teaching and assessment.
• Protect privacy. Do not upload or input personally identifiable information, confidential student data, or sensitive institutional materials into the platform.

When using AAWE’s AI features, students agree to:

• Use feedback responsibly. Treat AI-generated feedback as guidance to help you reflect on and improve your writing—not as final corrections or guaranteed answers.
• Exercise critical thinking. Review all suggestions carefully and make independent decisions about what to revise, keeping in mind your instructor’s goals and assignment requirements.
• Follow assignment parameters. Use only the AI feedback engines, feedback types, and number of feedback rounds your instructor configures. Work submitted for feedback is not used to train third-party AI models through AAWE.
• Maintain academic integrity. Do not use AI tools to complete entire assignments or to misrepresent your own work.
• Protect privacy. Avoid entering personally identifiable information or sensitive data into the platform, including in photographs of handwritten work unless required for the assignment.

Prohibited Uses of the Services

You agree not to use the Services in any way that:

• Violates intellectual property or privacy rights. Infringes or violates the intellectual property, moral, or data privacy rights of any person or institution.
• Violates law or policy. Contravenes applicable laws, institutional regulations, or your organization’s acceptable use policies.
• Threatens harm. Uses AAWE to create or distribute content that is fraudulent, threatening, harassing, defamatory, obscene, discriminatory, or otherwise objectionable.
• Commercial misuse. Uses AAWE for non-educational, commercial, or promotional purposes, including creating or marketing unrelated products or services.
• Compromises account security. Shares account credentials, allows others to access your account, or otherwise jeopardizes the security of your or another user’s account.
• Attempts unauthorized access. Seeks to obtain passwords, account information, or other security credentials belonging to any user or system.
• Threatens network integrity. Attempts to interfere with or compromise the security of any network, server, or data system connected to AAWE, including introducing viruses or malware.
• Disrupts normal operations. Runs automated scripts, scraping tools, or background processes that overload or impair the performance of the Services.
• Reverse-engineers or copies the system. Attempts to decompile, reverse engineer, or otherwise derive the source code, underlying logic, or data models of the Services, except where expressly permitted by law.
• Misuses capture or delivery features. Uploads images or content unrelated to the assignment, circumvents instructor workflow settings, or sends delivery emails to unauthorized recipients.

Any violation of these restrictions may result in immediate suspension or termination of your access to the Services.

Privacy and Data Protection

AAWE is designed with privacy in mind. We collect only limited information necessary to provide and improve the Services—such as instructor login credentials, student submissions (including handwriting images and OCR text when used), AI feedback, delivery files, usage logs, and anonymized writing analytics where enabled.

AAWE complies with applicable data protection laws, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), to the extent those laws apply. Student writing, handwriting images, and AI feedback submitted through AAWE are not used to train third-party AI models.

Our Privacy Policy explains:

• What data we collect and why (including the OCR workflow and email delivery),
• How we store and protect it,
• Third-party AI and OCR providers we use, and
• How instructors and institutions can request access or deletion.

If you believe student or instructor data has been submitted without proper authorization, please contact [email protected].

Ownership and Intellectual Property

All AAWE content, software, and documentation are owned by AI Aware Writing Environment, LLC or its licensors and protected by copyright and other laws.

You retain ownership of your own content (such as uploaded syllabi, assignments, student work, handwriting images, and OCR output). By using the Services, you grant AAWE a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to process and analyze such content solely for the purposes of operating, improving, and securing the Services (including generating feedback, running OCR, and preparing PDF or email delivery). AAWE does not sell or publicly share user content or writing data.

Termination

You may deactivate your account at any time.

We may terminate or suspend your access to the Services at any time if you violate these Terms, misuse the platform, or engage in activity that compromises its integrity or security. In other cases, AAWE may provide thirty (30) days’ prior notice before ending your access or discontinuing the Services.

Any provisions of these Terms that, by their nature, should survive termination will remain in effect after termination.

Third-Party Services

AAWE may contain links or integrations with third-party services. These include, where configured:

• AI feedback providers (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) to generate writing feedback for specific submissions;
• OCR services (e.g., OCR.space, Google Cloud Vision, or on-server Tesseract) to convert handwriting images into editable text;
• Cloud hosting, email, and analytics tools that support platform operation.

AAWE transmits only the data necessary for each requested function. We are not responsible for the content, availability, or data practices of third-party services. Your use of such services is governed by their own terms and privacy policies, as further described in our Privacy Policy.

Warranty Disclaimer

Given the nature of generative artificial intelligence, neither AAWE nor its licensors or suppliers make any representations or warranties concerning any content contained in, generated by, or accessed through the Services. THE SERVICES AND CONTENT ARE PROVIDED BY AAWE (AND ITS LICENSORS AND SUPPLIERS) ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, (SUCH AS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, PRIVACY RIGHTS OR RIGHTS OF PERSONALITY), OR THAT USE OF THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE; THAT THE SITE WILL BE SECURE; THAT THE SITE OR THE SERVER THAT MAKES THE SITE AVAILABLE WILL BE VIRUS-FREE; OR THAT INFORMATION ON THE SITE WILL BE COMPLETE, ACCURATE OR TIMELY. IF YOU DOWNLOAD ANY MATERIALS FROM THIS SITE, YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK. YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIALS. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM AI Aware Writing Environment, LLC THROUGH OR FROM THE SITE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. AAWE DOES NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OF THE MATERIALS ON THIS SITE IN TERMS OF THEIR COMPLETENESS, CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, ADEQUACY, USEFULNESS, TIMELINESS, RELIABILITY OR OTHERWISE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, AAWE DOES NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY OF OCR OUTPUT, AI-GENERATED FEEDBACK, OR EXPORTED PDFs; INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR REVIEWING ALL OUTPUTS BEFORE RELYING ON THEM FOR INSTRUCTIONAL OR SUBMISSION PURPOSES.

SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON HOW LONG AN IMPLIED WARRANTY LASTS, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES AND UNDER NO LEGAL THEORY (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, NEGLIGENCE, CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE) SHALL AAWE (OR ITS LICENSORS OR SUPPLIERS) BE LIABLE TO YOU OR TO ANY OTHER PERSON FOR (A) ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOST PROFITS, LOSS OF GOODWILL, LOST TIME, LOSS OF DATA. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION AND EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless AI Aware Writing Environment, LLC, its officers, employees, and contractors from any claim or expense (including attorney’s fees) arising from your violation of these Terms or misuse of the Services.

If you knowingly and intentionally cause a technical disruption of the site or the systems transmitting the site to you or others, you agree to be responsible for any and all loss, damage, payment, settlement, judgment or other expense (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and disbursements) arising out of or resulting from that disruption.

Governing Law and Arbitration

AI Aware Writing Environment, LLC is organized under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania in the United States of America, and this site is operated in the United States. These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

By using this site, you agree you have waived trial by jury in any action or proceeding arising out of or related to the use of this site. We recognize that it is possible for you to obtain access to this site from any jurisdiction in the world, but we have no practical ability to prevent such access. This site has been designed to comply with the laws of the State of Pennsylvania and of the United States. If any material on this site, or your use of the site, is contrary to the laws of the place where you are when you access it, the site is not intended for you, and we ask you not to use the site. You are responsible for informing yourself of the laws of your jurisdiction and complying with them.

Modifications

AAWE may revise these Terms from time to time. The “Last Updated” date above reflects the current version. Material changes will be communicated via email or through in-app notifications. Continued use of the Services after updates constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. The May 2026 revision adds terms for assignment workflows, handwriting OCR digitization, multi-round AI feedback, and PDF/email delivery features.

Our Accessibility Policy describes how we work to make the platform usable for all learners, including keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and known limitations of camera and OCR features.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about these Terms or our data practices, please contact us:

AI Aware Writing Environment, LLC
[email protected]