UNC MTC Simplifier is an application developed by the UNC Department of Computer Science. Our goal in creating this application was to simplify the process of converting documents to the Plain Language Format.
This is a standard used by the federal government for conveying complex medical documents to Americans with reading disabilities. The add-on is geared towards researchers and medical professionals but can be used by anyone with ease.
The following section explains our user data usage and our intentions for asking users for their data. We provide a comprehensive explanation of our intent in order to ensure users of the safety and security of their data.
The UNC MTC Simplifier is the only application in this add-on. Subsequently, this is the only application that requests and utilizes your data. No other application (with the exception of Google Docs itself) has access to any of your data.
The add-on works by accessing the contents of your documents and using the contents to produce a variety of readability metrics. This is the only piece of user data we use. We do not collect your Google email, password, or any other account information. The contents of your document are not stored anywhere or shared with anyone.
They are used solely to calculate readability metrics and are deleted from our application immediately upon closing it. Here are the metrics we calculate for you using your document contents:
| Metric | What is it? |
|---|---|
| Word Count | Number of words in the document. |
| Sentence Length | Average number of words per sentence. |
| Syllables/Word | Average number of syllables per word. |
| <3000 ratio | Proportion of words in the document that are within the top 3000 words of the English language. |
| Type-Token | The ratio of unique words to total words in the document. |
| Flesh-Kincaid | The minimum U.S. grade level required to understand your document. |
| Flesh-Reading | Provides a score from 0-100. A score of 0 means your document is very easy to read, whereas a score of 100 implies a document that is difficult to read. |
These are the only metrics that we compute using your documents contents and they are displayed to you immediately in a sidepanel. This information is computed within Google Cloud and not on any external server. Your information thus stays within Google Cloud and Google Docs and is never sent anywhere.
The only other permission we request from you is the ability to show our application as a sidebar in Google Docs. This allows us to provide you with timely updates as your document changes when you type.
Feel free to reach out to Gary Bishop: gb at cs.unc.edu or Alfred Mathew: alfmat at live.unc.edu for any comments, concerns, or queries. We would be happy to clarify anything that wasn't clear on the website and we are open to hearing suggestions for improvements to our privacy policy.
This add-on's primary purpose is to help users simplify their documents. We do this by computing various readability metrics that help you assess how difficult or easy your document is to understand.
Obviously, none of this would be possible if we can't have access to the contents of your document. We can't tell you the word count or syllables/sentence if we can't even see what you've typed out.
Absolutely No! Even we the developers don't have access to what you've typed.
When the add-on runs, it copies the text of your document and sends it to Google Cloud. All the computation that figures out how many syllables are in your document or the number of words in your document take place there. This data is not stored or shared with anyone.
In short, we don't! This is because we don't share your data or collect it for ourselves.
Our goal with this add-on was to help researchers simplify documents for the CDC. Our project helps Americans with reading disabilities to get access to high-quality informative material that is easy to understand. That's greatest profit that our team is after!
UNC MTC Simplifier