The AI assistant and your data

The LearnBoard AI assistant answers questions about your Moodle data in plain English, on the AI assistant screen and through Ask AI about this on every card. It only reads, it cannot change anything, and it answers within the same limits as the screens you can open. This page explains what it reads, what reaches the AI provider, how answers follow your role, and how your workspace can see how AI is used. It is for anyone who uses the assistant and for administrators answering questions about it.

At a glance

• It only reads. Every query the assistant writes passes a stricter version of the read-only check, then runs on the same read-only connection as every screen.
• Answers follow your role and groups. Team leads get answers about their own groups. Learners get answers about themselves only.
• No other workspace. The assistant reads your workspace’s data source and nothing else.
• People’s details are not sent as rows. Results that identify people reach the AI provider as a count, never as names or email addresses.
• A monthly allowance. Your plan includes an AI allowance each month.
• AI transparency. Admins can see who asked what, what the assistant read and how often it passed the safety check.

How a question is answered

1. You ask. You type a question on the AI assistant screen, or press Ask AI about this on a card. From a card, the assistant also receives that card’s title, description and the figures it shows.

2. The allowance is checked. If your workspace has used its AI allowance for the month, the assistant says so and stops here.

3. The assistant writes a query. It is given a description of how Moodle stores learning data, and writes a database query to answer your question.

4. The query is checked. Before anything runs, the query must pass the AI safety check. See what the safety check refuses.

5. Your limits are applied. The query is narrowed to what your role can see: your own groups for a team lead, your own records for a learner. Staff enrolments and courses hidden from analytics are left out, so the assistant counts enrolments the same way every screen does.

6. It runs read-only. The query runs on the same read-only connection as every screen. See security and privacy.

7. You get an answer. The results are turned into a short answer in plain English. You see the answer, not the query.

It cannot change anything

The assistant has no way to write to Moodle or to LearnBoard. It cannot enrol or unenrol anyone, change a grade, send a message, issue a certificate or change a setting. The only thing it can do is read, through the same safeguards as every screen:

• the read-only query check, made stricter for AI;
• the read-only connection;
• the read-only database session;
• and, when you connect through the plugin, the Moodle plugin’s own check.

The assistant explains figures. It does not make decisions about anyone. The risk score, for example, is a fixed formula, not an AI judgement.

What the safety check refuses

On top of the read-only rules every query follows, a query the assistant writes is refused when it:

• reads a table that is not on the list of learning-data tables the assistant may use;
• reads site configuration, administration, roles or other tables that are not learning data;
• refers to another database;
• tries to write, lock, wait, read files or run several statements at once.

Every result is also capped to a set number of rows. A refused query is recorded, and an attempt to get the assistant to read something it should not is written to the audit log as its own event.

Answers follow your role and groups

Role	What the assistant can read
Admin, Manager, Viewer	the whole workspace’s data source
Team lead	only the people in their own Moodle groups, in the courses they lead
Learner	only their own enrolments, groups and records

The assistant reads only your own workspace’s data source. It never sees data from any other workspace.

Note

A learner’s questions are read as themselves. Whatever a learner asks, the answer comes from their own enrolments, groups and records only, never from other learners’ data.

What reaches the AI provider

The AI provider is the company whose model writes the query and the answer. It receives:

• your question, and from a card, the card’s title, description and figures;
• a description of how Moodle stores learning data (its table structure);
• the results needed to write the answer.

It does not receive people’s details as rows:

• Results that identify people (names, email addresses, ID numbers, phone numbers, addresses, city, country or IP addresses) reach the provider as a count only, with an instruction not to list them.
• Card figures sent by Ask AI about this follow the same rule. When a card’s columns name people, its rows are replaced by their count.
• Large results are summarised from their first rows and a total count.

Database passwords, connector keys and AI provider keys never leave the LearnBoard server.

Which AI provider is used

By default the assistant uses LearnBoard’s own AI credits. On plans that include it, a workspace Admin can add your organisation’s own OpenAI or Anthropic key under AI keys in the Admin console. The key is kept on the server and never reaches a browser.

The monthly allowance

Your plan includes an AI allowance each month, measured in AI credits, and on some plans also as a number of AI questions. Your subscription in the Admin console shows the AI credits included and used.

• When the allowance is used up, the assistant shows: “This workspace has used up its AI allowance, so the assistant cannot answer any more questions here. Everything else on the page still works.”
• The question allowance starts again at the beginning of each calendar month.
• There is also a limit on how many questions one person can ask in an hour.

When the assistant cannot answer for another reason, it keeps your question and says: “The assistant couldn’t respond, your question was kept below. Press Send to try again.”

Your conversations

• Your conversations in the assistant are listed for you only. You can remove one with Delete conversation.
• Under an answer, Was this right? lets you mark it right or wrong. This feeds the accuracy figure on AI transparency.
• Pin to dashboard on an answer saves a snapshot of its results to one of your dashboards.
• Workspace Admins can see the questions people asked, on AI transparency and in the audit log.

AI transparency

AI transparency in the Admin console shows how your workspace uses AI, in one place. It changes nothing; it only reports. Only workspace Admins can open it.

Questions asked

How many questions people asked in the period.

Passed the safety check

How many of the assistant’s queries passed the safety check.

Chart summaries

How many times people asked the AI to explain a chart.

Rated right

How often people marked an answer as right with Was this right?

Below the tiles:

• Use by day: questions per day across the period.
• Recent questions: the latest 25, who asked, and what happened.
• What the AI read: the learning-platform tables its queries read, by how many answers used each.
• Models used: the AI models that answered, by use.
• Most summarised charts: the charts people asked the AI to explain most.

Tip

AI transparency is the screen to show when someone asks how your organisation’s analytics AI is used.

When the assistant is not available

You see	What it means
“You don’t have access to the AI assistant. Ask your administrator to grant it.”	your role does not include the assistant
“The AI assistant is not available right now. A workspace administrator can check AI settings in the admin console.”	AI is not set up or not reachable for your workspace
“This workspace has used up its AI allowance…”	the monthly allowance is used up

See troubleshooting.

Related

Ask AIUsing the assistant and Ask AI on cards.

Security and privacyThe read-only safeguards every query passes.

Roles and permissionsTeam scoping and learners' self-only view.

FAQCan the AI change my Moodle data? and more.