Data sources
Know where each data point comes from.
Linden Study distinguishes official public facts, permitted third-party data, student contributions, and experimental signals instead of blending them together.
Official public information
Course catalog facts, degree requirements, academic dates, registration guidance, and faculty information may be used when the source and its terms permit the intended display.
Relevant fields can include course codes, titles, descriptions, credits, prerequisites, school and cohort requirement paths, faculty names, departments, biographies, and public professional links.
BC course-evaluation aggregates
Linden Study displays quantitative Boston College Avalanche or Blue evaluation aggregates with the available response count, covered terms, and capture information. These records can include course experience, instructor experience, weekly-effort bands, and evaluation cohort totals.
The evaluation records do not represent registration capacity, available seats, or personalized eligibility. Linden Study does not describe a legacy endpoint as a guaranteed public API.
Faculty profiles and identity
Faculty biographies, titles, portraits, CVs, and professional links may come from linked public Boston College department or faculty pages when the intended use is supportable.
A linked public profile is evidence for identity and professional context, not evidence that Boston College endorses Linden Study. Ambiguous or insufficiently supported profiles should remain unconfirmed or excluded from indexing.
Community and experimental data
Ratings or reviews submitted directly to Linden Study remain distinct from official facts and third-party aggregates. Any third-party metric must have permission or another documented legal basis before publication.
An experimental function must show its source category, methodology, scale, sample size, date range, transformations, missing values, and limitations. Linden Study does not use competitor-site content as its course catalog.
Requirements data
Requirement mappings may use published Boston College curriculum, Core, school, program, and course materials. Each mapping should preserve the relevant school, cohort, and rule context where available.
A displayed mapping is research context and not a personalized degree audit. Official program rules and advising guidance control.
Future seat information
Seat information will be published only when the access method is authorized. Linden Study will not collect BC passwords, MFA codes, authorization headers, portal cookies, or SSO tokens, and will not bypass authentication, VPN, network, or technical controls.
Any future result must identify its source, capture time, refresh state, and uncertainty from reserved seat pools, then direct the student to confirm in official registration systems.