Verified DSO access
Advisor tools remain locked until the institutional identity and official office information are reviewed.
Institutional trust framework
Institution-ready for student and advisor use.
Vistara's operating core is live and tested. A school can onboard without transferring private student records. Students receive source-backed federal information and the school's own published procedures, while verified DSOs keep control of every institution-specific update.
Product status · Operational and ready for institutional onboarding
What a school controls
School procedures
A verified DSO can draft, publish, update, or delete CPT, OPT, STEM OPT, and office-contact guidance.
Clear authority boundary
Federal sources and school procedures appear separately. Vistara never authorizes CPT, issues an I-20, updates SEVIS, or decides eligibility.
Student handoff
Students can copy a concise question packet containing the question, known facts, missing facts, and direct sources for their DSO.
How a school can launch
1. Verify the office
A DSO signs up with an institutional email and an official staff page. Uncertain requests remain locked for founder review.
2. Publish school guidance
The verified office reviews and publishes its own CPT, OPT, STEM OPT, contact, and deadline procedures.
3. Invite students
The school shares one student link. Students choose the school from the official DHS directory and see only published guidance for that institution.
4. Review and improve
The office can correct, update, unpublish, or delete its guidance at any time. Federal sources remain separately labeled.
Open the read-only DSO workspace demonstration. It uses simulated records, contains no student data, and cannot publish changes.
What has been measured
| Control | Status | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Production operating health | Passed point-in-time check | 159 automated tests and the production build passed on November 13, 2026. An earlier check covered 13 public routes on desktop and mobile and four production model connections (October 29, 2026). |
| Question routing and status recognition | Passed automated benchmark | 240 synthetic, de-identified questions across F, J, M, H, L, O, CPT, OPT, and STEM OPT topics. |
| Two-sided comparison research | Implemented | Each named status is researched separately; thin evidence triggers a second official-source pass. |
| Claim-level citations | Enforced by answer schema | Material claims must point to the numbered source catalog. The model cannot invent a URL. |
| Independent DSO and attorney answer review | Additional validation in progress | This does not block institutional use. Automated checks are not represented as professional approval, and a verified institution controls its own school-specific guidance. DSOs and immigration attorneys can join the independent review program at contact@vistarapath.com. |
| FERPA institutional workflow | No student-record transfer required | The standard onboarding path does not ask the school to provide student records. If a future integration requires FERPA-covered records, Vistara will complete the school's data agreement before that integration is enabled. Security overview. |
| Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA) | Partially conforms | 0 automated violations on public pages and sign-in after fixes (axe-core, November 9, 2026). Manual screen-reader testing and an independent audit are in progress. Accessibility statement. |
| Security review | Questionnaire on request | Server-only database access, HTTPS with HSTS, App Check, verified DSO access, hashed audit logs, and self-serve account deletion. HECVAT Lite available on request; no SOC 2 report yet. Security overview. |
Open the machine-readable accuracy report · Open the official-source registry
How Rule Watch entries are written
New Federal Register documents are detected automatically. When one affects F-1, J-1, OPT, STEM OPT, or H-1B students, an AI model drafts a plain-English entry from the full official text, and the entry is published with an AI-drafted label and a direct link to the official document.
Checked against the official text
Every date, CFR citation, dollar amount, percentage, and affected group in a draft must appear in the official document. A draft that fails is corrected once; if it still fails, only the verified facts are published.
Second reviewer
A separate AI review checks each claim against the source before publication, so a rule about H-1B workers is not described as affecting students unless the document says so.
Human control
The founder is emailed when an entry publishes and can edit or withdraw it at any time. Withdrawn entries disappear for students immediately.
Report an error
DSOs who see a wrong or unclear entry can report it at contact@vistarapath.com. School-specific procedures always come from the school's own verified DSO.
Privacy boundary
Private by default
Raw Ask history stays in the user's browser for 30 days. Student documents and advising records are not training data by default.
Separate improvement permission
A user must inspect a de-identified question, remove personal information, and separately consent before it enters human review.
Human review before learning use
Contributed questions remain ineligible for training until reviewed by the appropriate DSO, attorney, or authorized reviewer.
Institution accountability
School-guidance reads and changes create limited audit events with hashed account identifiers and retention limits.
Framework references: U.S. Department of Education FERPA guidance and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.
How Vistara helps DSOs
Fewer unclear emails. Better prepared student conversations.
Students arrive with organized dates, a concise question, and linked federal sources. Repetitive educational questions receive sourced explanations. School-specific decisions are routed to the institution. Rule Watch separates proposals and lawsuits from rules currently in effect.
Recommended introduction: “Vistara Path is an institution-ready, source-backed student-preparation and DSO workflow platform. It does not replace advising authority. Your office controls every school-specific procedure shown to your students, while Vistara keeps federal sources and status labels current.”