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ChatGPT Edu

ChatGPT logo alongside a man and a woman sitting around a laptop.

The CSU Chancellor recently contracted for OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu platform which is available to all CSU/SSU students, faculty, and staff. This advanced AI tool offers powerful capabilities, including document summarization, text composition assistance, data analysis, and more.

By integrating ChatGPT Edu across its institutions, CSU is reinforcing its commitment to equitable access to cutting-edge AI technology. This initiative is a key step in CSU’s broader digital transformation strategy, ensuring students, educators, and staff can leverage AI to enhance teaching, learning, and administrative efficiency. Additionally, it prepares students for an AI-driven workforce by providing hands-on experience with responsible and ethical AI use.

As CSU embraces AI innovation, it remains dedicated to thoughtful and ethical implementation, prioritizing transparency, academic integrity, and inclusivity in the use of these tools.

What Happens Next?

  • IT is actively working with OpenAI and the CSU to configure SSU’s ChatGPT Edu environment.
  • We anticipate students, faculty, and staff having access to ChatGPT Edu in the March timeframe.  
  • SSU’s ChatGPT Edu environment, and its encompassing data, will remain private to SSU.    
  • No SSU data will be shared with OpenAI or other universities, for training purposes or otherwise.    
  • AI / ChatGPT training and development resources are now available via OpenAI Training. 

What Can ChatGPT Do?

ChatGPT can perform many tasks such as writing, coding, data analysis, translation, project management and more. To see what it can do for you, visit OpenAI - ChatGPT.

Who is it For?

ChatGPT Edu will be available to all active students, faculty, and staff. Alumni are not eligible at this time.

FAQs

ChatGPT is an advanced AI-powered conversational assistant developed by OpenAI, designed to understand and generate human-like text based on user inputs. It leverages deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) to provide responses across a wide range of topics, from answering questions and offering recommendations to assisting with creative writing and coding. Continuously improving through updates, ChatGPT is used in customer support, education, content creation, and more, making AI interaction accessible and efficient for businesses and individuals alike. More information about the ChatGPT Edu platform can be found here: https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-edu/

ChatGPT, when launched, will be available at: https://chatgpt.sonoma.edu.

ChatGPT is fully funded by the CSU Chancellor’s Office for all campuses within the system. There will be no cost to you. This product is currently funded for 18 months commencing February 2025.

The CSU is offering ChatGPT to students, faculty, and staff as a powerful academic tool that enhances learning, productivity, and accessibility. ChatGPT can assist with research, writing, coding, tutoring, and brainstorming, helping students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It provides instant, 24/7 support for coursework, improving comprehension and engagement in various subjects. Additionally, AI-driven assistance fosters digital literacy, preparing students for the evolving job market where AI proficiency is increasingly valuable. By integrating ChatGPT responsibly, our campus can ensure ethical use while maximizing its benefits for personalized learning and academic success.

Above all though, the primary reason for this system-wide purchase was to ensure that every student, regardless of the campus they attend, will get the same minimum access to modern AI tools.

Finally, tools like ChatGPT are ubiquitous and commonly used by many members of the campus. Having a closed, fully paid for system helps to protect our intellectual property, provides an equal quality service for all, and reduces student out of pocket costs.

Yes, the CSU ChatGPT Edu plan includes enterprise commercial data protection features like SAML Single Sign-On (SSO), domain verification, custom data retention windows, SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, and data encryption at rest and in transit.

Further, none of our data or prompts will be used to train the public ChatGPT model, meaning that this option is significantly more private than using the free offerings by ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is available to current CSU students, faculty, and staff. Licensing was not purchased to cover alumni and emeritus faculty.

ChatGPT Edu is a special, first of its kind plan that provides everyone with access to what is essentially the paid version of ChatGPT at greatly reduced costs. The functionality is nearly identical with certain limits and restrictions that will apply, e.g. model usage frequency, etc. These restrictions will continuously change over time as the product evolves.

While the Edu plan offers extensive features, GPT-4o usage is limited to 10 messages every 5 hours although the user can switch to GPT-4o mini which allows for unlimited messages. The contract includes pricing to “step-up” that adjusts the GPT-4o use cap to that of other ChatGPT Edu plans at a rate still lower than other chat GPT Edu customers.  Details for how to purchase this additional licensing are expected to be available around May 2025. 

Yes, ChatGPT Edu includes web search, allowing users to access and retrieve up-to-date information from the internet to enhance their queries and research.

If you subscribe to the paid version of ChatGPT using your sonoma.edu email address, then you will receive a pro-rated refund to the start date of this contract. This will require you to migrate your models to this new account or download them to import into your personal ChatGPT license. 

AI is not going away. It will become more and more prevalent, and the CSU must continue to prepare our students for the future in the face of new technology. This is an opportunity to lead in educational innovation, and the path forward includes working closely with faculty to navigate this new terrain for the benefit of our students and the broader academic community.

Existing CSU policies on privacy and responsible use have been/are being refined to reflect the use of AI. Ethical frameworks and usage guidelines have been drafted and will be made available for campuses to serve as a ready foundation for any campuses that do not already have their own frameworks and guidelines already developed. The CSU’s GenAI Committee, comprised of key stakeholders and leaders, including representatives from the CSU’s Faculty Senate, will develop and provide the ongoing guidance for AI in the CSU.

The system-wide agreement with OpenAI includes language that ensures your ChatGPT interactions and data are not used to train their underlying large language models or improve their services.

The CSU has a policy on responsible use of technology resources , as well as existing standards on student conduct and defined student conduct process for addressing issues that may arise. The CSU will continue to update policies, procedures and guidelines as necessary to enable the safety of our community.

Individual user interactions and conversations with ChatGPT are not monitored. The CSU will only collect basic use statistics to understand the extent of adoption. 

No. No one within the campus or within the CSU will be able to view your conversations, they are all private to you.

No. No one within the campus or within the CSU will be able to view your conversations, they are all private to you.

One of the benefits of an enterprise agreement is that OpenAI commits to data privacy and security by ensuring that conversations and data are not used to train their models. The Edu plan includes commercial data protection features like SAML SSO, domain verification, custom data retention windows, SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, and data encryption at rest and in transit.

Just like with the paid version of ChatGPT, you can create your own custom GPT. You will then be able to share GPTs within our campus workspace. 

Yes, OpenAI provides applications for various platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows, and MacOS, ensuring that users can access ChatGPT across different devices. Additionally, the applications can be configured for platform specific integrations.

Self-paced learning resources are available below:

Additional AI learning resources will be added as they become available. For general questions, contact the IT Help Center.

The CSU Chancellor’s Office has signed an 18-month (February 2025 - July 2026) contract for ChatGPT with an option to extend the agreement.

There are 500,000 user licenses available system wide. These licenses were purchased to cover employees and students only. Licenses are not intended for alumni; auxiliary; continuing education students, faculty, and staff; or other campus community members and partners. 

Contact the IT support desk @ help@sonoma.edu and they should be able to help you gain access if there is an issue.