All University of Sydney students and staff to receive free and supported access to OpenAI's ChatGPT Edu
University is partnering with OpenAI to introduce the advanced AI across teaching, research and operations - and investing $1 million in an AI Sustainability Research and Innovation Fund
Students and staff at the University of Sydney will have access to advanced AI across teaching, research and operations
All University of Sydney students and staff will soon have free and supported access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu.
The investment will provide each of the university’s students and staff with equitable access to the AI tool alongside training and support regardless of their circumstances, discipline or role.
Professor Mark Scott, the university’s Vice-Chancellor and President, said: “It’s our responsibility to graduate students who are well equipped for the modern world of work, provide our researchers with the tools they need to continue our globally competitive research, and make our University systems and processes easier to navigate for our community,”
Protecting academic integrity
The university has been transforming the way it teaches and assesses students to meet the opportunities and challenges AI presents without compromising academic rigour.
Its sector-leading, two-lane approach to assessment ensures students can prove their knowledge and capabilities in secure supervised assessments and demonstrate how they can engage with AI effectively and responsibly in open unsupervised assessments.
ChatGPT will supplement the home-grown, award-winning and global AI education platform Cogniti, which puts teachers in control and supports 24/7 personalised tutoring, feedback, role-play and learning, and will remain the preferred tool for educators in the classroom.
“AI is rapidly reshaping the workforce our graduates will enter and our goal is to help all our students use AI effectively while ensuring they leave university with the human capabilities, the knowledge, skills, judgement, creativity, ethical awareness and adaptability they’ll continue to need to thrive in the jobs of the future,” Professor Scott added.
"Free access to ChatGPT Edu, alongside other platforms including Cogniti, supports a level playing field for AI use, with all students able to apply its advanced features to enable easier collaboration in group learning activities, develop ideas and brainstorm, undertake advanced information analysis, ask questions, all while building AI literacy.”
In June this year alone, the university’s community logged more than 10 million sessions on ChatGPT.
Investing in AI sustainability research and innovation
The University of Sydney is also creating an AI Sustainability Research and Innovation Fund to leverage existing multidisciplinary research expertise and help build the evidence, methodologies and innovations needed to better understand, measure and reduce AI's environmental impacts in a coordinated and strategic way.
Researchers are supported by an evolving suite of advanced computing infrastructure including its newest high-performance computing platform Apollo, to drive discovery with AI across the university, including in engineering, science, medicine and health, business, law, social sciences and the Conservatorium of Music.
