ChatGPT at UCCS
Information & TrainingIntroduction
Estimated Launch Date: 3/31/26
This site is available to all Faculty, Staff, and Students as a centralized hub of information regarding the launch and use of ChatGPT Edu on the UCCS campus. Check here often, as the content will continually change and be updated.
If you have questions or problems, you can contact the team at ChatGPT@uccs.edu.
ChatGPT Edu is OpenAI’s education‑focused version of ChatGPT, designed for universities, colleges, faculty, staff, and students.
It provides Enterprise‑grade governance, but at a cost and scale model appropriate for higher education.
Key Features:
- Enterprise‑level security & privacy, including data not used to train OpenAI models
- Role‑Based Access Control (RBAC) for faculty vs. staff vs. students
- Credit spend controls (administrators can set soft/hard caps)
- Workspace‑wide policies, including who can use advanced tools
- Support for large user bases (campus‑wide deployments)
- Compliance alignment (FERPA‑friendly workflows on the institution’s side)
Once ChatGPT Edu at UCCS is fully available (currently targeting 3/31/26), all faculty, staff, and students are required to complete a short Skillsoft/Percipio training.
This mandatory training takes only 5–10 minutes to complete and introduces the essentials of ethical & responsible AI usage, fairness, equity, and data security when working with AI tools.
Once you successfully complete the training, you will be automatically provisioned into the UCCS ChatGPT Edu environment.
The University of Colorado has entered into a three-year agreement with OpenAI, renewable annually, to provide ChatGPT EDU systemwide to students, staff and faculty.
Each campus and the system office will stand up and manage its own secure instance of the tool to provide equitable access while ensuring security and privacy. The University of Colorado is making this investment and offering this tool because it is committed to:
Elevating equity in technology tools for everyone in the CU community by investing now
Ensuring quality education for today and tomorrow for every CU student by providing them access to future-forward tools
Advancing ethical use, privacy, security, sustainability and societal benefit for the technology on our campuses
Enhancing the ability of faculty and staff to bring their best work forward for our students, our state and our world
Your Data Is Safe in ChatGPT‑Edu
ChatGPT‑Edu is built specifically for higher education and provides enterprise‑level security, privacy protections, and full FERPA compliance. All information shared within ChatGPT‑Edu—whether by faculty, staff, or students—is protected under strict privacy controls.
Conversations and files used within ChatGPT‑Edu are not used to train OpenAI’s models, ensuring your academic, research, and administrative information stays private. OpenAI clearly states that users own their inputs and outputs, and data is not used for model training by default across ChatGPT‑Edu and other enterprise offerings.
All data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and OpenAI maintains industry‑standard compliance certifications.
These safeguards make ChatGPT‑Edu a secure environment for faculty, staff, and students to explore AI responsibly in teaching, learning, and research.
Please review the Artificial Intelligence and AI at UCCS information pages for further guidance on proper AI usage and details regarding additional AI tools available on campus.
Human Oversight
At UCCS, we recognize the transformative potential of AI while emphasizing responsible use: although large language models continue to advance, occasional inaccuracies or “hallucinations” may still occur. Thoughtful human review and professional oversight remain essential to ensure accuracy, integrity, and alignment with our academic and operational standards.
ChatGPT Resources
Explore these self-paced basic learning resources
(each approximately 5-10 minutes long)
Self-paced Resources
Prompt Packs
How ChatGPT fits Into UCCS's technology and policy landscape
ChatGPT is being introduced as an additional AI resource for the UCCS community. It expands the set of supported tools available to students, faculty and staff, and does not replace existing AI or productivity platforms already approved for campus use.
With ChatGPT, users will have access to a secure, institutionally supported environment where CU credentials are required and CU data receives stronger protections than those offered by public AI tools. This ensures that faculty, staff and students can use generative AI while aligning with university standards and data governance expectations.
Other tools, such as Microsoft Copilot, which is approved for use with confidential data, will continue to be available. The availability of ChatGPT does not change UCCS’s existing data classification rules, FERPA obligations, or accessibility requirements, nor does it change any academic integrity expectations for students. All campus policies remain fully in effect.
Faculty will continue to have authority over determining whether and how AI tools may be used within their courses. Decisions about whether and how generative AI tools may be used in coursework or research remain with individual instructors, departments and programs, and we recognize that the usefulness and appropriateness of these tools will vary significantly by discipline and context. Instructors may choose to allow, limit or prohibit AI use and should outline their expectations in their syllabi and course communications. More information can be found on the Faculty Resource Center's AI in Academics page which includes sample syllabus entries, additional resources on AI in higher education, and an AI assessment scale.