Sonoma State University

ChatGPT Edu

ChatGPT Edu is Sonoma State’s educational version of ChatGPT and is available for free to all SSU students, faculty, and staff. ChatGPT is a generative large language model, which you can interact with via text chat and file uploads. ChatGPT, like most LLMs, is proficient at reading, research, data analysis, and generation of a variety of forms of media. ChatGPT Edu specifically keeps private all of our data; OpenAI cannot use content that we enter for model training or any other purposes.

The first time you try to access ChatGPT Edu, you should log into the Sonoma State Online Services page and click on the ChatGPT tile, and follow instructions there to connect your SSU account to ChatGPT. After that, you should be able to access it directly at chatgpt.com.

ChatGPT Edu is funded through the end of the 2025-26 academic year as part of CSU’s exploration of AI in education, and is supported by both CTET and IT.

Best Practices

AI is a rapidly transforming technology. In order to get the most value from LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini, we strongly recommend the following:

  • Be very clear with your students about your policies and expectations around AI, and why. Every teacher currently has unique policies, and many students have trouble keeping track of each teacher's expectations. If you refuse to allow AI in your classroom, take the time to make sure your students understand how your learning activities will help them reach your course's learning goals. If you allow AI in your classroom, make sure that your students understand why you think it is a useful skill and which parts are still an essential part of the learning experience. Either way, helping your students understand why the activities matter continues to be important to building their engagement with the learning process.

  • Be transparent with students about your own AI use, if you use it, especially if you limit their use of it as part of your course policies. This will help head off student complaints and, as before, will help increase their engagement with your learning activities.

  • Test your own assignments and other activities using SSU's licensed AI tools. This is the quickest and easiest way to understand how your course assessments are vulnerable to AI without turning your work into AI training data, and will also help you become more proficient with the tools.

  • Verify all outputs. LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini still hallucinate results and make other mistakes. Before you share or use any content, take the time to read it carefully and check its sources.

  • Protect everyone's privacy. You can submit SSU data, including student work, (but not sensitive data such as social security numbers) to our licensed AI products thanks to our CSU-wide data protections. You should not submit student work or other SSU data to any AI tools for which SSU does not provide you with a license, because doing so could violate CSU data privacy and intellectual property rules, and you can't guarantee that that data will be used appropriately.

Resources

  • AI in Education. This page collects CTET's resources around AI in higher education.
  • ChatGPT Edu FAQ. This page, hosted by SSU's IT team, answers many common questions about ChatGPT Edu.
  • CSU GenAI. A collection of courses, videos, and other resources offered to CSU faculty by the CSU Chancellor's Office.

Get Support

If your question isn’t answered by the above resources, we encourage you to visit CTET either in person or via Zoom, submit a help request, or just email us. We are happy to do a 1-on-1 training or support session with you. You can find our current business hours and contact information, including our Zoom link, on our Contact Us page.

We also offer a number of AI-related workshops and trainings. Check out our Workshops page to see what upcoming events we're offering!

Student Support

CTET only supports faculty, not students. If your students report any issues to you, we would encourage you to look at the issue with them and, once you've documented it, report it to us. Then we can figure out the cause of the problem.

If your students need direct support, they can contact SSU's IT Help desk for technology support, Monday through Friday, 8AM to 5PM.