University of Sydney to roll out ChatGPT Edu to students

University of Sydney Executive Director Digital Sydney Josh Roberts, Vice-President (Operations) Nicole Gower, Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Mark Scott, with Open AI’s GTM Director (APAC) Deeps De Silva and Solutions Engineer Joel Sol

University of Sydney is rolling out ChatGPT Edu to 80,000 students and staff, becoming the second major Australian tertiary institution to enter a major agreement with OpenAI in a week.

The university said that ChatGPT Edu’s features would be enabled in stages throughout the rollout and guided by its existing responsible AI framework which guards against the technology’s misuse.

Its student newspaper Honi Soit, which broke news of the OpenAI deal ahead of a formal announcement, reported that staff would receive access this month with students to gain access from the first semester of 2027, following a pilot.

A University of Sydney spokesperson was unable to confirm this in time for publication.

Vice-chancellor and president Mark Scott said in a statement that the adoption of ChatGPT Edu aims to prepare students for the workforce.

The university also announced that it is investing $1 million dollars in AI sustainability research to contribute to community understanding of environmental impacts of using the technology.

The announcement arrived shortly after UNSW revealed that it would expand its ChatGPT Edu rollout to 80,000 students, following a limited rollout to 10,000 fixed-term and permanent staff late last year.

Both institutions have confirmed that their ChatGPT Edu rollouts won’t be used to collect data to train other OpenAI models.

OpenAI last week told iTnews that this was ChatGPT Edu’s default configuration.

UNSW last week told iTnews that it would introduce new administrative measures to address cheating using the tools.

It plans to revise its guidance in relation to academic integrity around use of AI. It’s also introducing three assessment “AI modes” directing students on when to use it: “can”, “can’t” and “must”.

University of Sydney said it would be relying on its “two-lane” assessment strategy presented to students mid-last year to address academic integrity.

According to student guidance published on its website on use of generative AI, students are provided with advice on when use of the technology is permitted or forbidden in study outlines.

The university's academic integrity unit has access to technology to detect cheating in student work. However, it’s website states that, like UNSW, it doesn’t consider the detection tools on their own to be sufficiently reliable for proving cheating.

iTnews understands that OpenAI is also working on new technological measures to steer students away from cheating behaviours and encourage learning.

For instance, it’s understood that the company is working on measures to detect when students might be trying to take shortcuts in assignments and redirect them back to a safer learning path.

UNSW has opted for a procurement model with OpenAI based on token-consumption rather than per-seat licensing, paying for them “within a fair use limit”.

iTnews has sought further details from USyd regarding its procurement model.

Not everyone is happy with rollout. In its report, Honi Soit said that the National Tertiary Education Union’s University of Sydney branch was not consulted on the deal despite requesting to be consulted on new platform procurements.