PittGPT debuts today as private AI source for University; University Times, August 21, 2025

 MARTY LEVINE, University Times; PittGPT debuts today as private AI source for University

"Today marks the rollout of PittGPT, Pitt’s own generative AI for staff and faculty — a service that will be able to use Pitt’s sensitive, internal data in isolation from the Internet because it works only for those logging in with their Pitt ID.

“We want to be able to use AI to improve the things that we do” in our Pitt work, said Dwight Helfrich, director of the Pitt enterprise initiatives team at Pitt Digital. That means securely adding Pitt’s private information to PittGPT, including Human Resources, payroll and student data. However, he explains, in PittGPT “you would only have access to data that you would have access to in your daily role” — in your specific Pitt job.

“Security is a key part of AI,” he said. “It is much more important in AI than in other tools we provide.” Using PittGPT — as opposed to the other AI services available to Pitt employees — means that any data submitted to it “stays in our environment and it is not used to train a free AI model.”

Helfrich also emphasizes that “you should get a very similar response to PittGPT as you would get with ChatGPT,” since PittGPT had access to “the best LLM’s on the market” — the large language models used to train AI.

Faculty, staff and students already have free access to such AI services as Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. And “any generative AI tool provides the ability to analyze data … and to rewrite things” that are still in early or incomplete drafts, Helfrich said.

“It can help take the burden off some of the work we have to do in our lives” and help us focus on the larger tasks that, so far, humans are better at undertaking, added Pitt Digital spokesperson Brady Lutsko. “When you are working with your own information, you can tell it what to include” — it won’t add misinformation from the internet or its own programming, as AI sometimes does. “If you have a draft, it will make your good work even better.”

“The human still needs to review and evaluate that this is useful and valuable,” Helfrich said of AI’s contribution to our work. “At this point we can say that there is nothing in AI that is 100 percent reliable.”

On the other hand, he said, “they’re making dramatic enhancements at a pace we’ve never seen in technology. … I’ve been in technology 30 years and I’ve never seen anything improve as quickly as AI.” In his own work, he said, “AI can help review code and provide test cases, reducing work time by 75 percent. You just have to look at it with some caution and just (verify) things.”

“Treat it like you’re having a conversation with someone you’ve just met,” Lutsko added. “You have some skepticism — you go back and do some fact checking.”

Lutsko emphasized that the University has guidance on Acceptable Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools as well as a University-Approved GenAI Tools List.

Pitt’s list of approved generative AI tools includes Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, which is available to all students, faculty and staff (as opposed to the version of Copilot built into Microsoft 365 apps, which is an add-on available to departments through Panther Express for $30 per month, per person); Google Gemini; and Google NotebookLM, which Lutsko said “serves as a dedicated research assistant for precise analysis using user-provided documents.”

PittGPT joins that list today, Helfrich said.

Pitt also has been piloting Pitt AI Connect, a tool for researchers to integrate AI into software development (using an API, or application programming interface).

And Pitt also is already deploying the PantherAI chatbot, clickable from the bottom right of the Pitt Digital and Office of Human Resources homepages, which provides answers to common questions that may otherwise be deep within Pitt’s webpages. It will likely be offered on other Pitt websites in the future.

“Dive in and use it,” Helfrich said of PittGPT. “I see huge benefits from all of the generative AI tools we have. I’ve saved time and produced better results.”"

UW System's copyright policy: What it means for professors; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 2, 2024

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; UW System's copyright policy: What it means for professors

"The University of Wisconsin System's proposed copyright policy aims to transfer ownership of faculty teaching materials to the university."

Libraries announces July workshops for scholarly communications, copyright; Penn State, June 29, 2023

Penn State ; Libraries announces July workshops for scholarly communications, copyright

"Beginning July 11, Penn State University Libraries will offer virtual workshops on scholarly communications and copyright topics for students, faculty and staff. The workshops include a two-part Introduction to Copyright, a session on Penn State’s open access policy, and a workshop about copyright for authors of theses and dissertations.

Registration is free but required for all workshops. To register, please follow the links listed with each session, or contact Ana Enriquez, scholarly communications outreach librarian, at enriquez@psu.edu."

The future of open educational resources; Community College Daily, April 27, 2023

James Glapa-Grossklag is dean of educational technology, learning resources and online education at College of the Canyons (California).

Una Daly is director of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) at Open Education Global, Community College Daily; The future of open educational resources

"The future of OER is that it will not be the next big thing, but rather that OER will be a common way for students to freely access information, a tool in the enrollment management toolkit, and a commitment to equitable outcomes and collaborative teaching."

This VCU Libraries initiative has saved VCU students more than $7M in textbook costs; VCU Libraries, December 1, 2022

Brian McNeill, VCU News; This VCU Libraries initiative has saved VCU students more than $7M in textbook costs

"“One of the things that’s been most exciting to me since coming to VCU is just the interest [in open and affordable content] from faculty,” said Jessica Kirschner, the open educational resources librarian who leads VCU Libraries’ textbook affordability efforts. “We’ve had a record number of applications for our grant program over the past two years, which blew me out of the water. Our faculty are engaged and interested and by and large realize the impact that this work can have on their students.”

Through the initiative, Kirschner works to assist in the creation of new resources, as well as locating, adopting and adapting existing course materials, including library materials and open educational resources.

Open course materials not only support students by eliminating costs, they also can enable better learning experiences and optimize academic outcomes for instructors and students, Kirschner said. Rather than relying on a textbook, she said, a professor can draw from various open resources to customize their class in a way that makes students more engaged.

“When I talk to faculty, I always like to say: ‘Why form your class around the textbook when you can form a textbook around your class?’” she said."

Intellectual Property ‘Grab’; Inside Higher Ed, August 17, 2020

Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed; Intellectual Property ‘Grab’

"COVID-19 has upended so many academic norms. Now Youngstown State University may be poised to turn another tradition on its head: faculty ownership of textbooks, articles and other nonpatentable works.

According to documents from the university’s ongoing contract negotiations with its faculty union, Youngstown State wants to fundamentally change how it defines scholarship, copyright, intellectual property, distance education and the legal term "works for hire." It also wants to introduce the concept of commercialization into the faculty contract."

Online Teaching During Pandemic Raises Copyright Concerns; Bloomberg Law, April 3, 2020

Matthew Bultman, Bloomberg Law; Online Teaching During Pandemic Raises Copyright Concerns

"The sudden shift to online teaching is raising a host of copyright questions for educators...

Allaying Teacher Fears

Hoping to provide guidance, a group of copyright specialists at colleges, universities and other organizations last month wrote a statement on fair use that was signed or endorsed by more than 200 experts. It has circulated among grade school educators as well. 

Making course materials available to students during the pandemic will “almost always be a fair use,” the group wrote in the statement. Showing full-length movies or television shows can be more tricky, and the group encouraged instructors to use video through licensed services whenever possible. 

“One of the reasons that this statement was put together was to address and allay some of the fears that faculty, students, and librarians are facing when rapidly shifting to moving their courses online,” said Sara Benson, a copyright librarian and assistant professor at the University of Illinois.

The group also put together a list of video and other content that publishers have made available for free—called “Vendor Love In The Time Of Covid”—during the outbreak. Copyright specialists have also held informational “Virtual Copyright Office Hours” on Zoom. 

“We want to make copyright the least of your concerns,” Courtney said. “Be worried about your students, their health, their welfare, because that’s most important.”"

Sharing the love: OSU librarian works to increase educational resources for students and faculty; O'Colly, January 16, 2020

Nick Oldenburg, O'Colly; Sharing the love: OSU librarian works to increase educational resources for students and faculty

"As the cost of textbooks rises, students are forced to either comply with textbook companies and buy their product or turn to their classmates and share resources...

Christian Maldonado is also a junior, but he hasn’t had a class with an OER. He said that while he thinks they would help him in college, he can see why some classes still don’t use them.

“I can see points on both sides,” Maldonado said. “The author who wrote [the textbook] is selling a product, so they are entitled to set the price.”"

Provost’s office accepting OER grant applications; The Pitt News, January 16, 2020

Jon Moss and Benjamin Nigrosh, The Pitt News; Provost’s office accepting OER grant applications

"The University is accepting proposals from faculty until Feb. 19 for projects to adapt, adopt or create open education resources for current course offerings.

The third iteration of the funding program is part of a series of initiatives run by Provost Ann Cudd’s office to encourage the use of OERs. OERs are course materials like textbooks, lab notebooks and videos that are free for Pitt students and allow for legal adaptation and open use with attribution to the original author. They are typically free or less expensive than traditional textbooks.

Faculty can apply for smaller grants, ranging from $500 to $2,000, to adopt or adapt an open textbook or OER course component such as online homework, lab manuals or support materials. Larger grants, between $2,000 and $5,000, are available to support individual or team-based development of open textbooks, or combining an open textbook with course-specific development."

North Dakota University System to host open education resource conference in Fargo in March; Grand Forks Herald, January 7, 2020

Sydney Mook, Grand Forks Herald; North Dakota University System to host open education resource conference in Fargo in March

"In conjunction with Open Education Week, the North Dakota University System will hold an open education resources conference on Friday, March 6, at the Holiday Inn in Fargo, the university system announced Monday, Jan. 6.

The full-day program will include an overview of open education resources at a national level, a panel of representatives from UND, Mayville State University and Valley City State University who have implemented OERs, and research conducted by UND professor, Virginia Clinton, regarding the effects of using open textbooks and student learning outcomes.

Open educational resources, also known as OER and sometimes referred to as open-access resources, allow students to save money on textbooks through a free online textbook."

Faculty Council discusses intellectual property rights; The Ithacan, April 3, 2019

Ashley Stalnecker, The Ithacan; Faculty Council discusses intellectual property rights

"Costa said the current policy on student work at the college differs from the typical policies of higher-education institutions. Currently, the college deems any work created by a student in a class under the jurisdiction of a professor to be the property of the faculty member or the college. Costa said this means that if the faculty memberearned any royalties, they would be required to share it with the college but not with the student who created it.

Costa said that normally among higher-education institutions, student-created work is the copyright of the student. In this case, the student would earn any royalties associated with the work. For commissioned work, the person who made the commission would own the copyright. Because the work was paid for, the person who paid for it owns the work."

Required Reading: Appeals Court Instructs District Court for Second Time on Fair Use of Course Materials; Lexology, November 30, 2018

McDermott Will & Emery - Jodi Benassi, Lexology; Required Reading: Appeals Court Instructs District Court for Second Time on Fair Use of Course Materials

 

"The US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit vacated a district court’s judgment for a second time, finding that the lower court misinterpreted its instructions on remand and failed to give each excerpt of the copyrighted works the holistic analysis the Copyright Act demands. Cambridge University Press, et al. v. J.L. Albert, et al., Case No. 16-15726 (11th Cir. Oct. 19, 2018) (Pryor, J)."

‘Big Deal’ Cancellations Gain Momentum; Inside Higher Ed, May 8, 2018

Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed; ‘Big Deal’ Cancellations Gain Momentum

"Also last year, SPARC, an advocacy group for open access and open education, launched a resource tracking big-deal cancellations worldwide. Greg Tananbaum, a senior consultant at SPARC, said that there is a “growing momentum” toward cancellations.

According to data from SPARC (which may not be comprehensive, said Tananbaum), in 2016 five U.S. and Canadian institutions announced cancellations with big publishers such as Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis and Elsevier. In 2017, seven more North American institutions said they planned to cancel their big deals, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kansas State University, among others. 

Motivation for Cancellation 

Both Tananbaum and Anderson agree that one factor driving cancellations of big deals is that library budgets are not growing at the same rate as the cost of subscriptions. Given budget restrictions, “there’s just a reality that tough choices have to be made,” said Tananbaum."

Why Students Are Still Spending So Much for College Textbooks; The Atlantic, January 26, 2018

Laura McKenna, The Atlantic; Why Students Are Still Spending So Much for College Textbooks

"Along with the traditional textbooks, many college classes now require students to purchase access codes—which cost $100 on average—to online platforms created by publishers such as McGraw-Hill and Pearson. Homework and quizzes are hidden on the platforms behind paywalls that expire after the semester, meaning students can’t resell them once they’re done with the course...

Publishers and some professors tout the advantages of these new digital assessment tools, pointing to their ability to streamline the academic experience by making it more efficient and customized. The fact that they’re becoming omnipresent on some campuses speaks to instructors’ enthusiasm for them. But as demonstrated in a new report by Student PIRGs, a collection of college student-run advocacy groups that works alongside U.S. Public Interest Research Groups, students are starting to question their merits: The access codes threaten to exacerbate the already-high cost of college materials, undermining the used-book market and reshaping the college experience. As McGrath put it, now “you have to pay to do homework.”

Concept to Commercialization course for Pitt faculty and grad students; University of Pittsburgh, 1/29/16

University of Pittsburgh; Concept to Commercialization course for Pitt faculty and grad students:

"Concept to Commercialization is a course for Pitt faculty and grad students. It will help you learn how to protect your intellectual property, learn about the realities of entrepreneurship, and recognize the commercial potential of a scientific discovery."