ChatGPT-5 will be provided to all staff and students at the University of Oxford, following a year-long pilot involving around 750 researchers and professional services staff. Oxford will be the first university in the UK to offer generative AI tools to all of its students.
Students will be invited to join a shared workspace which offers access to ChatGPT-5, the latest model from OpenAI, as well as a limited number of custom GPT models specialised for specific research tasks created by other University members.
The GPT-5 model has been provided through ChatGPT Edu, a purpose-built version of ChatGPT designed specifically for universities. OpenAI advertises the product as offering “significantly higher message limits than the free version of ChatGPT”. ChatGPT Edu also provides additional capabilities compared to the free version, such as increased allowance for file uploads and data analysis.
For universities, a major attraction of ChatGPT Edu is security. OpenAI claims not to train its LLMs using chat history from any of its enterprise models, including ChatGPT Edu. The company also states that, with these models, “workspace admins can access an audit log of conversations” to manage compliance issues.
Professor Anne Trefethen, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Digital, said: “We know that significant numbers of students are already using generative AI tools…through robust governance, training, guidance and support, we are encouraging safe and responsible use within a secure environment.”
Professor Freya Johnston, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, added: “Generative AI is also helping us to explore new ways of engaging with students, alongside our renowned face-to-face teaching and tutorial model.”
An email announcing the wider rollout was sent today to staff and postgraduate research students. Undergraduates and taught postgraduates will receive information on Monday.
Cherwell can report that several undergraduates already received invitations from an OpenAI email address to join the University’s ChatGPT workspace at 11:30pm on Wednesday. It remains unclear why some undergraduates received this but not others. The University did not respond to questions on this point.
This wider rollout of ChatGPT Edu follows the August release of a new University policy for the use of generative AI in research. The policy allows for a wide range of uses, including conducting literature reviews, identifying research gaps, and developing hypotheses. It does, however, specify that “users should declare the substantive use of GenAI tools in their work”.
