CSU AI Survey asks SFSU community to weigh in on artificial intelligence

Whether you use artificial intelligence every day or avoid it altogether, the California State University wants to hear from you.

The CSU AI Survey is open to SFSU students, faculty and staff through Monday, Oct. 19. The anonymous survey takes less than 10 minutes (any question can be skipped) asking how the CSU community is using generative AI, what they think about the technology and where they may need more support. Participants can also enter a drawing to win a $25 gift card or an iPad.

“AI is changing quickly, and campuses need to understand how our students, faculty and staff are actually experiencing it,” said Andrew Roderick, SFSU assistant vice president of Academic Technology. “You don’t need to be an expert or even an AI user. You don’t have to like AI. We want to hear from everyone.”

More than 94,000 students, faculty and staff across the CSU participated in last year’s survey. Their responses provided a snapshot of how AI was being used across the system and identified concerns ranging from accuracy and academic integrity to ethics, job security and the need for additional training.

“The previous study indicated that overall students have multiple concerns with AI; however, there are differences between groups of students how that angst is impacting their behavior. It is important that we understand if the similarities and differences in attitudes and behaviors are similar over time to inform AI policy decision making on our campus,” said Professor and Chair of the Academic Senate Jackson Wilson, who conducted a study using last year’s CSU AI Survey dataset.

This year’s responses will help the CSU better understand how attitudes and uses are changing as AI becomes more common in higher education and the workplace.

Students interested in doing more than taking a survey will have another opportunity to explore AI on Friday, Oct. 2, when SFSU hosts the SF Hacks x GDG AI Hackathon. The free event will bring together students from SFSU and other Bay Area colleges and universities to spend the day building projects, working with mentors and putting new AI tools to the test.