Following its initial rollout for students during the summer session, Penn State is introducing two new AI resources for all students and staff this fall.

Beginning this semester, there will be a self-paced online course available to all on their Canvas homepages called AI Essentials.

The course will cover topics such as technical knowledge, ethical awareness, critical thinking, and practical application, but it does not require AI to complete it, according to Penn State assistant vice provost of the AI Center of Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Crystal Ramsay.

“AI Essentials is designed to help equip Penn Staters with the knowledge, skills, and ethical grounding needed to engage with AI responsibly,” Ramsay said.

Students and faculty should start seeing the course appear on their Canvas dashboards and can choose to take it on their own at any point during the semester.

The course will not be required of all students, although some instructors may choose to require it as part of their courses and programming.

“Requirements may vary by program or role, but the goal is consistent university-wide access and alignment. AI Essentials will be foundational to future AI literacy offerings that are more advanced and/or role- or discipline-specific,” said Ramsay.

In addition to the new course, a generative AI platform called AI Studio will be available to students and staff.

AI Studio is described as a “suite of AI services” that features OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini. The main purpose of the platform is to provide students and faculty with safe, secure access to a variety of leading AI models in one place.

According to its website, AI Studio is governed by Penn State policies and responsible AI practices and is designed to support teaching, learning, research, and administrative work at the university.

To ensure that everyone at Penn State has access to the program, there will be monthly limits on how much you are able to use AI Studio — monitored by tokens.

How many tokens you use depends on the length and complexity of responses. Users will be able to see their current usage in the AI Studio menu.

More information about AI Essentials and AI Studio will soon be shared in Penn State News. To learn more about AI at Penn State, visit the university’s AI website.

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