Survey of U.S. Higher Education Faculty 2024: Contributions of Content & Design to AI Applications

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The major AI platforms are engaged in an arms race to build the biggest databases trained on the most content. While these AI platforms offer enormous opportunities for universities, they also present risks along with the challenge of deciding how their content can be used in AI applications and what their policies towards this use should be. How university faculty are engaging with and contributing to AI systems is a major part of that challenge.

This report examines how — and how much — faculty are contributing their content and services to AI applications. The data reveals the ways faculty are already contributing material to AI tools and whether they believe their content is being used without their consent. The data includes paid sales or licenses to AI applications, as well as gratis contribution.

This study also looks at the development process of libraries or archives of prompts for ChatGPT, Bard, and other applications, and defines the percentage of faculty participating in such activities.  An emerging form of intellectual property — AI application prompts — are a fertile area for research offices, TTOs, and institutional digital repositories to consider and address.

Specialized survey data with responses from nearly 800 U.S. higher education faculty

The Survey of U.S. Higher Education Faculty 2024: Contributions of Content & Design to AI Applications includes 129-pages of in-depth data and analysis based on extensive surveying of over 375 colleges and universities and 777 faculty. This study is jam-packed with 169 easy-to-scan charts and figures displaying critical data you can’t find in any other publication. Take a look at some of what’s covered in this timely report:

• The likelihood that submitted articles, data, lab logs, blog posts, class records, and personally developed education materials will be used to train an AI model
• Information on content that has been submitted to an AI model without permission
• Sold or licensed content submitted to develop an AI model or engine
• Companies that have accepted faculty-contributed content for the development of an AI model
• Participation in the development of highly detailed prompts for ChatGPT as a template to be used by others

And here are just a few of the findings: 

• 3.6% of faculty were sure that their content was being used by AI applications without their consent and another 38.61% were unsure. 
• Male faculty were far more likely than female faculty to have taken part in efforts to develop AI applications.
• Efforts to develop archives or libraries of prompts for ChatGPT were most common among faculty in medicine, mathematics/statistics/computer science, and architecture/fine/visual arts. 

Data in the Survey of U.S. Higher Education Faculty 2024: Contributions of Content & Design to AI Applications is presented in aggregate and also broken out by a broad range of institutional and personal characteristics including age, gender, race/ethnicity, income level, work title, academic field, as well as institution size, type and public/private status, among other variables.  

Data you can trust

You can rely on the accuracy of the detailed data, commentary, and analysis provided in this informative report. It was compiled and written by James Moses, President of Primary Research Group. Mr. Moses is the author of hundreds of industry studies and benchmarking reports and is a former economist for the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Survey of U.S. Higher Education Faculty 2024: Contributions in Content & Design to AI Applications is available to purchase for the low price of just $134 with immediate PDF delivery. You can also make this invaluable resource available to your entire staff with an economically priced site-license purchase – just $195.