Dear Faculty and Staff,
The University of Houston is committed to providing you with AI tools to potentially streamline administrative tasks and open new avenues for research and student engagement.
We are pleased to announce that Gemini for Education and NotebookLM are now available to all faculty, staff and students. These tools are provided with enterprise-grade data protections, ensuring your intellectual property and institutional data remain secure. In addition, GEM creation and GEM sharing is enabled.
You can access these tools through AccessUH by clicking on the Google Workspace Icon and using your CougarNet login. After you enter Google Workspace Plus, click on the ellipsis of 9 dots in the upper right-hand corner. You will find Gemini on the second row, and Notebook LM near the bottom. A tutorial is available online.
Everyone has access to Gemini 3.0 with the equivalent of 100 chats per day, and unlimited usage of Gemini 2.5. We also have many Gemini 3.0 professional licenses which afford additional access to Gemini 3.0. You can request access to Gemini 3.0 Professional by using the following form:
Request for Gemini Pro Subscription – Fill out form
Gemini for Education is designed to act as a high-level research and teaching assistant, helping you focus on the work that matters most:
Instructional design: Generate initial drafts of syllabi, lesson plans, or creative assessments aligned with your specific learning objectives.
Research acceleration: Use Gemini to summarize dense literature, draft grant proposal outlines, or synthesize complex datasets.
Personalized learning: Quickly create differentiated course materials or alternative explanations to support students with diverse learning needs.
Unlike general-purpose AI, NotebookLM is a source-grounded research assistant. By uploading your own PDFs, lecture notes, or manuscripts, you create a “grounded” AI that:
- Only answers questions based on the specific documents you provide.
Provides citations and direct links to the source text within your documents. - Assists in organizing themes for your next publication or book chapter.
Uncompromising Data Security: Data privacy is non-negotiable. When you use Gemini through your UH account:
Google does not use your prompts, files, or research to train its public AI models.
and they are never reviewed by humans.
Your work remains within our university’s secure environment, protected by the same
rigorous standards as your Google Workspace for Education account. This means all
your data is confidential information, and is never reviewed by humans or third parties.
Academic Integrity: We understand that the rise of AI brings questions regarding academic
integrity. If you are a faculty member, keep in mind that the use of AI in your classrooms
remains entirely at your discretion. We encourage you to clearly outline AI expectations
in your syllabi.
Explore the Possibilities: To help you get started, here are a few resources:
- 50+ ways to use Gemini
- Ready-to-use AI Prompts
Please be in touch with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jeff Morgan
Associate Provost for Education Innovation & Technology