Introducing TerrierGPT for BU Faculty and Staff
With generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools now widely available, students, faculty, and staff are increasingly using them across academic and administrative activities. We’re excited to announce that TerrierGPT, Boston University’s first GenAI platform brought to you by the AI Development Accelerator (AIDA) and Information Services & Technology (IS&T), is now available to BU faculty and staff.
Faculty and staff can begin exploring at terriergpt.bu.edu (Kerberos log-in required).
We plan to release the tool to students in the coming weeks, with more promotion planned for the start of the fall semester.
What is TerrierGPT?
TerrierGPT is an AI-powered chatbot platform that offers the BU community secure, flexible, and free access to paid versions of several leading GenAI models from OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, and Meta.
Built on the open-source LibreChat platform, TerrierGPT is designed to support AI literacy, exploration, and innovation in a secure, responsible environment. The platform complies with BU’s internal privacy and data protection policies—and none of the data entered is used to train external models. Data uploaded to the platform is only accessible by IS&T personnel and has the same strong privacy protections applicable to all BU enterprise data, such as emails and documents stored on BU’s OneDrive. However please note that TerrierGPT is not approved for use with restricted use data, including HIPAA-regulated information.
The tool is still evolving, and we plan to keep updating as new models become available. We welcome your feedback as we continue to improve the experience.
How Can I Use TerrierGPT?
TerrierGPT can be a powerful tool for enhancing your work—from brainstorming ideas for projects or communications to fostering digital literacy and critical thinking in the classroom. On the AIDA website, we offer a growing library of videos showcasing innovative uses of GenAI in a variety of academic and administrative contexts.
As with any academic tool, the best results come from human-led, AI-assisted approaches. Transparency, ethical use, and disciplinary judgment remain essential.
Guidelines for Faculty & Staff
AIDA leadership has outlined initial institutional guidance for faculty and staff to promote responsible and effective use of GenAI in teaching, research, and academic operations. We will update these recommendations over time with ongoing feedback from the community.
Clear policies are especially important in the classroom setting. More detailed recommendations for this use case are provided in our GenAI guidelines for classroom use. Faculty are encouraged to provide clear guidance to students on the appropriate use of GenAI in coursework. Including a GenAI policy in your syllabus helps set expectations—clarifying what constitutes acceptable versus prohibited use and fostering responsible, informed engagement.
Getting Started
To learn more about TerrierGPT, visit our new TechWeb page or our FAQs. For quick help or walkthroughs, use the TerrierGPT assistant—available from the models drop-down under “Agents” once you log in. This built-in assistant can answer questions about how to use the tool, and we’ll continue to enhance it based on feedback from the BU community.
We look forward to seeing how you engage with TerrierGPT as we build the future of GenAI at BU together.