AI use at the University of Bayreuth
Status: August 1, 2025
AI Training Requirement under EU AI Act Article 4
Before using AI, you should familiarize yourself with the basics and framework conditions for practical application. Since February 2, 2025, the "EU AI Act" has been in force. Article 4 states: "Providers and operators of AI systems shall take measures to ensure, to the best of their ability, that their staff and other persons involved in the operation and use of AI systems on their behalf have adequate AI competence [...]" more information.
To comply with this training requirement, we offer you two online courses:
One option is the online course "Artificial Intelligence (AI)" on the e-learning portal of the Free State of Bavaria, BayLern.de.
Access: To create an account on this portal, you need your personnel number. This number can be found, for example, in the top right corner under "Business Reference" on your personal pay slip.
Course Content: After logging in, you will find a course on the basics and practical exercises in dealing with AI. In the top menu bar, you can find this course in the "Course Catalog" under "Free State of Bavaria - eLearning" > "IT" > "Artificial Intelligence (AI)". Or simply enter "AI" in the search box.
Further information can also be found in the AI Guide for Employees (as of April 2025, published by the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance and Home Affairs).
For those who wish to acquire in-depth knowledge, we recommend the online course from the AI Campus in North Rhine-Westphalia. This course offers comprehensive content and practical exercises to help you further develop your AI skills.
Access: Access to the learning platform is simple and straightforward. You can register here and take the course free of charge.
Course Content: The course offers not only theoretical basics but also practical exercises where you can directly apply what you have learned. You will get access to the Hawki platform, where you can try out prompting with various text AIs without restrictions. The course is aimed at employees in university administration as well as scientists and offers concrete examples from the administrative field.
Certification: After completing the course, you will receive a certificate of participation and can obtain a certificate by passing a final test.
Which AI solutions are available?
The University of Bayreuth enables you to access ChatGPT and DALL-E securely and free of charge via existing licences. As you may have already seen on the IT Service Centre's website or through your own work with Microsoft Office 365, we use Microsoft Copilot for this purpose. You can log in there with your existing University of Bayreuth bt account. If you use Copilot registered in this way, you benefit from compliance with European data protection guidelines and copyright law. Copilot uses ChatGPT for text generation and DALL-E for image generation.
You can also use open source models in the Academic Cloud. The AI models available in the Academic Cloud include Llama, from the Facebook group Meta, the top European AI model Mistral from France and Nemotron, from chip giant Nvidia. You can also try out exciting LLMs (Large Language Models) such as Sauerkraut LM, an AI specialised in the German language, or the Chinese AI Deepseek R1, which is currently at the top of the AI models. As the software is not hosted in China, but on German servers by the GWDG (Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen), there is no risk of students or university staff being spied on during use and data being passed on to third parties.
Select ‘University of Bayreuth’ and then log in with bt-identifier
Click on the ‘Open Tool’ button on the ‘Chat AI’ service card.
Visit Copilot or Bing https://copilot.cloud.microsoft.com https://www.bing.com
Log in with your bt ID (btxxxxx@myubt.de). You will be redirected to a University of Bayreuth login page to enter your usual password.
Important: Your password is never forwarded to Microsoft. The university’s ITS services verify your identity, and Microsoft is only informed that you are an authorized member of the University of Bayreuth.
Once logged in, you can use Copilot via an existing text input field or by accessing the “loop symbol” in the top right corner.
Please Note: Logging in with the university’s official ID (bt ID) ensures compliance with Microsoft’s special data protection agreements. This includes the assurance that your data will not be used for further training of the AI model.
Accessing Copilot (or ChatGPT) without an ID or with a private ID does not provide these assurances. Students are advised against such use, and it is not permitted for official use by employees.
The University of Bayreuth does not provide “Copilot for Microsoft 365” for Microsoft 365 Office products via campus licenses due to high costs (EUR 33 or more per month per user). This means that features like Copilot integration in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint are not available to university members through these licenses.
The free Copilot product is not subject to the contractual and data protection conditions of the Microsoft 365 A3 campus license. “Copilot for Web/Edge” is subject to commercial data protection without a separate data processing agreement (DPA). Therefore, it is not recommended for use with personal and confidential data and is only suitable for limited use
- The same requirements apply as for official research on the open Internet.
- Use must be considered, careful and critical.
- No support can be provided for the use of AI functions.
- Prompts should not contain any personal data.
- Prompts must not disclose confidential content.
- Prompts must not manipulate the AI application.
- Prompts should not circumvent any protective mechanisms of the AI application.
We offer introductory training sessions at regular intervals. The trainings take place in person on campus. The room will be announced to all participants via email one to two days before the course date after registration through the E-Learning system.
Mon, Oct 13, 09:00-11:00
Registration is done through the E-Learning system of the University of Bayreuth.
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