One of the first steps toward AI readiness for K-12 school and district leaders is establishing awareness of where and how AI is being used. At first glance, it can be difficult to tell which products are using the technology and which aren’t. What’s more, the context you need to do an effective impact assessment is rarely readily available. This AI vendor questionnaire template can help you gather the data you need to make informed decisions.
How to Use This Template
Simply copy and paste the questions into your data collection tool of choice, including:
- Google Forms (feel free to copy the template here)
- Purchasing software
- Survey Monkey or similar survey platform
- Vendor applications/existing technical questionnaires
Ideally, you should collect this information from existing vendors and on a continuous basis through the RFP/vendor application process. Consistency will be key, and it’s better to have too much information than not enough.
The Questionnaire
- Does your product use artificial intelligence (AI)?
- Which large language models, AI image generators, and/or other AI models does your product utilize?
- For what purpose(s) is AI used in your product? Please list all use cases here.
- Is AI used to create profiles of any users within your product? If yes, what are the profiles used for? Do users have the option to opt-out of profiling?
- Is AI used to make any automated decisions about users? If yes, please specify what those decisions are, whether they are subject to human review and/or modification, and whether we have the option to make those decisions manually instead.
- Describe the safeguards you have in place to protect the privacy and security of data shared with AI models.
- How do you ensure that personally identifiable information (PII) does not become a part of any AI model training data?
- Describe the safeguards you have in place to moderate and mitigate toxic or inappropriate content in generative AI inputs and outputs, if applicable.
- Describe the safeguards you have in place to moderate and mitigate bias in the AI models used by your product, if applicable.
- Are there any additional costs associated with your product’s use of AI that we will be responsible for?
- Describe how we will be kept informed of any changes to your product’s use of AI
- Who can we contact if we have questions about your product’s AI functionality and/or your organizational AI policies?
What to Do With the Responses
This Questionnaire is designed to guide school district decision making and communications while also future-proofing districts from a legislative perspective. Many states have either enacted or are in the process of enacting laws and guidelines governing the use of AI, especially when it comes to automated decision making and data sharing disclosures. State Departments of Education are also working to draft policies and set up guidelines. This Questionnaire is comprehensive enough to support all—or at least most—of what we anticipate those guidelines to be.
Make a copy of this Questionnaire in Google Forms! Simply click here to access the form, click the three dots in the upper-right hand corner, and select “Make a copy.”
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