About this website
This is an interactive reference for The Nine AI Governance Domains for Higher Education — an expansion of Pillar 4 of the Campus AI Framework. It covers the full scope of institutional AI governance and is organized around a single idea: that this work becomes manageable when it is broken into nine domains, grouped into three supercategories, each with its own policy instruments, delegation logic, and coordination mechanisms.
Whether or not you agree with these specific domains as I've drawn them, that's not really the point. The point is that AI on campus is not one problem in one place. There are many domains to consider — not just what happens inside the classroom. AI touches teaching, research, data, infrastructure, security, procurement, hiring, accessibility, and governance itself, and a decision in any one of them ripples into the others.
That's why a campus needs integrated, coordinated AI governance and operations rather than a patchwork of disconnected efforts. When each office solves its own slice in isolation, the gaps and contradictions between them become the real risk. Treating the domains as one connected system — with shared instruments, clear ownership, and links across boundaries — is what makes the whole thing governable.
Every domain shares one internal structure — six components (from policy instrument to review cadence), a delegation logic that says who decides, and coordination links to the domains it touches. The nine sit in three bands: Academic Core (1–4), Infrastructure & Risk (5–7), and People & Governance (8–9). A maturity model (CAGMA) lets an institution locate where it stands and what to do next.
- Senior leaders — provosts, CIOs, CISOs, chief data and academic officers
- AI governance committees and shared-governance bodies
- IT, risk, compliance, privacy, and legal officers building the operating layer
- Faculty and academic leaders weighing AI in teaching and research
- Consultants, accreditors, and peer institutions looking for a reference model
- New here? Start with Overview, or the Five-Domain View for a lighter entry.
- The Nine Domains is the core reference — open any domain for its full detail.
- Use the Maturity Model and Self-Assessment to place your own institution.
- Reach for the Standards Crosswalk when someone asks what it's based on.
- It's non-linear — jump anywhere from the sidebar; nothing requires reading in order.
Every top-level section, mirrored from the sidebar. Click any to open it.
- +Scholarly research, regulatory analysis, and firsthand institutional practice across many institution types
- +Aligned with recognized standards — NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, the EU AI Act, and UNESCO
- +Built as Pillar 4 of the Campus AI Framework, a practitioner's playbook for AI in higher education
- –Not legal advice — confirm applicability with your own counsel, privacy office, and leadership
- –Not a certified compliance mapping; the crosswalk shows association, not equivalence
- –Not vendor- or product-specific, and not a substitute for local policy
- –Not a synthesis of existing frameworks — the architecture is an original contribution