FAFI: Faculty AI Fluency Index
FAFI is Navigate AI’s developmental benchmark for faculty AI fluency. The v1.1 framing makes two uses explicit: individual self-assessment and growth, and cohort or institutional benchmarking for planning. It is designed to be formative, not evaluative, and the profile shape matters more than the average score. That distinction is central in both the rebuild guide and the updated v1.1 language. fileciteturn21file3turn21file4turn21file5
FAFI v1.1 quick bands
Six domains with six core questions.
| Domain | What it measures | Core question |
|---|---|---|
| Landscape Awareness | Basic AI categories, use contexts, and the ability to interpret the current teaching environment. | What is changing around me, and do I understand the terrain well enough to respond? |
| Orchestration & Verification | Workflow design, output checking, supervision of AI-supported work, and verification habits. fileciteturn21file4turn21file5 | Can I structure AI-supported work in ways that are reliable and checked? |
| Human-Loop Design | How well teaching tasks preserve human reasoning, explanation, and defensible evidence of learning. | Am I designing tasks where student thinking still stays visible? |
| Governance & Data Privacy | Rules, tool approval awareness, privacy handling, disclosure norms, and safer use boundaries. | Am I protecting students, data, and institutional trust when AI enters the workflow? |
| Cognitive Liberty & Ethics | Agency, fairness, voice, dependency, and the protection of intellectual autonomy. fileciteturn21file13 | Am I equipping students to use AI responsibly without losing agency or fairness? |
| Strategic Foresight | Future-readiness at the course or program level, including outcomes and workforce-relevant adaptation. fileciteturn21file13 | How am I preparing my course or program for a world where AI-assisted output is cheap and judgment is the differentiator? |
The same framework serves individuals, cohorts, departments, and institutions.
Individual
Use FAFI to identify your current level in each domain, document one piece of evidence per domain, and choose one or two targeted next moves. fileciteturn21file5
Cohort
Use FAFI to place faculty into a more appropriate starting pathway and to identify shared support needs before and after development work. fileciteturn21file3
Department
Aggregate results into a simple heatmap to identify weak spots, imbalances, and the lowest domains that drive the biggest institutional risk. fileciteturn21file5
Institution
Use benchmark patterns to guide professional development, governance priorities, curriculum updates, and leadership communication about what needs attention next.
Interpretation principle
Your profile matters more than your average. A faculty member strong in drafting but weak in governance or human-loop design may still be high-risk in practice. fileciteturn21file4turn21file5
Benchmark reporting that is developmental, not punitive.
The rebuild guide frames FAFI Benchmark around leader-useful outputs such as heatmaps, growth bands, summary interpretation, and next-step recommendations. The point is to make patterns visible so a dean, CTL, or program lead can decide where support should go next, not to turn faculty fluency into a performance-review mechanism. fileciteturn21file3turn21file5
Domain heatmap
A quick view of where the most significant weaknesses, imbalances, and opportunities sit across a cohort or department.
Growth-band summary
A readable breakdown of where faculty cluster across bands such as Onboarding, Emerging, Implementing, and Leading. fileciteturn21file5
Next-step recommendations
Specific professional development, template, policy, or planning recommendations tied to the weakest or riskiest domains. fileciteturn21file5
Example leader summary
The diagnostic and benchmark layer underneath Navigate AI.
Faculty AI Fluency Certification Program
FAFI helps participants find a better starting level and gives the pathway its developmental logic. The current certification materials already show Novice → Ignite, Exploring → Build, Adapting → Elevate, and Fluent → leadership. fileciteturn21file12
Workshops and cohorts
FAFI gives faculty-development sessions a clearer sense of pitch, need, and progression, which is exactly how the Support materials describe it being used. fileciteturn21file15turn21file17
Institutional reporting
FAFI Benchmark turns individual practice signals into something leaders can plan around without confusing growth-oriented diagnostics with evaluation.
Use FAFI to enter the certification program or to guide a larger faculty-development effort.
FAFI is most useful when it leads directly into action, whether that action is the Faculty AI Fluency Certification Program, a targeted bootcamp or workshop, or institutional planning.