AI Governance Readiness Diagnostic for Resource-Constrained Education Institutions

Many community colleges, regional universities, and rural school systems are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) tools without the policy staff, legal expertise, or technical resources that larger institutions rely on to govern them. This draft diagnostic instrument helps such institutions assess their readiness to govern AI adoption and identify proportional safeguards they can realistically sustain. It contains eighteen indicators organized in three layers (institutional readiness, equity and access, and contextual governance), a four-level scoring scale, readiness bands, and prioritized safeguards for each band. The instrument operationalizes the three-layer framework set out in the author's accepted chapter for the Springer Nature Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation. It is released at the prototype stage to document its development and invite expert feedback ahead of validation.