Integration of ChatGPT into higher education requires assessing university educators' perspectives regarding this novel technology. This study aimed to validate a survey instrument specifically tailored to assess ChatGPT usability and acceptability among university educators based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The survey instrument comprised 40 TAM-based items in addition to items assessing participants' demographics. We used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal component analysis (PCA) to assess construct validity and Cronbach's a for reliability. The final sample comprised 236 university educators, with 72% who heard of ChatGPT before the study (n = 169), of whom 76 have already used ChatGPT (45.0%). The EFA showed a significant Bartlett's test of sphericity (p < 0.001) and adequate Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure (KMO = 0.698). The six constructs inferred through EFA explained a total of 64% of the variance in the educators' attitude to ChatGPT. These constructs comprised 31 items classified into: (1) "Effectiveness" ([alpha] = 0.845), (2) "Anxiety" ([alpha] = 0.862), (3) "Technology readiness ([alpha] = 0.885), (4) Perceived usefulness ([alpha] = 0.848), (5) Social influence ([alpha] = 0.803), and (6) Perceived risk ([alpha] = 0.796). The study identified six key constructs that can be exploited for comprehensive understanding of the university educators' attitude towards ChatGPT. The novel survey instrument herein termed "Ed-TAME-ChatGPT" involved positive influencing factors such as perceived usefulness and effectiveness, positive attitude to technology, and social influence in addition to negative factors comprising anxiety and perceived risk.