AI Oral Exams & Viva Voce
For Higher Education
Scale authentic spoken oral exams across every course. Grounded in student submissions, scored against your rubrics, integrated with Canvas, and governed entirely by faculty.
Why Oral Exams Outperform AI Text Detectors
Statistical text detectors attempt to guess if a submission was generated by AI. They flag honest students, produce false positives, and fail against paraphrasers. Oral defense shifts the paradigm: we assess whether the student actually understands their work.
Fragile AI Text Detection
- xHigh false-positive rate punishing non-native English speakers.
- xTrivially bypassed by prompt modifications and paraphrasers.
- xDestroys instructor-student trust through adversarial policing.
- xEvaluates text characteristics rather than student comprehension.
Rocketproof Authentic Defense
- Zero false accusations: Tests understanding through conversational dialogue.
- Submission-grounded: Every question cites claims from the student submitted paper.
- Faculty in control: AI drafts the defense; instructors review, adjust, and release.
- Universal integrity: Proven antidote to paper mills, ghostwriting, and AI copying.
How an AI Oral Exam Works in Practice
Conducting individual 1-on-1 oral exams used to require 40+ hours of faculty scheduling per course. Rocketproof automates the questioning session asynchronously while preserving full faculty grading governance.
Artifact Ingestion
Students submit papers, code, slide decks, or lab reports directly via Canvas LMS or Rocketproof.
Grounded Questioning
The AI crafts tailored probing questions based on the student specific thesis, methodology, and citations.
Interactive Viva
The student defends their work verbally or via text conversation mode, with realistic think time and follow-ups.
Faculty Release
Instructors review full audio, transcripts, and rubric drafts, then release grades into Canvas SpeedGrader.
Built for Higher Education, Not Surveillance
No Invasive Proctoring
We never record biometric eye movements, perform 360-degree bedroom scans, or run browser spyware. Integrity is verified by the student own words, not physical surveillance.
LTI 1.3 Advantage
Native Canvas integration with automatic course roster provisioning and instant SpeedGrader passback. Works directly within your existing institutional LMS ecosystem.
Built-in Accommodations
Extended time multipliers, audio-only modes, and full Text Conversation fallbacks for students with speech anxiety or disabilities, fully compliant with Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA.
Frequently Asked Questions About AI Oral Exams
How does an AI oral exam work in Rocketproof?
A student submits their assignment (paper, code, or slides) via Canvas LMS or Rocketproof. The platform analyzes their exact submission and prepares a grounded questioning plan targeting the student specific arguments, methodologies, and sources. The student then completes an interactive spoken viva defense. Instructors review the full recording, transcript, and rubric scores before releasing the final grade.
How does Rocketproof prevent hallucinated questions during an oral exam?
Rocketproof uses strict artifact-grounding. Every question generated references verifiable excerpts, claims, or data present within the student submitted work. The AI cannot invent outside claims or test on material not covered by the instructor syllabus and rubric criteria.
Does Rocketproof replace faculty grading in oral exams?
No. Rocketproof is a faculty-governed instrument. The platform acts as an expert questioning assistant that conducts the time-intensive spoken defense and prepares draft rubric evaluations with cited evidence. The instructor retains ultimate authority to review, calibrate, adjust, and release grades.
Can students with speech, anxiety, or disability accommodations take oral exams?
Yes. Rocketproof includes a built-in accommodations engine. Students with approved accommodations can use Text Conversation mode (no microphone or camera required), audio-only mode, or customizable think-time and answer-time multipliers configured per student or course-wide.
How does Rocketproof integrate with Canvas and university LMS platforms?
Rocketproof is an LTI 1.3 Advantage Certified tool. It seamlessly synchronizes course rosters via Names and Role Provisioning Services (NRPS) and passes verified grades directly back into the Canvas Gradebook and SpeedGrader via Assignment and Grade Services (AGS).
Why are oral exams superior to AI text detection software?
AI text detectors rely on statistical burstiness and perplexity heuristics that produce frequent false positives and disproportionately flag non-native English speakers. In contrast, an authentic oral defense verifies whether the student actually understands what they submitted, rendering ghostwritten papers and copy-pasted AI generation immediately apparent without false accusations.
Bring Authentic Oral Exams
To Your Courses
Assess the student, not just the submission. Join hundreds of faculty and university departments piloting authentic AI oral exams with zero scheduling bottlenecks.