Answers
Straight answers about how Viva runs an oral check, how it grades, and what happens to student data. These pages come from the documentation inside the product, so they say the same thing an instructor sees.
Getting started
Assignments
- What to write in Instructions, and what to attachBoth go to your students, and both are read by the interviewer as background. The questions themselves always come from each student's own submission.
- What file types can students submit?Documents, slides, spreadsheets, notebooks, images and typed text. Viva reads the content, not just the filename.
- Audio and video submissionsStudents can submit a recording. Viva transcribes it, interviews on the transcript, and shows you the original with a clickable transcript.
- Choosing an interview styleKeep the even-handed Examiner, or have Viva argue the other side, ask for first principles, or follow three dials you set. What each style does, when to use it, what students are told, and how grading treats it.
- Choosing a grading rubricPick a ready-made rubric from the library, filter it by curriculum and by what students hand in, upload your own, or save one for reuse.
- Using a Met / Not Met rubricMark each criterion met or not met, with a confidence figure; the interview score stays. Every file the student submits counts as evidence, and an assessor can overrule any single judgment.
The interview
- How does Viva generate its questions?It reads the submission and your instructions, finds what is claimed, and builds questions that only the author could answer well.
- Is Viva actually adaptive?Yes, in two ways: the questions are built per submission, and the follow-ups respond to what the student just said.
- Can I control the difficulty of the interview?Indirectly but effectively, through duration, weights, custom questions and your instructions.
- Can I tune the prompts myself?Not the system prompts. You get the controls that matter without the ones that break grading consistency.
Results & grading
- What are the three verdicts?Strong, Partial and Concern. They describe authorship evidence, not guilt.
- What to focus on when reading resultsThe habits that make a class of thirty reports take twenty minutes instead of two hours.
- What is Viva Coach, and should my students use it?A study partner that remembers what each student could not explain, and starts there.
Academic integrity
- How do I check if a student used AI to write their work?Viva does not scan text for AI. It asks the student to explain their own work, which is a much harder thing to fake.
- Can Viva catch a student reading from a script?Yes. Reading aloud sounds different from speaking, and a scripted answer does not survive a follow-up.
- How does the voice baseline work?Viva can tell when the voice in one interview does not match the same student's other interviews.
Classes & people
Credits & billing
Account, privacy & support
- Why instructor accounts open by invitationThree things open an instructor account: your institution email, a colleague who is already on Viva, or a short demo. Students are never affected.
- How do I sign in? I never got a codeViva never emails sign-in codes. Sign in with your password, with Google, or email yourself a one-click sign-in link.
- Where can I find the privacy policy and terms?All the legal pages are public, bilingual, and linked from the footer of every page.
- What happens to my recordings and my data?Your data never trains any AI model. Your instructor sees your work; nobody else does.
- What is Voice ID?A short recording that lets Viva confirm later interviews are yours. Optional, and never used for grading.
LMS & integrations
- Pulling results, transcripts and recordings by APICreate a key under Settings, then let your badge platform, gradebook or records system pull results per assignment, plus transcripts and recordings when the key allows it.
- How does LMS integration work, and is there work on my side?Viva works with Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard and Open edX via LTI. Most instructors need to do nothing at all.
Fairness & data
- How do we know Viva grades fairly? Can I trust it?Do not trust the number; read the evidence. Viva is built so you always can.
- How do you handle accents?Accent is never graded. Two specific engineering decisions exist to keep it that way.
- How is Viva fair to ESL and multilingual students?Understanding is scored; language production is not. And you can run the interview in another language entirely.
- What is the data policy, and is student data used for training?Identifiable student data never trains a model; de-identified data may, unless a student or your school opts out. Here is what is stored, for how long, and who can see it.
- Where is the text I can put in my syllabus about Viva?Ready-made syllabus paragraphs, in English and Korean, that you can paste without editing.
Submitting work
- Do I have to do the conversation, or is it optional?It is the second half of submitting. Uploading the file alone leaves your assignment incomplete.
- What is the 15-minute timer after I submit?It is how long you have to start your conversation. It is not a lockout, and it does not cut your interview short.
- What file types can I submit?Documents, slides, spreadsheets, notebooks, images, or text typed straight in.
- How do deadlines work in Viva?The deadline is for submitting. Your conversation follows it, in its own short window.
- What if I am late? Will I be penalized?Viva does not penalize you. Whether your instructor does is up to them, exactly as before.
Your interview
- How to prepare for your interview and do wellThere is nothing to memorise. Reread your own work and be ready to explain your choices.
- Why is there no practice interview for this assignment?Practice is a setting your instructor chooses per assignment. If it is missing, they turned it off.
- What if I need an accommodation?Ask your instructor. Extra time and reduced time pressure can be enabled for you specifically.
- Viva cannot connect on my school networkSome school and office networks block the service that carries the conversation audio. Viva retries through vivaproof.com on its own; if that is blocked too, try another network or give IT the list below.
Results & feedback
- When can I see my results?When your instructor releases them. Some release immediately; most review first.
- How does the grading work?You are graded on whether you can explain your own work, not on how you sound doing it.
- Is my accent or fluency graded?No. Not your accent, not your fluency, not your grammar. Only whether the reasoning arrives.
- What do the verdicts mean?Strong, Partial and Concern describe how well the interview supported your authorship.