How long should a project viva be?

Ten to fifteen minutes is typical for a course project; longer for a thesis.

Can AI conduct a viva fairly?

It can ask consistent, project-specific questions and score against a rubric, but teachers should review results. No automated scoring is free of bias, so human review matters.

Do students need an account?

In HireFlow-AI's Viva Specialist, students open the teacher's link and need no account.

How to conduct a fair viva for student projects

Vivas are one of the best ways to check that a student really understands the project they submitted, but running them for a whole class is slow and hard to keep consistent. This guide covers how to make vivas fair and manageable, and where AI can help.

Why vivas catch what reports miss

A written report or a repository shows what was submitted, not who understands it. A short conversation about the student's own work quickly shows whether they built it, can explain it and can reason about its trade-offs.

Use a rubric so scores are comparable

Decide the criteria before the first viva, for example project understanding, design and architecture, data or code quality, problem solving and communication of ideas. Weight them, and score each criterion on the evidence from the answers rather than on a general impression.

Ask questions from the student's actual submission

Generic questions favour students who memorise textbook answers. Questions drawn from the student's own code, database tables, dashboards or report show real understanding. Mix easy opening questions with deeper follow-ups that adapt to how the student answers.

Stay fair across accents and fluency

Score the substance of the answer, not accent, grammar or confidence. A rubric and written notes help here, as does reviewing transcripts afterwards.

Scale it with an AI viva assistant

HireFlow-AI's Viva Specialist lets a teacher set an assignment, share one link and have every student take an adaptive AI viva on their own submitted project. Teachers get scores per rubric criterion, full transcripts, class analytics and PDF reports, and can review and adjust any score. It supports code projects as well as Power BI and Microsoft Fabric work.

Run vivas for your whole class

Set an assignment, share one link and let every student take an adaptive AI viva on their own project.

See how it works

Frequently asked questions

How long should a project viva be?: Ten to fifteen minutes is typical for a course project; longer for a thesis.
Can AI conduct a viva fairly?: It can ask consistent, project-specific questions and score against a rubric, but teachers should review results. No automated scoring is free of bias, so human review matters.
Do students need an account?: In HireFlow-AI's Viva Specialist, students open the teacher's link and need no account.