Terms of Service

1. Service Description

VivaEdu provides oral assessment tools for educational institutions through Learning Management System (LMS) integration. Students submit written work and defend it through recorded audio and (by default) camera video viva sessions. Instructors can disable video on a per-assignment basis. Instructors review and grade these sessions.

Service includes

• Viva assignment creation with customisable viva configurations.
• Viva Verification: single-student, post-submission oral verification via LMS when initiated by instructors.
• Adaptive follow-up branches based on prior responses when configured by instructors.
• Instructor video question prompts and feedback (optional) hosted and delivered to assigned students.
• Multilingual capabilities and accommodations.
• Audio recording and transcription of student responses.
• Accessibility accommodations and preferences.
• LTI 1.3 integration with major Learning Management Systems.
• Grading tools and rubric management.
• Data export capabilities.

2. Eligibility and Account Creation

Age requirements

• Students under 16 require institutional verification of appropriate consent.
• Educational institutions are responsible for ensuring compliance with local age verification requirements.

Account types

• Students: Accounts are created automatically via LMS integration only. No web application login access.
• Instructors: Accounts are created via LMS, with web application login access.
• Demo users: Temporary accounts through the web app with 2 hour data retention. No LMS usage available. All demo data and videos are deleted when the demo completes or ends early.

3. Acceptable Use

Students may

• Submit assignments and participate in viva sessions.
• Use selected visual accessibility accommodations, for example hidden timers, larger buttons, or high contrast.
• Use multilingual accommodations to complete vivas in a supported language. Transcripts are translated back into the instructor’s language of choice for review.
• Request additional accommodations through institutional channels, for example extra time, pause and resume, rerecording, typing mode, or due date extensions.
• Record responses using provided tools with their chosen microphone and camera.

Students may not

• Record vivas for others or on another person’s behalf.
• Attempt to bypass recording, monitoring, or security features.
• Use the service for non academic purposes.

Instructors may

• Create and manage assignments and classes. Classes are created via LMS and may also be created manually with class codes.
• Review student submissions and provide grades.
• Set accommodations and access controls.
• Export academic data for legitimate educational purposes.
• Enable multilingual capabilities for language based courses.
• Create video recorded questions for their vivas, along with video recorded feedback to grading student responses.

Instructors may not

• Share student recordings outside legitimate educational purposes. Audio and video download is disabled.
• Use the platform for non academic assessment.
• Violate student privacy or data protection requirements.
• Circumvent platform security measures.

Institution responsibilities

• Use Viva Verification fairly and consistently, in line with institutional policies.
• Ensure assignments are created for the correct student and course context.
• Communicate any local consent or notification requirements to students.

4. Accessibility and Accommodations

Permanent accommodations set by instructors

• Extended time allowances for recording and preparation windows on vivas, for example 25%, 50%, 100%, unlimited up to 5 minutes, or custom.
• Pause and resume functionality.
• Rerecording permissions.
• Typing mode for users who cannot provide audio.
• Camera exemptions.
• Multilingual capabilities.
• Due date extensions and late submission grace periods.

Student preferences

• Reduced motion and flash suppression.
• Larger interface buttons.
• Keyboard navigation shortcuts.
• High contrast display modes.
• Hidden timer displays for anxiety management.

Students may request accommodations through institutional channels. All accommodation requests require instructor approval.

5. Technical Requirements and Platform Features

Required permissions

• Microphone access is mandatory unless typing mode is approved.
• Camera access is mandatory unless audio mode and/or typing mode only is approved.

Session continuity

The platform maintains session progress through network interruptions, page reloads, and technical difficulties. If a student reloads or disconnects for long enough, they return to the preview setup page and can resume from where they left off. Frequent reloads intended to abuse this feature are flagged to the instructor.

6. Content and Intellectual Property

Student content

• VivaEdu may process and store content to provide assessment services.
• Students must grant permission for transcription, analysis, and grading of audio and video responses prior to starting a viva.

Platform content

• VivaEdu retains all rights to the platform software, features, and functionality.
• Users may not copy, modify, or redistribute platform components.

Third party content

• Users are responsible for ensuring they have rights to any uploaded materials.
• Users must not submit copyrighted content without proper authorisation.

7. Recording and Privacy

Audio and video recording

• Viva sessions include audio and video recording for assessment purposes.
• Recordings are transcribed exclusively using Microsoft Azure Speech (UK South region) for GDPR compliance.
• Student response video may be recorded depending on instructor settings. Video is stored for instructor‑only review and not shown to students. Instructors may optionally record video prompts for questions, feedback; those videos are hosted and shown only to assigned students and relevant institutional staff.

Data processing

• Audio recordings of the videos are processed for transcription and analysis.
• Terminology highlighting and response quality assessment may be performed automatically.
• Recordings may be reviewed by instructors, teaching assistants, and authorised platform administrators.

Data access

• Students may access their own transcripts and audio recordings upon submitting a viva. Video recordings are available to instructors only.
• Instructors may access recordings of their assigned students until 90 days after the viva due date.
• A full data export is available on request in multiple formats.

Artificial intelligence usage

• AI transcription is performed exclusively by Microsoft Azure Speech (UK South region) for all audio recordings, with translation if needed. All processing occurs within the UK for GDPR compliance.

8. LMS Integration

LTI 1.3 features

• Single sign on through Learning Management Systems.
• Automatic grade synchronisation to LMS gradebooks.
• Direct assignment access within the LMS.
• Secure authentication and data exchange.
• Anonymous marking features available, for the Viva Verification mode only.
• For Viva Verification, single-student deep links may be created that are visible only to the assigned student.

Supported platforms

The service integrates with LTI 1.3 compliant systems including Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle. For Blackboard it uses one REST API, an additional, yet minimal configuration exchange required. VivaEdu is an independent service and is not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with any LMS provider; their platforms remain governed by their own terms and privacy policies.

9. Demo Service and LMS Sandbox Environments

Private demo features

• Complete platform functionality in an isolated private 'bubble' environment.
• Ability to switch between student and instructor perspectives.
• Pre populated sample content and assignments, with mock responses in mock vivas from mock students available to grade.
• 2 hour session duration with full automatic data deletion. No exceptions.

Demo limitations

• Temporary data storage only. All data is wiped after the demo ends. Nothing is stored long term.
• No integration with production LMS systems.
• Demonstration purposes only. Two demo accounts cannot interact with each other.

Blackboard demo sandbox environment

• VivaEdu may be made available in a non-production Blackboard sandbox or test course environment for free of charge usage.
• The Blackboard demo sandbox is separate from any institution's live Blackboard instance and is intended primarily for staff or test users and sample course content.

Sandbox limitations and responsibilities

• We may modify or discontinue any sandbox or demo environment, and delete data stored there, at any time after the end of an evaluation, trial, or pilot period.
• Institutions should avoid placing live student assessment data into sandbox or demo environments unless there is a written agreement in place and all necessary notices and consents have been obtained.
• Blackboard® remains a separate service governed by the institution's agreement with Blackboard, and VivaEdu is not responsible for Blackboard's availability or performance.

10. Data Retention and Deletion

Retention periods

• Active assignments: data retained through completion and grading.
• Completed assignments: audio and student response video recordings are deleted 90 days after the viva due date. Transcripts are deleted after 180 days.
• Demo data: In the demo bubbles, everything is wiped and automatically deleted after 2 hours, and each new demo bubble is a fresh slate.
• Inactive classes: archived and deleted after 180 days of inactivity.
• User accounts: data retained per institutional agreement or until deletion request.

Data deletion

• Users may request complete data deletion through institutional channels or by emailing privacy@vivaedu.co.uk. Requests are processed within 30 days.
• Academic institutions may archive data per their policies before platform deletion.

See the Privacy Policy for more on data deletion and retention.

11. Service Availability

Platform status

• Service is provided on an as available basis.
• No guarantee of uninterrupted service during critical assessment periods, but updates in that time will be avoided.

Geographic availability

• Service is available globally with English language support and multilingual capabilities in eight additional languages: Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, German, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese. More are on the way, but this particular service is very new, and is still in development and testing, and will be of production ready quality prior to Dec 1st.
• Contact me to request support for another language and we will implement it where feasible.
• Users are also responsible for compliance with local laws and regulations.

Current pricing

• Currently VivaEdu is free of charge, and will be free for all existing modes and future implementations for the time being. This can change on any basis, but will not occur prior to the end of the 2026-2027 academic year.

12. Limitation of Liability

Service disclaimer

• Service is provided as is without warranties of any kind.
• No liability for academic consequences that result from technical issues.
• No concrete guarantees of data accuracy or system reliability.

Maximum liability

VivaEdu’s total liability is limited to the fees paid for services, which is currently zero.

Excluded damages

We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, including lost data or academic disruption.

13. Termination

User termination

• Educational institutions may terminate service with reasonable notice.
• Individual user accounts are terminated per institutional policies.
• Demo accounts automatically expire after the 2 hour limit. No workaround, that is a strict rule.

Service termination

• VivaEdu, while still in development, may terminate service with 30 days notice to institutional partners.
• Data export opportunities are provided before service termination.
• Critical data is preserved per institutional agreements.

14. Changes to These Terms

• Changes to these terms are communicated via email and in product notifications. This act of notifying, however, will only take effect upon institutional implementation, whether it is student using or private. As of 25 Nov 2025, changes to these terms will not be notified.
• Continued use of the service constitutes acceptance of modified terms.

15. Governing Law and Contact

These terms are governed by the laws of the United Kingdom.

Contact information

Dispute resolution

Disputes are resolved under UK jurisdiction, with a preference for institutional mediation where applicable.

Appendix A: Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Service availability upon institutional usage:

• Target uptime: 99.9% monthly (excluding maintenance). All infrastructure is hosted on AWS UK (eu-west-2), which holds ISO 27001, ISO 27017, and ISO 27018 certifications.
• Planned maintenance: maximum 1 hour monthly, with notice.

Support response times upon institutional usage:

• 4 hour response, It will likely be resolved within 12 hours, maximum 24 hours.

Performance standards

• Audio upload: supports up to 100 MB files.

Exclusions

• Force majeure events.
• Institution network issues.
• Scheduled maintenance.
• Third party service failures (LMS, internet).

Reporting

• Monthly uptime reports.
• Incident reports within 5 business days.
• Annual service review.

Incident Response & Disaster Recovery

Incident classification

• Major: performance degradation, partial outage, authentication issues.
• Minor: single user issues, non critical bugs.

For Major incidents: Response times

• All incidents will be responded to immediately, no matter the severity. 1 hour acknowledgement, will aim for 4 hours resolution.

Contact chain

• Primary: (jex@vivaedu.co.uk), with an official vivaedu email on the way.

Data breach

Notify affected users per GDPR requirements.