Introducing Cadmus Oral Assessment: Scalable assurance for an AI‑enabled world

Cadmus is excited to announce the upcoming release of Cadmus Oral Assessment, a new solution designed to help universities deliver secure, defensible assessment in the age of generative AI.

Cadmus Oral Assessment introduces a new category of secure assessment: precision oral assurance — structured moments embedded directly into existing assessment journeys to strengthen evidence of learning. This is delivered through a phased approach: starting with a practical, low-friction way to introduce oral assessment today, and evolving into more targeted, contextualised assurance developed in partnership with universities to work in real institutional practice.

The first release of Cadmus Oral Assessment will be available from April/May 2026, following a co‑design program with leading universities in Australia, and the UK.

Why Cadmus Oral Assessments

Written assessment remains foundational to higher education. It develops critical thinking, research literacy, synthesis, and disciplinary argumentation.

But generative AI has changed how written work is produced.

Today, universities face a growing assurance gap: written submissions remain essential for learning, but may no longer provide sufficient evidence of understanding on their own.

Regulators are increasingly calling for assessment redesign — not simply more detection or surveillance — to protect validity, defensibility, and institutional trust.

Oral assessment remains one of the most trusted ways to validate reasoning and judgement — but traditionally they do not scale. They are time-intensive, difficult to schedule, inconsistent to moderate, and often impractical in large cohorts.

At the same time, many institutions have experimented with video-based responses and skills recording tools. While useful for reflection and employability, these approaches are not designed to deliver assessment assurance, nor to integrate into marking, moderation, and decision-making workflows.

Cadmus resolves this trade-off by delivering the assurance strength of oral assessment with the scalability, consistency, and workflow integration required for real university conditions.

Many other video-based tools have evolve from use cases such as:

• Skills demonstration and presentation practice
• Coaching and reflection
• Authenticity inferred from surveillance behavior and performance cues

Cadmus Oral Assessment was designed from day one for assessment assurance and learning validity:

• Embedded into marking and moderation workflows
• Aligned to rubrics and learning outcomes
• Designed to assess reasoning, disciplinary judgement and application of knowledge

What is Cadmus Oral Assessment

It is a learning‑centred, educator‑controlled oral assurance layer embedded directly into the Cadmus assessment platform.

Rather than introducing blanket oral exams or surveillance‑led controls, Cadmus enables:

• Targeted oral assessment moments only where explanation and judgement matter most enabling educators to make student thinking visible, not just measurable
• Oral explanation anchored directly to the student’s own written work and rubric
• Consistent, reviewable evidence embedded into marking and moderation workflows

The result is direct evidence of learning — without additional surveillance, unsustainable workload, or curriculum disruption.

Unlike tools designed primarily for skills demonstration, presentation practice, or reflective video responses, Cadmus Oral Assessments is purpose-built for academic assurance. It does not infer authenticity from behavioural signals — it captures reasoned explanation aligned to assessment criteria.

How Cadmus Oral Assessments works

Cadmus Oral Assessment integrates oral validation seamlessly into existing assessment workflows allowing institutions to scale.

Phase 1: Structured asynchronous oral assessment (Available April/May 2026)

The first release introduces a new assessment capability within Cadmus that enables scalable, low-friction oral assessment.

Educators can:

• Design structured Oral Assessment questions aligned to learning outcomes
• Deliver multiple video response questions within the same assessment
• Capture in-the-moment video responses under educator defined conditions
• Mark and apply rubric‑linked feedback using existing workflows and rubrics at scale and for audit and review

This enables universities to:

• Introduce oral assurance in a practical, proportionate way
• Preserve the spontaneity of a real-world Oral Assessment
• Validate student reasoning and understanding
• Pilot a scalable oral assessment solution without requiring full assessment redesign

Importantly, Phase 1 is designed to enable institutions to adopt a solution in a way that is scalable, explainable, and easy to implement.

What This Unlocks Next

As institutions begin to embed oral assessment into their workflows, Cadmus Oral Assessment is designed to evolve enabling more targeted, contextualised assurance across the assessment journey.

Phase 2: Contextualised Oral Assessment (Late 2026/2027)

Future phases will introduce optional AI-assisted capabilities to help educators scale and deepen oral assessment in a way that remains transparent and educator-led. Cadmus is exploring more personalised prompts based on a student's prior written work, rubrics, and educator prompts. 

Phase 2 capabilities are currently being co-developed in partnership with universities, ensuring they reflect real academic practice and maintain transparency, control, and defensibility.

Cadmus AI will support educators in designing and scaling Oral Assessment experiences — while educators remain fully in control of prompts, marking, and outcomes. Cadmus AI is not intended to not mark, grade, or determine assessment outcomes.

Integrity by Design

Cadmus Oral Assessment strengthens academic integrity through assessment design.

• Oral Assessment moments preserve spontaneity and real-time reasoning
• Oral explanation is grounded in the student’s own work
• Students must justify and apply understanding in the moment

This approach reduces the effectiveness of external assistance and surfaces authentic understanding through explanation — not monitoring.

Built with universities, for real academic practice

Cadmus Oral Assessment is being developed through a phased, co-build approach with leading universities — ensuring it works in real academic conditions from day one, while continuing to evolve over time.

Phase 1 (April 2026) enables scalable learning validation through short, structured oral assessment moments.

The next phase of Cadmus Oral Assessment will expand to support more contextualised, personalised assurance — helping institutions strengthen confidence in assessment outcomes without increasing workload or complexity.

This approach ensures universities can start with a practical, proven model today, and scale into more advanced assurance over time.

Learn more

Cadmus Oral Assessments represents the next evolution of secure assessment — moving from watching students watching students perform to listening to them explain their thinking.

To learn more or participate in an early Pilot, contact the Cadmus team today.