Authenticity Interview

Students may be invited to attend an authenticity interview at any stage of the IRP, including after the viva. These are short interviews (up to 30 minutes) designed to verify that submitted work genuinely reflects the student’s own understanding, effort, and skills as required by the Academic Integrity rules and expectations (see Academic Integrity and Misconduct).

During an authenticity interview, students may be asked by one or more examiners to explain specific sections of their written reports or code. Students will have no access to notes, AI tools, or other aids. The purpose is to establish whether the student can confidently discuss and justify their work in their own words.

Since aids are not permitted during the interview, students will only be asked questions they should reasonably be able to answer if the submitted work is genuinely their own. For example, examiners will not expect students to recall exact function signatures of third-party libraries or specific syntax details. However, students should be able to explain the overall approach they took, why they chose particular methods or algorithms, how different components of their work fit together, and the reasoning behind any part of their report or code.

Receiving an invitation to an authenticity interview does not imply suspicion of academic misconduct. Some students are selected randomly as part of routine quality assurance checks, while others may be invited based on specific aspects of their work that require clarification.

All marks are provisional. Authenticity interviews can take place even after provisional marks have been released, and the outcome of such interviews may result in changes to the provisional mark.