What's changing, and why
For a decade the default assessment was the take-home essay. Then generative AI arrived, detectors turned out to be unreliable, and universities were left with a problem: how do you know a submission reflects what the student can do? The answer, increasingly, is to watch the work happen. Around 45% of institutions have been redesigning their assessments, and a growing share now grade the process a student follows, not just the final output.
You'll see this in your own department. The London School of Economics has expanded in-person, invigilated exams, in-class assessment and oral assessment. The University of Bath is moving to a principles-based "two-lane" model from 2026-27. Across the sector, oral defences, in-class writing, staged drafts, reflective commentaries and live problem-solving are all coming back. None of it is about catching you out — it's about assessing understanding in ways AI can't sit in the middle of.
More in-person and handwritten exams
The simplest AI-proof assessment is the oldest one: sit in a room, no devices, and write. Expect more closed-book and invigilated exams, and in some subjects a return to handwriting under time pressure — something a lot of students have barely done since school.
If that's you, practise it deliberately: write timed answers by hand, get used to planning quickly, and rebuild the stamina to write legibly for an hour or two. The content is the same skill you've always been assessed on; it's the format that's changed.
The return of the viva
Oral exams — once reserved for PhD defences — are reappearing at undergraduate level, often as a short viva on a piece of coursework you've submitted: a marker asks you to explain your argument, justify a choice, or expand on a source. It's one of the fairest checks there is, because it rewards the thing that matters — whether you actually understand your own work.
Could you explain every key claim in your essay out loud, without notes, and say why you included it? If yes, a viva is nothing to fear. If not, that's exactly what to work on.
Staged drafts and process-based marking
Instead of one final essay, many modules now mark the journey: a proposal, an annotated bibliography, a first draft, and a short reflective commentary explaining the choices you made. This rewards steady, genuine work and makes it very hard for a last-minute generated essay to pass — because there's no process behind it.
The practical upside for you: it suits how good work actually gets made. Start early, keep your drafts and notes, and write a sentence or two as you go about why you're doing what you're doing — you'll have the reflective commentary half-written already.
The "two-lane" approach — know your lane
A model spreading across UK universities splits assessments into two lanes, and the single most important thing you can do is know which lane each assignment is in:
| Lane 1 — secured, no AI | Lane 2 — open, AI permitted |
|---|---|
| In-person exams, vivas, in-class writing | Take-home work where AI use is allowed |
| No AI tools at all | AI allowed — usually with acknowledgement |
| Tests what you can do unaided | Tests how well you work with tools |
Getting the lane wrong is how honest students end up in trouble — using AI on a Lane 1 task, or failing to declare it on a Lane 2 one. Read every brief for exactly what's permitted, and if it isn't clear, ask the module lead in writing.
How to prepare
The through-line of all of this is simple: assessment is moving back towards understanding, and away from polished output. That's good news if you engage with your work — and it's what SafeGrade is built to help with. Use AI as a tutor, not a ghostwriter: Sage knows your course and can quiz you, pressure-test your argument, and make you explain your reasoning — exactly the muscles a viva or in-person exam tests. And for the coursework that still counts, SafeGrade lets you check how your writing reads and where it's weak before you submit a draft.
The winning move is the same one that was always smart: understand your material well enough to explain it. The assessment change just makes that pay off more directly.
to defend it.