Assured Assessment

Ensuring trust in graduate qualifications

In the age of AI, employers need assurance that graduates have genuinely earned their degrees. Assured Assessment™ is an independent certification issued to universities that have ensured every graduate personally demonstrates every course learning outcome under secured conditions.

Download the executive brief (PDF)Enquire about certification
The Problem

AI has broken the assessment model

Since the explosion of generative AI in late 2022, students are producing passing-quality assignments, essays, and even exam answers using tools like ChatGPT. The result: degrees that no longer guarantee competence.

96% fell to 49%

The 96% average on a take home exam fell to 49% when the students had to redo it in-class

Brown University, Inside Higher Ed

94%

of full-time undergraduate students in the UK say they use generative AI to help with assessed work

HEPI Student Generative AI Survey 2026

90%+

rate of cheating reported by students themselves in their courses

Student reports, The Australian, Feb 2026

"Cheating has become omnipresent. I don't know a single person who hasn't used A.I. to get through some assignment in college."

"The only way to eliminate AI cheating is to go back to in-person supervised exams, in-class presentations, oral assessments, practical lab assignments and defending of essays."

The Standard

A clear, verifiable standard for academic integrity

“Secured conditions” requires three guarantees:

  1. Identity: the work is verified to be the student’s own
  2. Authorship: the performance is the student’s alone
  3. Observation: conditions that make identity and authorship directly verifiable by the assessor
Download the two-page executive brief (PDF)
How It Works

A simple path to trusted qualifications

Assured Assessment provides a clear framework that universities can adopt, verify, and promote to students and employers worldwide.

1

University Commits

Universities adopt the Assured Assessment standard.

2

Verification & Certification

Assessment practices are audited against the standard. Upon meeting the criteria, the university, faculty, or individual degree program is awarded the Assured Assessment™ certification mark.

3

Employer Confidence

Graduates from certified programs carry a recognised, international certification mark that declares to future employers that they have earned their credential. Employers can trust that certified graduates have demonstrated genuine knowledge and competency through rigorous, supervised assessment.

Who Benefits

Everyone wins with Assured Assessment

A widely recognised, international certification mark increases graduate employment prospects for students from certified universities.

Universities & Colleges

  • Differentiate your institution with a trusted certification mark
  • Ensure public confidence in the value of your degrees
  • Attract quality students who value genuine learning
  • Lead the global response to AI-driven academic integrity challenges

Employers

  • Hire graduates with verified knowledge and competencies
  • Reduce risk of underqualified hires
  • A widely recognised international certification mark you can trust
  • Look for the Assured Assessment™ mark on graduate credentials
  • Confidence that graduates can perform, not just prompt

Students & Graduates

  • Prove you genuinely earned your degree and possess the knowledge it represents
  • Stand out to employers who are increasingly sceptical of graduate qualifications
  • Know that you are studying at a university that maximizes your learning, helping you reach your potential in life
  • Graduate with verified, real-world competencies that AI cannot replicate
An employer confidently hiring a certified graduate
In the Media

The crisis is real, the conversation is growing

Leading academics, former chancellors, and education regulators are calling for urgent reform. Here is what they are saying.

Inside Higher EdJuly 8, 2026

Brown professor suspects most of his class used AI to cheat

For the first time since he started teaching Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory nearly two decades ago, Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano gave his students a take-home midterm this spring. When the midterm came along, the average score was 96 percent. With the blessing of his dean, [he] changed the final exam to an in-person test. Three students earned a zero, and the average score on the final was 48.6 percent—by far a historic low, he said.

Inside Higher Ed

The Sydney Morning HeraldMay 26, 2026

I’m an academic, but I’ve told my stepdaughter to think twice about going to university

Industrial-scale fraud is undermining the value of tertiary qualifications. As an academic, I have seen first-hand how Al-enabled cheating has spread, and it has made me question whether a university degree still holds the value it once did.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert

The New York TimesMay 17, 2026

What A.I. did to my college class

Cheating has become omnipresent. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t used A.I. to get through some assignment in college, yet the school was at first slow to realize how widespread this would become. As freshman year went on, some professors suggested that the “nuclear option” might be called for: allowing faculty to proctor in-person exams, a practice banned at the university for over a century to demonstrate “confidence in the honor” of students.

Theo Baker

New York MagazineMay 7, 2026

Rampant AI cheating is ruining education alarmingly fast

Nearly 90 percent of college students had used ChatGPT to help with homework. Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate. We're talking about an entire generation of learning perhaps significantly undermined here.

James D. Walsh

Frequently Asked Questions

Assured Assessment

Help restore trust and confidence in higher education

Whether you are a university leader, employer, or student, Assured Assessment provides the framework to restore trust in higher education qualifications worldwide.

contact@assuredassessment.org

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