Western Governors University.

WGU's published sources on AI detection and academic authenticity, quoted and linked below. WGU's structure differs from a traditional university: it is competency-based, submissions go to evaluation faculty rather than course professors, and the governing texts are the Student Policy Handbook's Academic Authenticity policy and the Student Code of Conduct. These are potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which governs any case; confirm applicability with the institution. Any dates are quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you.

01Detection status

How WGU describes its own AI detection

The most detailed public description is first-party: a WGU blog post by its Senior Vice President of Academic Delivery, co-authored with its Senior Manager of Evaluation and Manager of Instruction Faculty (published Jun 24, 2025; retrieved Aug 21, 2026):

"WGU's similarity checker includes an AI detection tool that operates in the background, collecting data on the presence of AI-generated text in student submissions. This data is accessible only to the academic integrity team for analysis." "Most detection tools only indicate that content is 'likely AI-generated,' as they cannot definitively distinguish between AI-generated writing and writing that reflects limited skills. Consequently, human analysis remains essential." "Given that even one false positive is unacceptable, WGU relies on overt evidence of generative AI use to identify integrity violations." "…tools like Grammarly may be flagged due to their influence on sentence structure."

The same post states the tool's claimed false-positive rate (0.2%) and that detection relies on linguistic patterns such as sentence lengths, hyphens, syllable counts, and parts of speech. Source: Guiding Responsible Student Use of AI — wgu.edu. The Student Policy Handbook separately states that evaluation faculty check all written work using similarity-checking software (see source map; the handbook pages load in WGU's portal).

02Published process

What WGU says happens to a flagged submission

From the same first-party post — describing manual review and the escalation path:

"Academic integrity evaluators are trained in analyzing performance assessment content for accuracy, originality and AI-generated indicators." "When unverifiable sources are identified, the evaluation team locks the submission and returns it without evaluation. The student must then meet with their instructor to revise the work, and the instructor must validate all sources before the evaluation is unlocked." "…egregious integrity violations warrant academic warnings that require revisions. Multiple integrity violations result in coaching conversations with the academic coaching center, instruction faculty, and student conduct office."

The post lists the patterns evaluators are trained to examine manually: repetitive language, grammatical errors, vague content, lack of personal perspective, factual errors, and fake or irretrievable sources. The Student Code of Conduct defines the formal violation categories and sanctions, up to expulsion; what any of this means for a particular case is for the institution and its process to determine.

03Source map

Where the documents live

Document	Location
Academic Authenticity policy (Student Policy Handbook)	cm.wgu.edu — handbook portal
Student Code of Conduct	cm.wgu.edu — handbook portal
Academic Authenticity Commitment for Performance Assessment	cm.wgu.edu — handbook portal
Student Policy Handbook (index)	cm.wgu.edu — handbook portal
First-party description of AI detection and review	wgu.edu blog, Jun 24, 2025
Academic Authenticity team (reporting address per handbook)	assessmentsecurity@wgu.edu — verify in the handbook portal

The handbook pages are served through WGU's portal software and load in a browser, not in simple page captures; read them there. Organizing your own drafts and records: the records checklist.

04Change log

Revision history of this page

2026-08-21 — Page created. Blog quotations retrieved this date from wgu.edu (post published Jun 24, 2025, by named WGU academic-delivery leadership). Handbook pages (cm.wgu.edu) are client-rendered and were not captured as text this date: their titles and links are listed, handbook-derived statements above are paraphrase pending verification, and both need a manual read and archive capture before this page is promoted. Third-party sources name a specific detection vendor for WGU; that claim is omitted here because no first-party confirmation was captured. Reviewer: [named human reviewer before publication]. Internet Archive captures: to be added.

Spot an error or an outdated quotation? hello@gatheredwork.com — corrections are made on the record, in this log.