Western Governors University.
- Detection status
- Background AI detection in the similarity checker; overt-evidence standard; evaluator review
- Office in these sources
- Academic Authenticity team, reporting address per the handbook · assessmentsecurity@wgu.edu
- Ombuds or advocacy office
- Student Ombuds (WGU Student Policy Handbook) — WGU states the ombuds "provide informal assistance to students" and "an unbiased analysis of student concerns," and that communications can be confidential at the student's request. ombuds@wgu.edu · 1-877-435-7948 is WGU's general Student Services line, not a direct ombuds number; complaints@wgu.edu is a separate formal-complaint channel · cm.wgu.edu — Student Ombuds
- Sources last checked
- Aug 30, 2026
Reproduced from the institution’s own pages quoted below — potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any case.
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.
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):
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).
What WGU says happens to a flagged submission
- Who may be present
- “Upon five (5) days advance written notice to the WGU Conduct Office […], the Accused Student may choose an advisor to assist them in the proceedings. The advisor must be a member of the WGU Community and may not be acting in the capacity of an attorney.” On recording: “There shall be a single record, such as an audio recording (or contemporaneous account) of all Student Conduct Board Hearings; however, there shall be no recording of the Student Conduct Board’s deliberations.” — Student Code of Conduct, V. Procedures (effective Apr 23, 2014; most recent action a non-substantive revision of Jul 27, 2026; retrieved Aug 23, 2026) · Student Code of Conduct
- What follows on the record
- “Documentation of disciplinary expulsion, removal from an academic program, or revocation or withholding of a degree are part of the Student’s permanent Academic Record.” The same paragraph continues: “Documentation of other disciplinary sanctions shall not be part of the Student’s permanent Academic Record but shall become part of the Student’s Disciplinary Record.” — Student Code of Conduct, V. Procedures (effective Apr 23, 2014; most recent action a non-substantive revision of Jul 27, 2026; retrieved Aug 23, 2026). No transcript notation for an integrity finding was located in WGU’s published policies in this review. ·Student Code of Conduct
The two questions an adviser raises first, answered from this institution’s own published documents — or recorded as not stated in them.
From the same first-party post — describing manual review and the escalation path:
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.
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 |
| Upholding Academic Integrity at WGU (published until 2026 as Academic Authenticity Commitment for Performance Assessment; same article, moved to Information & Resources) | cm.wgu.edu — knowledge center |
| Contact WGU (Student Support Services line) | cm.wgu.edu — knowledge center |
| 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 |
| Student Ombuds (Student Policy Handbook) | ombuds@wgu.edu · general Student Services 1-877-435-7948 · formal complaints complaints@wgu.edu · cm.wgu.edu — Student Ombuds (contact details supplied by the site owner; the handbook portal could not be captured as text in this environment) |
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. Capturing the pages above as they read today, and keeping your own dated record beside them: what to do with these sources.
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. 2026-08-22 — Handbook-derived statements above verified against the handbook portal by manual read; archive capture still to be added. Third-party sources name a specific detection vendor for WGU; that claim is omitted here because no first-party confirmation was captured. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter. Internet Archive captures: to be added.
2026-08-23 — Ombuds capture added this date: WGU publishes a Student Ombuds section in its Student Policy Handbook, stating the ombuds provide informal assistance and unbiased analysis, do not adjudicate or advocate for any party, and can keep communications confidential at the student's request. The handbook runs on portal software that could not be captured as text, so the contact email is described rather than reproduced; capturing it is flagged for the next review. Sources re-fetched and compared this date; automated pass, not a human review.
2026-08-23 — Student Ombuds contact details recorded this date: ombuds@wgu.edu, with WGU's general Student Services line 1-877-435-7948 and the separate formal-complaint address complaints@wgu.edu noted as distinct channels rather than ombuds numbers. These were supplied by the site owner from the Student Policy Handbook; the handbook runs on portal software that returns no text to this environment, so they could not be confirmed by an automated fetch and should be re-confirmed by any review able to reach the portal.
2026-08-23 — Section 02 now opens with the two questions an adviser raises first. Both answers were searched and captured this date from the Student Code of Conduct, which is the only one of WGU’s four policy-handbook pages that addresses either question; the Academic Integrity policy defers procedure to the Code, and the Student Ombuds page states the opposite of an advocacy role — the ombuds does not “adjudicate cases, or advocate for any individual or entity” — and was not stretched into an accompaniment answer. On capture method: cm.wgu.edu returns a Cloudflare challenge to plain fetches, so the Code was read first-party in a browser through the article’s own server-rendered printer-friendly view. On the record answer, the absence is itself the finding: consistent with competency-based assessment, WGU states no transcript notation for an integrity finding, and expresses the consequence as amended grades or assessment results plus documentation in the permanent Academic Record for the three most severe outcomes. WGU also states “WGU will keep the record of a suspended or expelled Student indefinitely.” Two further policies referenced by the Code were not captured this pass and are noted for a future review: Student Disciplinary Record Expungement, and the WGU Records Retention Policy. Also noted: the source-map link to the Academic Authenticity Commitment for Performance Assessment now redirects to an article titled “Upholding Academic Integrity at WGU”; the link is left as published pending a human decision. Automated pass; no human review is claimed for this entry.
2026-08-23 (later pass) — Full source re-verification of what this environment can reach. The wgu.edu blog post “Guiding Responsible Student Use of AI” was re-fetched and compared this date: unchanged (still dated Jun 24, 2025), and every quotation in sections 01 and 02 is verbatim, including the 0.2% false-positive figure, the linguistic-pattern description, and the six manual-review patterns. The cm.wgu.edu handbook portal returned an empty body to plain fetches this date (its documented Cloudflare challenge), so the Student Code of Conduct quotations, the Student Ombuds description, and the owner-supplied ombuds contact details retain their Aug 23, 2026 verification and remain flagged for re-confirmation by a review able to reach the portal; the same applies to the Academic Authenticity Commitment link redirect noted earlier this date, which still awaits a human decision, and to the Expungement and Records Retention policies noted for capture. Internet Archive captures could not be requested this date — the Save Page Now endpoint is unreachable from this run environment; captures remain to be added. Sources re-fetched and compared this date; automated pass, not a human review.
2026-08-30 — Sources re-fetched and compared this date; automated pass, not a human review. The wgu.edu blog post "Guiding Responsible Student Use of AI" was re-fetched and is unchanged (still modified Jun 24, 2025); every quotation in sections 01 and 02 is verbatim, including the 0.2% false-positive figure, the background-detection and overt-evidence statements, the Grammarly line, and the six manual-review patterns. Portal items re-verified first-party this pass. cm.wgu.edu again returns a Cloudflare challenge to plain fetches, but the Student Code of Conduct page was read successfully in a browser this date (a first-party capture): all four section-02 quotations are present verbatim — the advisor/attorney provision, the single-record/no-deliberation-recording provision, and both permanent-Academic-Record sentences — and the page still shows Effective Date April 23, 2014 with its most recent action a non-substantive revision dated July 27, 2026. The Student Ombuds page was also read in the browser this date: the "informal assistance," "unbiased analysis," and non-adjudication/non-advocacy quotations are verbatim and ombuds@wgu.edu is confirmed on the page; this resolves the prior note that the ombuds description and contact were owner-supplied and unconfirmed by fetch. Detection status unchanged; the detection-inventory sweep surfaced no additional first-party detector, and the third-party naming of a specific vendor is still omitted for want of first-party confirmation. Still open for a human decision: the source-map link to the Academic Authenticity Commitment for Performance Assessment (ta-p/5625) still redirects to a page titled "Upholding Academic Integrity at WGU"; the link is left as published. Still noted for a future pass: the Student Disciplinary Record Expungement and WGU Records Retention policies (referenced by the Code, not quoted here). Internet Archive captures still could not be requested — the Save Page Now endpoint is unreachable from this run environment (URL on the environment's fetch blocklist); captures remain to be added.
2026-08-30 — Internet Archive captures requested this date by an automated capture pass; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: Guiding responsible student use of AI → https://web.archive.org/web/20260830123132/https://www.wgu.edu/blog/guiding-responsible-student-use-of-ai2506.html. Five sources could not be captured: every cm.wgu.edu Student Policy Handbook page — the Student Code of Conduct, Academic Integrity, Student Ombuds, the handbook index, and the Academic Authenticity Commitment — each returning error:no-request, meaning the Cloudflare edge gave the archiver no response at all. These items were re-verified first-party by browser in this cohort's 2026-08-30 review; only their captures are outstanding. The open editorial flag on the Academic Authenticity Commitment link is untouched by this pass.
2026-09-13 — All seven sources re-captured, two recipe questions settled by the owner, and one contact fact recorded as unsourced. (1) The Student Support Services line the docket names is published first-party after all: WGU prints it on Contact WGU as "877.435.7948", with dots rather than hyphens, which is why four earlier searches for the hyphenated form missed it. That article is now a recipe source and carries a source-map row, and the number traces. (2) The article this page cites for the performance-assessment commitment has moved: WGU kept the article id but shifted it out of the Student Policy Handbook into Information & Resources and retitled it "Upholding Academic Integrity at WGU". The owner decided this date that the page may continue to rely on it; the source-map row and the recipe now point where it actually lives, and the former title is recorded beside it. (3) complaints@wgu.edu stays in the docket by owner decision without a first-party source in the recipe. It is not published on any of the seven sources, and a bounded search of the knowledge center and four wgu.edu paths did not locate it, so it remains a single known fidelity failure on this page and this page is deliberately not added to the fidelity gate while it stands. The note it sits in exists to tell a reader what that address is not — a separate formal-complaint channel rather than the ombuds — and the owner judged that worth keeping on those terms. Every other quotation and contact fact on this page traces to the packet. The four WAF-blocked cm.wgu.edu sources, which return HTTP 403 to this host, are now saved under tools/supplied/ so later passes capture them without a browser.
Spot an error or an outdated quotation? hello@gatheredwork.com — corrections are made on the record, in this log.