Integrity
WGU similarity reports: what gets flagged and what happens next
At a glance
Last updated
Every WGU performance assessment upload is scanned automatically and given a similarity report with an overall percentage and a match breakdown. You can preview that report before submitting, and WGU publishes no current pass-fail threshold: evaluators judge the matches, not the raw number. Task templates, restated prompts, cited quotes, and reference lists inflate scores innocently. Submissions flagged for non-original work go to WGU's Academic Authenticity team, are not evaluated for content, and can lead to sanctions under the Student Code of Conduct.
- Every PA upload gets an automatic similarity report
- You can preview the report before final submission
- No current official threshold; matches are judged, not just counted
- Flagged work goes to Academic Authenticity review, not the grader
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What is the WGU similarity checker?
When you upload a performance assessment file, WGU's system automatically generates a similarity report: an overall percentage showing how much of your text matches sources in its database, plus a breakdown of which sources matched. This runs on every upload, whether or not you ever look at it.
WGU does not name the vendor in its public policy pages. Students report the current checker changed in 2024 from the older Unicheck tool, but treat the vendor as unconfirmed; what matters operationally is the report itself, which works the same way either way.
Can you see the similarity report before submitting?
Yes, and WGU's own blog recommends it. Upload your file inside the task without clicking the final submit, wait for the report to generate (minutes to a few hours), open View Report, revise anything concerning, and only then submit for evaluation.
This makes a high raw score a solvable problem before it is anyone else's business. Students who submit blind are the ones surprised by an integrity flag on a task they wrote honestly.
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Is there a similarity percentage that triggers review?
WGU publishes no current threshold. A legacy guidance document from the older tool's era told students to keep overall similarity at or below 30 percent with no more than 10 percent from any single source, even when cited. Treat that as historical orientation, not a current rule.
What evaluators actually do, per their own public accounts, is look past the raw number: matches to the task template, the prompt, and properly cited material get excluded from judgment. A 35 percent score made of template text routinely passes; a 12 percent score made of one copied source does not.
What raises the score without any cheating?
The usual suspects: the assignment template's own headings and instructions, restating the prompt in your introduction, properly quoted and cited passages, the reference list, standard technical terminology, and matches to your own earlier submissions for other tasks.
The fixes are mechanical: write findings in your own words instead of echoing the prompt, keep direct quotes short and clearly cited, and do not recycle paragraphs from your previous submissions. None of this requires gaming anything; it is just clean drafting.
What does WGU's AI policy actually allow?
WGU has an official AI-tools policy in the Student Policy Handbook. Using AI for concept clarification, practice questions, debugging suggestions, and basic grammar checking is permitted without citation. Using AI-generated or AI-paraphrased content inside a submission is permitted only with disclosure and citation.
Prohibited: submitting AI output as your own original analysis, pasting WGU task prompts or course materials into AI tools, and AI-written code where the task forbids it. WGU also runs AI-content detection for its integrity team, with final calls made by human review, not by the detector alone.
What happens if a submission gets flagged?
A submission flagged as non-original is not evaluated for content at all; it goes to WGU's Academic Authenticity team for investigation, and access to the task or to assessment scheduling can be restricted while the review runs. The flagged attempt still counts in your submission record.
Outcomes are handled under the Student Code of Conduct and scale with severity, up to suspension or expulsion for serious or repeated violations. Honest false positives do get resolved, but the review still costs you days or weeks inside a term that does not pause.
How do our completed PAs stay clean?
Original drafting is the whole job when a PA is in your plan: written from the rubric up, no recycled content, no undisclosed AI text, and the similarity report checked before anything is submitted. The same standard applies to revisions after evaluator feedback.
That is the practical difference between a service and a template mill: the work is produced for your task, your rubric, and your term, so the originality question never reaches your student record.
Questions, answered
No current published threshold exists. The 30 percent figure comes from a legacy guidance document for the older checking tool. Evaluators exclude template, prompt, and properly cited matches and judge what remains, so the composition of your matches matters more than the raw number.
It inflates the raw percentage, yes, since the template's headings and instructions match every other submission. Evaluator accounts say these matches are excluded from judgment. Preview your report before submitting so you can see exactly what matched.
Within limits, per WGU's Student Policy Handbook: concept clarification, practice questions, debugging help, and grammar checks need no citation. AI-drafted or AI-paraphrased content in the submission requires disclosure and citation. Passing AI output off as your own analysis is prohibited, and AI detection backs the policy.
The flagged submission is withheld from grading while the Academic Authenticity team investigates, and task or scheduling access can be restricted during review. Outcomes fall under the Student Code of Conduct, with sanctions up to suspension or expulsion for serious cases.
Every submission we produce is drafted from scratch against your task's rubric, with the similarity report reviewed before submission and revisions handled after any evaluator feedback. No templates, no recycled work, no undisclosed AI text.
Coursework Ninja is an independent done-for-you degree completion service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Western Governors University.
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