Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-Assisted Tools

 

Version: 1.0
Effective date: 15/07/2025
Review cycle: Annually or as needed

 

I. Authorship and Responsibility

 

Only humans can be listed as authors. This aligns with current copyright law (AI is not a legal rights holder) and the international recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), as well as policies of major publishers. AI cannot sign license agreements, provide informed consent, declare conflicts of interest, or bear ethical and legal responsibility. Authors are fully and solely responsible for the accuracy of the text, data, images, and references, regardless of which tools were used in their creation or preparation.

 

II. Categories of AI Use

 

A. Routine Assistance (Disclosure Not Required)

Disclosure is not required for routine assistance, which includes spell-checking, grammar-checking, automatic formatting, reference management without generating summaries, and basic machine translation of a draft.

 

B. Substantial Generative or Analytical Assistance (Disclosure Required)

Disclosure is required for substantial use, which includes generating or substantially rewriting text (such as summaries or abstracts); creating images, tables, or code; preparing literature reviews or digests; full manuscript translation; or performing data analysis using AI tools.

 

C. Unacceptable Use (Prohibited)

Unacceptable use is strictly prohibited. This includes submitting AI-generated content as one's own work without human verification; using AI to breach confidentiality (e.g., uploading manuscripts or reviews to public AI services); using AI to circumvent the peer review process; delegating critical analysis to AI without human verification; and using AI to generate multiple variations of the same work for redundant submission.

 

III. Disclosure Requirements

 

Authors must disclose any substantial use of AI by including a brief statement directly in the manuscript, preferably in the “Methods” or “Acknowledgements” section. This statement must specify the tool’s name, provider/organization, version or access date, what specific part of the work the tool performed, and confirmation that the authors verified, corrected, and assumed full responsibility for the AI-generated output.

Example: “Portions of the manuscript text were edited using the GPT-4 model (OpenAI, accessed 12 May 2025). All generated content was reviewed and revised by the authors.”

Authors must critically check all AI-generated material for factual errors, bias, fabricated references, or misleading interpretations.

 

IV. Confidentiality in Peer Review

 

Reviewers and Editors must not upload manuscripts or any of their parts to open/public AI services. If technical assistance is required, only solutions that ensure strict confidentiality (local or corporate services) may be used, or prior written approval must be obtained from the Editor-in-Chief.

 

V. Violations and Consequences

 

Failure to comply with this policy may result in immediate rejection of the manuscript, publication of a correction (Erratum), or formal retraction of the published article, in accordance with the journal’s ethical standards and COPE guidelines.

 

VI. Policy Review

 

This document is reviewed at least once a year, considering updates from international bodies (COPE, IEEE, ACM, etc.) and advances in AI technologies.

 

Quick FAQ

 

For Authors

• Routine Tools: You do not need to state that you used spell/grammar checkers or automatic formatting tools.
• Substantial Translation: If machine translation covers a substantial portion of the manuscript, you should disclose this. Indicate the tool and confirm accuracy checking.
• Text Generation: Any creation or substantial rewriting of text by AI (e.g., generating a paragraph or section) is considered substantial use and must be disclosed.
• Data/Code Analysis: If AI helped with data analysis or code, this must be disclosed. Describe which part of the analysis/code the tool performed.
• Prompts and Outputs: The Editorial Office may request prompts and intermediate outputs if questions arise. Keep these materials at least until the editorial process is complete.
• Co-Authorship: AI cannot be a co-author.
• Disclosure Location: Disclosure should be placed in “Methods” or “Acknowledgements”. Supplementary materials are also acceptable.
• AI Detection: We primarily rely on authors’ integrity and conduct selective checks, not universal detection.

For Reviewers

• Review Comments: You may use AI to improve the style of your review comments, provided you do not disclose manuscript content to a public service. Use local/secure solutions or seek approval.
• Suspected Improper Use: If you suspect improper AI use in a manuscript, flag this suspicion in your review comments for the editors to address.
• Confidentiality: You must not upload the manuscript to a public AI service to aid your review, as this breaches the confidentiality of the peer-review process.