Generative Artificial Intelligences Utilization Policy

International Journal of Research and Community Empowerment (IJoRCE)

1. Overview

This policy outlines the acceptable and prohibited use of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), AI-assisted technologies, and language-assistance tools in the preparation, review, editorial handling, and publication of manuscripts submitted to the International Journal of Research and Community Empowerment (IJoRCE).

This policy is aligned with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement and is informed by relevant best practices in scholarly publishing, including guidance from Elsevier, COPE, and other publication ethics standards. The purpose of this policy is to uphold the integrity, transparency, accountability, confidentiality, and trustworthiness of scholarly communication.

The basic principle of this policy is that Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, and language-assistance tools may be used only as supportive tools. They must not replace human responsibility, scholarly judgment, critical thinking, ethical accountability, authorship responsibility, peer-review integrity, editorial independence, or editorial decision-making.

The use of Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, and language-assistance tools must be guided by the following principles:

  • Transparency: The use of Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, and language-assistance tools must be disclosed when required by this policy, particularly when used in manuscript preparation, research processes, analysis, reporting, or other publication-related activities.
  • Human accountability: Human authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff remain fully responsible for their respective roles, statements, assessments, decisions, and outputs.
  • Confidentiality: Confidential manuscripts, reviewer reports, author responses, data, figures, supplementary files, editorial communications, and other unpublished materials must be protected and must not be disclosed through public, unsecured, cloud-based, or unauthorized AI tools or external systems.
  • Integrity: Gen AI and AI-assisted technologies must not be used to fabricate, falsify, manipulate, obscure, or misrepresent data, findings, images, citations, references, authorship, peer review, editorial processes, or any other scholarly content.
  • Privacy and intellectual property protection: The use of AI tools must not violate privacy rights, data protection obligations, participant consent, copyright, licensing terms, institutional rules, author rights, or third-party rights.
  • Scholarly responsibility: AI-generated or AI-assisted outputs must be critically reviewed, verified, corrected, and approved by the responsible human user before being used in any manuscript, review report, editorial communication, or publication-related process.
  • Editorial independence: Gen AI and AI-assisted technologies must not be used to make, replace, or determine editorial decisions, peer-review recommendations, ethical judgments, or post-publication editorial actions.
  • Protection of the scholarly record: Any use of AI that may compromise research integrity, publication ethics, peer-review integrity, editorial independence, or the reliability of the scholarly record may be treated as a publication ethics concern.

Any use or misuse of Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools that violates this policy may be handled in accordance with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

2. For Authors

2.1 Acceptable Use

Authors may use Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, and language-assistance tools to support manuscript preparation in limited and responsible ways, including improving language clarity, grammar, spelling, punctuation, readability, formatting, translation, organization, and non-substantive presentation of the text.

Such tools must be used under human oversight. Authors must carefully review, verify, edit, and take full responsibility for all AI-assisted or tool-assisted outputs before submission.

The use of Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools must not replace the authors’ own scholarly contribution, analysis, interpretation, critical thinking, argumentation, results, discussion, or conclusions.

Authors remain fully responsible for ensuring that the manuscript is accurate, original, complete, ethically compliant, and reflective of their own scholarly work.

2.2 Disclosure Requirements

Authors must disclose any use of Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools in the manuscript. This includes tools used for language polishing, grammar checking, spelling checking, punctuation checking, paraphrasing, translation, readability improvement, content organization, reference assistance, coding assistance, data-related assistance, figure preparation, or any other manuscript-related support.

Unlike some publisher policies that may not require disclosure for basic grammar, spelling, or punctuation checks, IJoRCE requires disclosure of the use of such tools, including grammar-checking, spelling-checking, punctuation-checking, translation, paraphrasing, and similar language-assistance services, as part of the journal’s commitment to transparency in manuscript preparation.

The disclosure must be included in a dedicated section titled Declaration of Assistive Technologies in the Writing Process.

When Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools are used, the following declaration statement must be included in the manuscript:

The authors declare that generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) and other AI-assisted tools were used prudently, not excessively, during the research and preparation of this manuscript. Specifically, [AI tool 1] was used for [function 1]; [AI tool 2] for [function 2]; …; and [AI tool n] for [function n]. All AI-generated material was reviewed and edited for accuracy, completeness, and compliance with ethical and scholarly standards. The authors accept full responsibility for the final content of the manuscript.

Authors must specify the name of each tool or service used and the purpose or function of its use. The declaration statement may be published together with the article to ensure transparency.

If Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools were not used in the preparation of the manuscript, authors may include the following statement when required by the journal:

The authors declare that no generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.

2.3 Authorship Attribution

Gen AI tools, AI-assisted technologies, and language-assistance tools cannot be credited as authors or co-authors.

Authorship implies human responsibility, accountability, substantial contribution, approval of the final manuscript, and the ability to take responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work. AI tools cannot fulfill these requirements.

Authors must not cite AI tools as authors. When the use of a tool is relevant to manuscript preparation or research methods, it must be disclosed in accordance with this policy and the journal’s author guidelines.

2.4 Use in Research Methods, Data Analysis, and Code

If Gen AI or AI-assisted technologies are used as part of the research method, data analysis, data processing, coding, instrument development, intervention design, literature mapping, classification, predictive modelling, visualization, or other substantive research activities, authors must describe this use clearly in the Methods section.

The description must include the name and version of the tool where available, the developer or manufacturer where relevant, the purpose of use, the process or workflow in which the tool was used, the type of input and output involved, the extent of human verification, and any limitations or risks relevant to the validity, reliability, transparency, and reproducibility of the research.

AI-assisted code, analysis, classification, visualization, or output must be verified by the authors. The same standards of validity, reliability, reproducibility, transparency, and ethical compliance apply whether or not AI tools were used.

If requested by the journal, authors must provide supporting documentation, prompts, outputs, logs, code, original files, or other records relevant to the use of AI in the research process.

2.5 Use in Figures, Images, and Graphical Materials

The use of Gen AI to create or modify images, figures, tables, graphical abstracts, or other visual materials is prohibited unless it is part of the research methodology or is explicitly permitted by the journal for non-misleading explanatory purposes.

AI-generated or AI-assisted visual materials must not be used to fabricate, falsify, enhance, obscure, or manipulate research data or evidence in a misleading way.

If AI-generated or AI-assisted images, figures, tables, or graphical materials are integral to the research or manuscript, authors must provide a detailed description in the Methods section, figure caption, or relevant declaration.

The description must include the tool used, the purpose of using the tool, the process of generation or modification, the extent of human review and verification, compliance with the tool’s usage policies and licensing terms, and proper attribution where required.

The journal may request original, unprocessed files, prompts, outputs, documentation, or other supporting materials to evaluate the integrity of AI-assisted visual content.

2.6 Prohibited Use by Authors

Authors must not use Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools to:

  1. Generate scientific content that replaces the authors’ own intellectual contribution;
  2. Fabricate, falsify, manipulate, or misrepresent data, findings, analysis, results, or conclusions;
  3. Generate, insert, suggest, or use false, inaccurate, irrelevant, unverifiable, non-existent, fabricated, or misleading citations and references;
  4. Cite sources that the authors have not read, verified, or checked for relevance and accuracy;
  5. Produce misleading paraphrases intended to conceal plagiarism, excessive similarity, duplicate publication, or inappropriate text reuse;
  6. Manipulate citations, citation context, reference lists, or citation relevance;
  7. Create, alter, enhance, or manipulate images, figures, tables, or graphical materials in a misleading way;
  8. Generate author contribution statements, ethical declarations, conflict of interest statements, funding statements, data availability statements, or other declarations that do not accurately reflect the real situation;
  9. Insert hidden prompts, hidden instructions, invisible text, machine-targeted messages, or similar content intended to influence AI-assisted screening, editorial handling, peer review, indexing, or post-publication evaluation;
  10. Misrepresent the role of AI or language-assistance tools in the preparation, analysis, writing, translation, or reporting of the manuscript; or
  11. Submit AI-generated or tool-assisted content without adequate human verification, editing, and responsibility.

3. For Reviewers

3.1 Permitted Limited Use

Reviewers may use Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools only for limited language-support purposes in preparing their review reports, such as improving grammar, spelling, clarity, readability, or the structure of comments that have already been written by the reviewer.

Such tools may support the presentation of the reviewer’s own comments, but they must not replace the reviewer’s own scholarly assessment, critical evaluation, ethical judgment, or recommendation.

3.2 Prohibited Use and Confidentiality

Reviewers must not use Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools to independently review, evaluate, interpret, analyze, criticize, or determine the scholarly merit of manuscripts submitted to IJoRCE.

Peer-review assessment must be conducted personally by the invited reviewer, based on the reviewer’s own expertise, academic judgment, and ethical responsibility.

Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, data, figures, tables, supplementary files, author responses, review invitations, review forms, or other confidential peer-review materials to public, unsecured, cloud-based, or unauthorized AI tools or external systems.

When in doubt about whether a tool provides adequate confidentiality and data protection, reviewers must not use the tool for any manuscript content or confidential review materials.

3.3 Responsibility and Disclosure

Reviewers remain fully responsible and accountable for the content, accuracy, fairness, confidentiality, and integrity of their submitted review reports, including any part prepared with the assistance of AI-assisted or language-assistance tools.

When AI-assisted or language-assistance tools are used beyond basic manual editing of the review report, reviewers should disclose this to the editor, including the general purpose of use.

Any suspected use of Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools by reviewers in a way that compromises confidentiality, privacy, peer-review integrity, or independent scholarly judgment may be treated as a breach of peer-review confidentiality and publication ethics.

4. For Editors

4.1 Permitted Limited Use

Editors and editorial staff may use locally operated, offline, private, secure, or journal-controlled AI tools only for limited supportive purposes in the editorial workflow, provided that confidentiality, privacy, data protection, access control, intellectual property protection, editorial independence, and human accountability are maintained.

Permitted supportive uses may include language polishing of non-confidential editorial text, grammar checking, spelling checking, formatting assistance, organization of editorial notes, administrative support, technical screening support, background literature support, or improving the clarity of editorial communication.

Such use must not compromise confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, editorial independence, peer-review integrity, or the integrity of the editorial process.

4.2 Prohibited Use

Editors and editorial staff must not use Gen AI tools, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools to make editorial decisions, determine whether a manuscript should be accepted or rejected, replace scholarly assessment, replace ethical judgment, determine research validity, assess reviewer recommendations without human judgment, or generate final editorial judgments.

Editorial decisions must be made by human editors based on academic expertise, peer-review results, editorial assessment, ethical considerations, and the journal’s policies.

Gen AI must not be used to replace editorial independence, ethical judgment, conflict-of-interest assessment, misconduct assessment, peer-review assessment, or post-publication editorial action.

4.3 Confidentiality and Accountability

Editors and editorial staff must not upload submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, author responses, data, figures, supplementary materials, editorial notes, editorial correspondence, decision letters containing confidential manuscript content, or other confidential editorial materials to public, unsecured, cloud-based, or unauthorized AI tools, AI-assisted technologies, language-assistance tools, or other external systems.

If a local, offline, private, secure, or journal-controlled AI tool is used with confidential editorial materials, the editor or editorial staff must ensure that the tool operates under appropriate confidentiality, privacy, data protection, access control, and intellectual property safeguards. The use of such tools must not result in unauthorized disclosure, storage, reuse, transfer, or training of manuscript-related content.

Editors remain fully responsible and accountable for the editorial process, editorial assessment, final decision, and communication with authors.

5. Confidentiality, Privacy, and Intellectual Property

All parties involved in the publication process must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts, data, figures, supplementary files, reviewer reports, author responses, editorial communications, and other unpublished materials.

Confidential materials must not be uploaded, copied, shared, processed, translated, corrected, summarized, analyzed, or disclosed through public, unsecured, cloud-based, or unauthorized Gen AI tools, AI-assisted technologies, language-assistance tools, or other external systems.

The use of AI tools and language-assistance tools must not violate copyright, licensing terms, data protection obligations, privacy rights, institutional rules, participant consent, author rights, or third-party rights.

6. AI-Related Misconduct

The following actions may constitute AI-related publication misconduct:

  1. Failure to disclose the use of Gen AI, AI-assisted technologies, or language-assistance tools when disclosure is required;
  2. Misrepresentation of the role of AI or language-assistance tools in manuscript preparation, research methods, analysis, translation, or reporting;
  3. Use of AI to fabricate, falsify, manipulate, or misrepresent data, findings, images, figures, tables, author contributions, or declarations;
  4. Use of AI to generate, insert, suggest, or use false, inaccurate, irrelevant, unverifiable, non-existent, fabricated, or misleading citations and references;
  5. Use of AI-generated citations or references without verifying that the cited sources actually exist, are accurate, are relevant, and support the claims made in the manuscript;
  6. Use of AI to manipulate citations, citation context, reference lists, or citation relevance;
  7. Use of AI to conceal plagiarism, excessive similarity, duplicate publication, unethical authorship practices, or inappropriate text reuse;
  8. Use of AI to create, alter, enhance, or manipulate images, figures, tables, or graphical materials in a misleading way;
  9. Insertion of hidden prompts, hidden instructions, invisible text, machine-targeted messages, or other content intended to manipulate AI-assisted screening, review, editorial handling, indexing, or evaluation;
  10. Use of AI by reviewers to review, evaluate, interpret, analyze, criticize, determine scholarly merit, or replace their own independent scholarly judgment;
  11. Use of AI by reviewers in a way that compromises confidentiality, privacy, peer-review integrity, or independent scholarly judgment;
  12. Use of AI by editors or editorial staff to make, replace, or determine editorial decisions;
  13. Uploading confidential manuscripts, review materials, author responses, data, figures, or editorial communications to public, unsecured, cloud-based, or unauthorized AI tools or external systems;
  14. Use of local, offline, private, secure, or journal-controlled AI tools without adequate confidentiality, privacy, data protection, access control, or intellectual property safeguards when confidential editorial materials are involved; and
  15. Any other use of AI that compromises confidentiality, transparency, authorship responsibility, peer-review integrity, editorial independence, research integrity, publication ethics, or the scholarly record.

7. Compliance and Accountability

Failure to comply with this policy, including any form of AI-related misconduct, may result in editorial action in accordance with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

Depending on the nature, severity, and timing of the violation, the journal may take one or more of the following actions:

  1. Request clarification from the author, reviewer, editor, or editorial staff concerned;
  2. Request revision, correction, or additional disclosure;
  3. Request supporting documentation, prompts, outputs, logs, original files, or records of AI use;
  4. Reject the manuscript before or during peer review;
  5. Suspend the editorial or publication process;
  6. Decline or discontinue the use of a reviewer;
  7. Issue a correction, expression of concern, retraction, removal, replacement, or other editorial notice for a published article;
  8. Refer the matter to the authors’ institution, ethics committee, funder, or other relevant authority when appropriate; or
  9. Take other editorial actions necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

The journal’s response to AI-related concerns will be based on editorial assessment, available evidence, the severity of the issue, and the potential impact on confidentiality, research integrity, publication ethics, peer-review integrity, editorial independence, and the scholarly record.

8. Relationship with the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

This policy forms part of the journal’s broader publication ethics framework. Any matter not specifically regulated in this policy will be handled in accordance with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, author guidelines, peer-review policy, and other relevant journal policies.

In the event of suspected AI-related misconduct, the journal may follow procedures for allegations of research misconduct, complaints and appeals, corrections, retractions, removals, replacements, and other editorial actions as described in the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

9. Policy Review

IJoRCE regularly reviews and updates this policy in line with developments in Gen AI technologies, COPE recommendations, relevant publication ethics standards, and best practices in scholarly publishing.

References