Artificial Intelligence Policy

  • Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors or cited as sources; AI output is not a substitute for a source.
  • Authors disclose the generative AI tools they used for writing, translation, summarising, data analysis, coding or image generation, with the name and version of the tool and the purpose and extent of its use, at the end of the article under the heading “Use of Artificial Intelligence”. Routine use for spelling and grammar checking alone does not need to be disclosed.
  • The use of AI or machine translation to translate texts such as the abstracts or the Extended Abstract is also disclosed; authors are responsible for the accuracy of the translation.
  • Fabricating data, findings, references or images with AI, or generating participant responses with AI, is not acceptable. A manuscript with non-existent references is rejected; if it has been published, a correction or retraction process is started.
  • Images generated or altered with AI are not used unless they are the subject of the research; where they are (e.g. studies of AI-generated art), they are clearly labelled and details of how they were produced are given.
  • Where AI is part of the research method (e.g. qualitative coding, text classification or corpus analysis), the model name and version, date of use, prompts and validation method are described in detail in the Method section or a supplementary file.
  • Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy and originality of AI-assisted content and for the authenticity of all references.
  • Reviewers and editors may not upload the manuscript under review, or any part of it, to AI tools; review reports and editorial decisions may not be generated with AI. Reviewers may use a tool only to polish the language of their own report, without sharing any information from the manuscript, and should tell the editor that they did so.
  • The journal uses automated tools for routine checks such as similarity screening; their output is always assessed by the editors and is never the sole basis for a decision.

This policy is based on COPE’s position on authorship and AI tools and is part of the journal’s Research and Publication Ethics policy.