Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

The Asian Journal of Information Science and Technology (AJIST) requires transparency, human accountability, confidentiality, and research integrity in the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and AI-assisted tools. This policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, and other individuals involved in manuscript preparation, peer review, editorial assessment, and publication.

1. AI Use by Authors

Authors may use GenAI or AI-assisted tools for limited assistive purposes such as language refinement, organisation of text, coding assistance, data-visualisation support, or other clearly disclosed research-support tasks. Such use must not replace the authors' scholarly judgement, verification, interpretation, or responsibility for the work.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, references, permissions, analysis, interpretation, conclusions, and overall integrity of the manuscript, regardless of whether AI-assisted tools were used.

2. AI Authorship Prohibition

AI tools, large language models, chatbots, or other non-human systems must not be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship requires human responsibility and accountability for the submitted and published work, which an AI system cannot assume.

3. Disclosure Requirements

Substantive use of GenAI or AI-assisted tools must be disclosed in the manuscript or accompanying declarations. The disclosure must identify the tool used and describe its purpose sufficiently for editors and readers to understand how it contributed to the work.

Routine spelling or grammar checking that does not generate substantive content need not be disclosed unless disclosure is specifically required by the journal's submission system.

4. AI-Generated Images, Data, References, and Research Content

Authors must not use AI tools to fabricate, falsify, or manipulate research data, results, images, references, quotations, or evidence.

AI-generated references, quotations, factual claims, or other research content must not be included without verification against reliable original sources. Authors remain responsible for any plagiarism, copyright infringement, confidentiality breach, bias, error, misleading content, or research-integrity problem arising from AI-assisted work.

Where AI-assisted tools are used in the preparation or processing of figures, images, visualisations, code, or data-related outputs, the resulting material must accurately represent the underlying research and must not create, remove, obscure, or alter information in a misleading manner.

5. AI Use by Reviewers

Peer review must remain a human responsibility. Reviewers must exercise their own scholarly judgement and remain responsible for the content and recommendations of their review reports.

Reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, figures, supplementary files, reviewer reports, author information, or other confidential editorial material to publicly accessible GenAI systems or to AI services whose data-handling terms may allow retention, reuse, training, disclosure, or other processing that could compromise confidentiality.

6. AI Use by Editors

Editorial assessment and publication decisions must remain human decisions. Editors may not delegate acceptance, rejection, reviewer selection, ethical judgement, or other substantive editorial decisions to an AI system.

Editors must protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and editorial correspondence and must not upload unpublished manuscripts, reviewer reports, confidential author information, or internal editorial material to public GenAI systems or other AI services whose terms could compromise confidentiality.

7. Confidentiality of Manuscripts Uploaded to AI Systems

Unpublished manuscripts and related editorial materials are confidential. Authors, reviewers, editors, and journal staff must consider the confidentiality, data-retention, reuse, and disclosure terms of any AI service before entering manuscript-related content into that service.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscript or peer-review material to publicly accessible AI systems. Authors must also avoid submitting confidential third-party information, personal or sensitive data, copyrighted material, or other restricted content to AI systems where doing so would breach legal, ethical, contractual, privacy, or confidentiality obligations.

8. Human Accountability and Verification

Use of AI does not reduce or transfer responsibility. Authors are responsible for verifying all AI-assisted content before submission. Reviewers are responsible for the integrity and independence of their assessments. Editors are responsible for editorial decisions and for ensuring that journal standards, peer-review confidentiality, and research integrity are maintained.

9. Non-Compliance

Failure to comply with this policy may be treated as a publication-ethics concern and assessed under AJIST's Publication Ethics & Publication Malpractice Statement and Post-Publication and Accountability procedures. Appropriate action will depend on the nature and seriousness of the concern.