AI Policies

Artificial Intelligence Policies

The Journal of Social Continuity and Change (JSCC) recognizes the growing role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in academic research and scholarly publishing. To uphold research integrity, safeguard intellectual property, and ensure ethical accountability, the following principles have been adopted by the journal to regulate the integration of AI tools by authors, reviewers, and editors.

 

1. Fundamental Principles and Core Ethical Commitments

  1. AI is Not an Author: Artificial intelligence tools do not possess the ethical and legal qualifications required to be listed as authors, as they cannot accept ethical or legal responsibility for the work.
  2. Transparency is Paramount: Any use of AI in writing, editing, or data analysis must be disclosed in the manuscript, detailing the tool's name, version, date of use, and specific purpose.
  3. Human Responsibility: Various AI models serve merely as assisting tools to enhance research quality, accuracy, and efficiency. This technology is by no means a substitute for critical thinking, creativity, scientific analysis, and human judgment. Therefore, submitting manuscripts with AI-generated content without rigorous human verification, evaluation, and revision is unacceptable; full responsibility for the scientific and ethical integrity of the content rests with human users.
  4. Confidentiality is a Non-Negotiable Boundary: Uploading unpublished manuscripts or raw data—which may contain personal or sensitive participant information—to public AI platforms (by either authors or reviewers) is strictly prohibited.
  5. Human Evaluation is Essential: Peer review and final decision-making must be carried out exclusively by human reviewers and editors.

 

2. Duties and Obligations of Authors

  • Permitted Scope of Use: Authors are permitted to use AI solely to enhance sentence flow, edit language for text they independently drafted, conduct preliminary brainstorming, summarize literature, or assist with coding (under their complete supervision and review).
  • Self-Declaration and AI Disclosure: Authors are obligated to report the details of AI usage in the Methods section as well as under the Ethical Considerations section.
  • Standard Citation: If ideas are adapted or tools are utilized, both in-text citations and reference list entries must comply with academic standards (such as APA).
    • In-text citation example: (OpenAI, 2024)
    • Reference list example: OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT (Version 4) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com
  • Prohibition of Fabricated Visuals and Data: Generating fake data or experimental results, manipulating data, fabricating references/citations, and creating fraudulent images or charts using AI explicitly constitute research misconduct.

 

3. Duties and Obligations of Peer Reviewers

  • Preserving Manuscript Confidentiality: Reviewers are strictly prohibited from uploading submitted manuscripts, tables, or abstracts to public AI platforms, as this violates confidentiality protocols and infringes upon the authors' intellectual property rights.
  • Independent Human Evaluation: Reviewers must not delegate drafting review reports or making decisions regarding manuscript quality to AI; scientific judgment and critical evaluation must be conducted directly by human reviewers.
  • Monitoring Author Disclosure: Reviewers are requested to verify whether authors have transparently disclosed their use of AI within the manuscript.

 

4. Duties and Obligations of the Editorial Board

  • Authenticity of Decision-Making: The editorial team must not assign final decisions regarding manuscript acceptance or rejection, scientific analysis, or drafting evaluation summaries to AI tools.
  • Safeguarding Journal Files: Uploading manuscripts under review to online AI systems for review or summarization by the journal editors is strictly prohibited.
  • Fair Assessment and Right to Defense: When using AI detection tools, software outputs alone do not constitute definitive proof of misconduct; the journal is committed to conducting a comprehensive evidence review and providing authors with a fair right to defense.