AI Policy

Journal of Public Administration and Policy Studies (JPAPS) recognizes the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in academic research and scholarly communication. This policy establishes standards for the responsible, transparent, and ethical use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies by authors, reviewers, and editors.

The use of AI must not compromise academic integrity, originality, research reliability, confidentiality, intellectual property, or human accountability. Human authors, reviewers, and editors remain fully responsible for their respective roles throughout the publication process.

1. Use of AI by Authors

Authors may use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies as supporting tools in the preparation of a manuscript, provided that such use does not replace the authors' intellectual contribution, scholarly judgment, critical analysis, interpretation, or responsibility for the work.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and reliability of all content submitted to JPAPS, including any content developed with the assistance of AI tools.

Authors must carefully review and verify AI-assisted output before including it in a manuscript. AI-generated information may contain inaccuracies, biases, fabricated statements, or nonexistent references. Authors are responsible for ensuring that all factual claims, citations, and references are accurate and verifiable.

Generative AI must not be used to fabricate, falsify, or manipulate research data, findings, interview responses, survey responses, documents, evidence, references, or other research materials.

2. Disclosure of AI Use

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies when such tools have made a substantive contribution to the preparation or conduct of the research or manuscript.

Disclosure is required when AI tools are used for purposes such as substantive drafting or rewriting, summarization, translation that materially affects the manuscript, coding or data analysis, generation or modification of research-related content, or other activities that meaningfully contribute to the manuscript.

Basic tools used only for conventional spelling, grammar, punctuation, or formatting checks do not normally require disclosure.

Where disclosure is required, authors should provide the name of the AI tool, the purpose for which it was used, and confirmation that the authors reviewed and verified the resulting content and accept full responsibility for the final manuscript.

A disclosure may use the following format:

Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies
During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [name of AI tool/service] for [purpose of use]. The author(s) subsequently reviewed, verified, and edited the output as necessary and take full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and content of the manuscript.

When AI or machine-learning technologies constitute part of the research methodology itself, their use must be described transparently in the appropriate methodological section of the manuscript, including sufficient information to enable readers to understand their role in the research.

3. AI and Authorship

Artificial intelligence tools, large language models, chatbots, and other non-human technologies cannot be listed as authors or co-authors of articles published in JPAPS.

Authorship requires intellectual responsibility, accountability for the integrity of the work, approval of the final manuscript, and responsibility for responding to questions concerning the accuracy or integrity of the research. These responsibilities can only be attributed to human authors.

AI tools must therefore not be included in the author list or treated as responsible scholarly contributors.

4. AI-Generated References and Sources

Authors must not rely on AI-generated references without independently verifying them against authentic and accessible scholarly sources.

Fabricated, nonexistent, inaccurate, or misleading references generated by AI constitute a serious breach of scholarly integrity.

Authors are fully responsible for ensuring that every source cited in a manuscript exists, is accurately represented, and is relevant to the argument or evidence presented.

5. AI in Research Data and Evidence

AI must not be used to create artificial data, participant responses, interview transcripts, survey responses, documentary evidence, or empirical findings and present them as authentic research data.

Where synthetic data or AI-generated materials are legitimately used as part of a research design, simulation, experiment, methodological investigation, or other scholarly purpose, their nature and use must be explicitly identified and adequately explained in the manuscript.

Authors must ensure that the use of AI technologies complies with applicable requirements concerning research ethics, data protection, privacy, informed consent, confidentiality, and intellectual property.

6. Confidentiality, Privacy, and Intellectual Property

Authors must exercise particular caution when using external AI systems with unpublished research materials, confidential information, personal data, sensitive information, interview transcripts, administrative records, or copyrighted materials.

Authors must not upload confidential, restricted, personally identifiable, or sensitive research materials to AI systems unless such use is legally and ethically permissible and appropriate safeguards are in place.

Authors are responsible for reviewing the terms, privacy practices, and data-use policies of any AI service used during the research or manuscript preparation process.

7. Use of AI by Reviewers

JPAPS requires peer review to be conducted through the independent scholarly judgment of qualified human reviewers.

Reviewers are not permitted to use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies to conduct, replace, or generate the substantive peer review of manuscripts submitted to JPAPS.

Reviewers must not upload a submitted manuscript, any part of a manuscript, supplementary materials, unpublished data, review forms, editorial correspondence, or other confidential information into generative AI systems.

All manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. Reviewers are personally responsible for the analysis, assessment, recommendations, and comments contained in their review reports.

The use of AI must not replace the reviewer's expertise, critical reasoning, scholarly judgment, or responsibility for evaluating a manuscript.

8. Use of AI by Editors

Editors must preserve the confidentiality, independence, and integrity of the editorial process.

Editors must not upload submitted manuscripts, unpublished research materials, reviewer reports, author correspondence, or other confidential editorial information into publicly accessible generative AI systems.

Generative AI must not be used to replace editorial judgment or to make decisions concerning manuscript acceptance, rejection, revision, reviewer evaluation, or other substantive editorial matters.

All editorial decisions must remain under the responsibility and independent judgment of qualified human editors.

9. AI-Assisted Research Methods

JPAPS does not prohibit legitimate scholarly research involving artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, computational methods, automated text analysis, or related technologies.

When AI constitutes part of the research method rather than merely a writing aid, authors must describe its use sufficiently in the manuscript. Where relevant, this should include the tool or model used, its function in the study, procedures for validation and human oversight, and limitations that may affect interpretation of the findings.

The use of AI as a research method does not reduce the authors' responsibility for methodological rigor, data integrity, ethical compliance, and the validity of conclusions.

10. Violations of the AI Policy

Failure to disclose substantive AI use, fabrication of information or references through AI, inappropriate use of AI-generated research materials, unauthorized disclosure of confidential manuscripts to AI systems, or other misuse of AI may constitute a violation of JPAPS publication ethics.

Where a potential violation is identified, JPAPS may investigate the matter in accordance with its Publication Ethics policy and relevant standards of scholarly publishing.

Depending on the nature and severity of the violation, appropriate action may include requesting clarification or correction, rejection of a submitted manuscript, correction of the published record, retraction, or other editorial action.

11. Policy Review and Updates

Artificial intelligence technologies and standards for their use in scholarly publishing continue to evolve. JPAPS may periodically review and update this AI Policy to reflect developments in publication ethics, academic integrity, applicable regulations, and internationally recognized scholarly publishing practices.