The Interdisciplinary Journal of Education (IJE) recognizes that generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI) and AI-assisted technologies are increasingly used in research, academic writing, data analysis, scholarly communication, and publishing workflows.

IJE supports the responsible use of such technologies when their use is transparent, ethically appropriate, consistent with research integrity, and subject to meaningful human oversight.

This policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and other persons involved in the journal's publication process. It is intended to protect scholarly integrity, confidentiality, intellectual property, privacy, accountability, and trust in the published record.

Because AI technologies and associated standards continue to evolve, IJE may review and update this policy periodically in response to developments in scholarly publishing, research ethics, technology, and applicable legal requirements.

A. Policy for Authors

1. Responsible Use of AI

Authors may use Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies as supportive tools during manuscript preparation or research, provided that such use does not replace the authors' own scholarly analysis, interpretation, reasoning, expertise, or intellectual contribution.

Permissible supportive uses may include, subject to appropriate verification and disclosure where required:

• language and readability improvement;
• organization of manuscript structure;
• support for literature exploration;
• idea generation and preliminary conceptual exploration;
• coding or computational assistance;
• data-processing assistance;
• translation assistance; and
• other research-support tasks consistent with ethical and legal requirements.

2. Human Responsibility and Verification

Authors remain fully responsible for every element of the manuscript, including content produced or modified with AI assistance.

Authors must independently verify:

• factual accuracy;
• the validity of interpretations and conclusions;
• the existence and accuracy of cited references;
• statistical or computational outputs;
• quotations and source attribution;
• potential bias or misleading statements;
• the originality of submitted content; and
• compliance with applicable ethical and legal requirements.

3. AI Cannot Be an Author

Generative AI systems, chatbots, large language models, AI agents, and other AI-assisted technologies must not be listed as authors or co-authors.

Authorship requires responsibilities that can only be assumed by humans, including accountability for the integrity of the work, approval of the final manuscript, disclosure of competing interests, and responsibility for responding to questions concerning the accuracy or ethics of the research.

4. Disclosure of AI Use

Authors must disclose substantive use of Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies when such tools materially contributed to manuscript preparation, research design, data processing, analysis, interpretation, coding, translation, visualization, or other research-related activities.

The disclosure should identify:

• the name of the tool or system;
• the purpose for which it was used;
• the stage of the research or manuscript process in which it was used;
• the nature or extent of the AI assistance; and
• confirmation that the authors reviewed and take responsibility for the final content.

5. Minor Language Assistance

Basic spelling, grammar, punctuation, formatting, or similar low-level language assistance does not normally require a separate AI disclosure when it does not materially generate or alter the scholarly content of the manuscript.

However, authors must disclose AI use when a tool substantively generates, restructures, summarizes, interprets, translates, or otherwise materially influences scholarly content.

6. AI Used as Part of the Research Method

When AI forms part of the research design, data collection, analysis, intervention, experimental procedure, educational technology, or other methodological component, its use must be described transparently in the Methods section.

Where relevant, authors should report:

• the tool or model name;
• version or release information where available;
• provider or developer;
• purpose of use;
• input or prompt procedures where methodologically relevant;
• human verification or validation procedures;
• limitations and potential sources of bias; and
• other information necessary to support reproducibility and interpretation.

7. Prohibited Uses

AI tools must not be used to fabricate or falsify scholarly content. Prohibited practices include, but are not limited to:

• fabricating research participants;
• inventing or altering data without legitimate methodological justification;
• fabricating references or DOIs;
• creating false quotations;
• inventing ethical approval or informed consent;
• misrepresenting research findings;
• concealing plagiarism or inappropriate text reuse;
• creating deceptive evidence;
• impersonating real participants, researchers, reviewers, or institutions; and
• using AI to manipulate the peer-review or editorial process.

8. Privacy, Confidentiality, and Research Data

Authors must protect confidential, sensitive, proprietary, and personally identifiable information when using AI tools.

Before entering research data, unpublished manuscripts, participant information, interview transcripts, student records, institutional records, or other protected material into an AI system, authors must ensure that such use is permitted by:

• research ethics approval;
• participant consent where applicable;
• institutional policy;
• data-protection requirements;
• copyright and confidentiality obligations; and
• the terms and privacy conditions of the AI service.

Sensitive or confidential data should not be uploaded to public AI systems when the authors cannot ensure appropriate protection against storage, reuse, disclosure, or model training.

9. Intellectual Property and Copyright

Authors must ensure that AI-assisted use does not infringe copyright, intellectual property, licensing terms, confidentiality obligations, privacy rights, or other rights of third parties.

Authors remain responsible for determining whether generated or modified content may legally and ethically be published under the journal's licensing conditions.

10. AI-Generated or AI-Altered Images and Figures

Generative AI must not be used to fabricate, manipulate, obscure, remove, or introduce features in research images, figures, or other visual evidence in a manner that misrepresents the underlying data.

AI-assisted image processing may be acceptable when it is a legitimate part of the research methodology, provided that its use is fully disclosed, methodologically justified, and sufficiently documented.

Minor global adjustments that do not alter the meaning or integrity of the underlying information may be permitted in accordance with normal image-preparation standards.

AI-generated illustrative artwork that does not constitute research data may be considered only when its provenance, rights, purpose, and AI involvement are transparently disclosed and its use does not mislead readers.

B. Policy for Peer Reviewers

11. Confidentiality of Manuscripts

A manuscript provided for peer review is a confidential scholarly document.

Reviewers must not upload the manuscript, substantial manuscript content, unpublished data, supplementary files, author correspondence, or other confidential submission material to publicly accessible Generative AI services.

The same confidentiality obligation applies to reviewer reports and editorial correspondence.

12. Human Responsibility for Peer Review

Reviewers must personally undertake the scholarly evaluation of manuscripts.

AI must not replace the reviewer's own critical analysis, subject expertise, methodological judgment, ethical assessment, or recommendation.

Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, fairness, quality, confidentiality, and integrity of their review reports.

13. Limited Supportive Use

AI-assisted tools may be used for limited supportive tasks only when confidentiality and data protection are preserved and no confidential manuscript content is disclosed to an unauthorized third-party system.

Where substantive AI assistance is used in preparing a review report, the reviewer should disclose the tool and purpose to the editor. Basic spelling and grammar checks do not normally require disclosure.

C. Policy for Editors

14. Confidentiality in Editorial Handling

Editors must treat submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, author correspondence, decision letters, unpublished data, and other editorial records as confidential.

Editors must not upload confidential submission materials into public Generative AI systems where confidentiality, data retention, reuse, ownership, or model-training practices cannot be appropriately controlled.

15. AI and Editorial Decision-Making

Editorial decisions must remain under human control.

AI systems must not independently determine whether a manuscript should be accepted, revised, rejected, or sent for peer review.

Editors remain fully responsible for:

• scope assessment;
• reviewer selection;
• evaluation of reviewer reports;
• management of competing interests;
• publication-ethics decisions;
• interpretation of similarity or integrity reports; and
• final editorial decisions.

16. Automated and AI-Assisted Editorial Tools

IJE may use legitimate software or automated tools to support administrative or editorial functions such as:

• similarity screening;
• metadata checking;
• format or completeness checks;
• reference validation;
• language-support functions;
• workflow management; or
• other non-decisional editorial support.

The use of such tools does not replace human editorial judgment. IJE will not claim that a particular AI system, proprietary technology, or responsible-AI framework is used unless that claim is accurate and can be verified.

D. AI in the Publication Process

17. Human Oversight

Any AI-assisted technology used in the journal's operational workflow must remain subject to appropriate human oversight.

The journal will not delegate responsibility for editorial integrity, ethical assessment, peer-review decisions, corrections, retractions, or other substantive publication decisions to an AI system.

18. Transparency

Where AI materially contributes to published scholarly content or to a substantive research process, its use should be disclosed clearly enough for readers to understand the role of the technology.

Where AI tools are used only for routine administrative, technical, or non-substantive functions, disclosure in individual articles is not necessarily required.

19. Suspected Misuse of AI

If the editors receive credible evidence that AI has been used in a manner that compromises research integrity, confidentiality, authorship accountability, peer-review integrity, copyright, privacy, or the reliability of the scholarly record, the matter may be investigated under the journal's Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement.

Depending on the circumstances, editorial action may include:

• requesting clarification or disclosure;
• requesting revision or supporting documentation;
• rejecting a manuscript;
• suspending editorial consideration;
• publishing a correction;
• issuing an expression of concern;
• retracting an article where warranted; or
• taking other proportionate action necessary to protect the scholarly record.