Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy
The Journal of Information and Learning (JIL) supports the responsible and transparent use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) under human oversight, subject to the following requirements.
1. Responsibility and authorship
Authors remain accountable for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all content, including text, data, figures, and references. They must check AI outputs for errors and bias. AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.
2. Permitted use
Authors may use GenAI to improve language, clarity, and translation of author-written text, and to create or format figures, including research conceptual frameworks, process diagrams, flowcharts, visual representations of research findings, and graphical abstracts. Visual content must accurately reflect the authors’ concepts, methods, and findings. Quantitative graphs and data visualisations must be derived from verifiable underlying research data through reproducible procedures.
3. Prohibited use and research applications
GenAI must not be used to write substantive manuscript content on the authors’ behalf, including the abstract and literature review; fabricate data, findings, or references; or falsify evidence. Synthetic images must not be presented as actual observations or experimental evidence. When AI forms part of the research methods or is itself an research instruments, its use and validation must be described in the Methods section in sufficient detail to support reproducibility.
4. Disclosure and verification
Authors must include a “Declaration of Generative AI”, identifying the tool or model, version where available, purpose, scope of use, and author verification. AI use in figures and graphical abstracts must also be disclosed in the respective captions. Relevant records must be retained and provided for editorial assessment upon request. Basic spelling or grammar checks that do not generate new content do not require disclosure.
5. Rights, privacy, and peer review
AI use must protect personal data, confidentiality, and intellectual property. Authors must check tool terms and secure the rights necessary for publication. Editors and reviewers must not upload manuscripts, any part thereof, or confidential peer-review information into GenAI tools, or use AI to replace their scholarly assessment or decision-making.
6. Compliance
Policy-compliant GenAI use is not, by itself, grounds for rejection. Suspected misuse will be investigated, with authors given an opportunity to respond before rejection, correction, or retraction is considered, as appropriate to the case. JIL will review this policy periodically in response to technological and publication-ethics developments.
Related policies and guidance
