AI Plagiarism

Generative AI Policy

Genderang Asa: Journal of Primary Education recognizes that generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies can support authors, editors, and reviewers in scholarly publishing. However, these technologies also pose risks to accuracy, originality, confidentiality, authorship, research integrity, and accountability.

The journal therefore permits the responsible and transparent use of generative AI, on the principle that all scholarly and editorial responsibility rests with the humans involved. AI cannot replace the intellectual judgment, ethical responsibility, or accountability of authors, editors, or reviewers.

This policy applies to any AI system capable of generating or substantially modifying text, images, code, data interpretations, summaries, references, or other scholarly content.

  1. Policy for Authors

Permitted Use

Authors may use AI tools for limited purposes that do not replace their intellectual contribution, such as:

  1. Improving grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and readability;
  2. Translating text;
  3. Assisting with formatting and general organization of the manuscript;
  4. Suggesting improvements to the presentation of ideas developed by the authors;
  5. Assisting with coding, provided the authors independently verify the output.

Use Requiring Particular Care

AI-generated content may be inaccurate, fabricated, incomplete, or misleading. Authors must independently verify all AI-assisted material before submission, particularly factual statements, calculations, statistical analyses, methodology, interpretations, conclusions, citations, references, tables, figures, and code.

Prohibited Use

Authors must not use AI to:

  1. Fabricate or falsify data, results, statistics, references, citations, or quotations;
  2. Present AI-generated material as independently verified research findings;
  3. Conceal substantial AI contributions;
  4. Plagiarize or reproduce copyrighted or confidential material without permission;
  5. Manipulate images or figures in ways that misrepresent research evidence;
  6. Submit AI-generated content without adequate human review and verification.

Authorship

AI tools, including large language models (LLMs), cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship requires human accountability; AI cannot take responsibility for the work, approve the final version, respond to queries, or declare conflicts of interest.

Disclosure of AI Use

Authors must disclose any substantive use of AI that contributes to the development, modification, analysis, or presentation of content beyond routine language editing. The disclosure should state the name of the tool, its purpose, the parts of the manuscript involved, and the extent of human review. It may be placed in the Acknowledgments, Methods, or a dedicated AI declaration section. Routine use for spelling, grammar, or readability does not require formal disclosure.

Confidential Information and Personal Data

Authors must not enter confidential, unpublished, proprietary, personal, or otherwise sensitive information, such as unpublished datasets or research participant data, into external AI systems without appropriate authorization and safeguards.

  1. Policy for Editors

Editors may use AI for limited administrative or technical tasks, such as refining routine correspondence, checking language in non-confidential communications, and general formatting, provided confidentiality, fairness, and independence are maintained.

  • Confidentiality: Editors must not upload manuscripts, data, figures, review reports, author or reviewer identities, or editorial correspondence to external AI systems.
  • Editorial decisions: AI must not independently determine whether a manuscript is rejected, sent for review, accepted, returned for revision, or assigned to reviewers. All decisions must be based on the editor's own professional judgment.
  • Assessing AI-generated content: AI-detection scores must not be treated as conclusive evidence of misconduct, given the risk of false positives and negatives. Suspected violations must be assessed using multiple forms of evidence and communicated to the authors for clarification.
  • Accountability: Editors remain fully responsible for all substantive editorial decisions and communications.
  1. Policy for Reviewers
  • Confidentiality: Reviewers must not upload, copy, or disclose any part of a manuscript, including its data, figures, review comments, or author information, to external AI systems.
  • Permitted use: Reviewers may use AI only to improve the grammar, clarity, or readability of review comments they have written themselves.
  • Prohibited use: Reviewers must not use AI to generate review reports, replace their own critical assessment, produce recommendations without evaluation, fabricate critiques, or attempt to identify anonymized authors.
  • Independent assessment: Reviewers must personally evaluate a manuscript's relevance, originality, methodology, contribution, validity, and ethical aspects.
  • Suspected AI misuse: Reviewers must not treat AI-detection results as conclusive and should report concerns factually to the editor.
  • Data protection: Information obtained during review must not be used for personal research, competitive advantage, or commercial purposes.
  1. Research Integrity and Human Responsibility

The use of AI does not alter the journal's requirements on research integrity. All parties remain bound by the journal's policies on plagiarism, fabrication and falsification, authorship, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, copyright, ethical approval, and responsible peer review. Authors, editors, and reviewers remain fully accountable for content accuracy, citation integrity, confidentiality, and ethical compliance. The journal may request clarification regarding AI use whenever necessary to safeguard research integrity.

  1. Policy Enforcement

Where inappropriate AI use is suspected, the journal may request explanations, supporting evidence, or clarification of the work process. If AI use involves misconduct, such as plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, or copyright infringement, the journal may:

  • Request formal correction or clarification;
  • Reconsider or reject the manuscript during the editorial process;
  • Take post-publication action, including issuing a correction or retracting the article.
  1. Policy Review

This policy will be reviewed and updated periodically in line with developments in generative AI, scholarly publishing standards, and international publication ethics guidelines.