1. Scope and Definitions

This policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial staff, and other individuals involved in the submission, review, editing, production, and publication of content in IJVEA.

For the purpose of this policy, artificial intelligence tools include, but are not limited to:

• generative artificial intelligence systems;
• large language models;
• AI-assisted writing and rewriting tools;
• automated translation systems;
• AI-based image, audio, video, or diagram generators;
• automated coding assistants;
• AI-assisted data analysis and statistical tools;
• automated literature-search and summarization tools;
• AI-supported citation and reference-generation systems;
• machine-learning systems used as part of the research method.

Basic tools such as spelling correction, grammar checking, reference formatting, and standard word-processing functions may involve automated features. Their use does not normally require detailed disclosure when they do not generate substantive intellectual content or alter the meaning of the manuscript.

2. General Principles

IJVEA does not prohibit all uses of artificial intelligence. However, AI tools must not replace human scholarly responsibility, critical judgment, methodological transparency, ethical oversight, or accountability.

The use of AI must comply with the following principles:

• Human authors remain responsible for every part of the submitted manuscript.
• AI-generated content must not be presented as independently verified fact.
• Substantial AI assistance must be disclosed clearly.
• AI tools must not be used to fabricate, falsify, manipulate, or conceal research information.
• Confidential, personal, copyrighted, proprietary, or sensitive information must not be uploaded without appropriate authorization and safeguards.
• AI output must be checked for accuracy, bias, originality, attribution, and legal compliance.
• The use of AI must not mislead editors, reviewers, readers, or research participants.

3. Permitted Uses

Authors may use AI-assisted tools for legitimate supporting purposes, provided that the resulting manuscript remains accurate, original, transparent, and under meaningful human control.

The acceptability of an AI-assisted activity depends on its purpose, significance, transparency, data handling, and effect on the scholarly contribution. A nominally permitted tool may still be unacceptable when used deceptively or without adequate verification.

4. Disclosure Requirements

Authors must disclose substantial or methodologically relevant use of AI tools. Disclosure is required when AI has contributed materially to:

• drafting substantive manuscript content;
• rewriting or reorganizing arguments;
• generating research questions or hypotheses;
• developing code or algorithms;
• collecting, classifying, processing, or analyzing data;
• producing tables, figures, images, audio, video, or diagrams;
• summarizing or synthesizing literature;
• interpreting results;
• translating substantial portions of the manuscript;
• performing a research function described in the methodology.

4.1 Information to Be Disclosed

The disclosure should identify:

• the name of the AI tool or system;
• the provider or developer;
• the version or access date, when relevant;
• the purpose for which the tool was used;
• the manuscript sections or research stages affected;
• the human verification and revision performed;
• any relevant limitations or risks.

4.2 Placement of Disclosure

Depending on the type of use, disclosure may be placed in:

• the Methods section;
• the Acknowledgements section;
• a dedicated AI-use declaration;
• the cover letter;
• supplementary material;
• another location requested by the editorial office.

4.3 Example Disclosure Statement

4.4 Example Methodological Disclosure

Routine use of standard spelling, grammar, or formatting tools does not normally require detailed disclosure unless the tool materially generated or changed substantive scholarly content.

5. AI Authorship Prohibition

Artificial intelligence systems, chatbots, language models, and other automated tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors of manuscripts submitted to IJVEA.

An author must be able to:

• approve the final version of the manuscript;
• accept responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work;
• respond to questions about the research;
• disclose conflicts of interest;
• enter into publication and licensing agreements;
• be accountable for ethical or legal concerns;
• participate in corrections, investigations, or retractions.

An AI system cannot independently perform these responsibilities and therefore does not satisfy the criteria for authorship.

AI tools must also not be listed as:

• contributors with human-like responsibility;
• corresponding authors;
• copyright holders;
• institutional affiliations;
• sources of personal communication.

6. Author Accountability

Authors are fully responsible for all content submitted to IJVEA, including content produced, suggested, translated, summarized, analyzed, coded, or modified with AI assistance.

Authors must verify:

• the factual accuracy of statements;
• the validity of calculations and statistical outputs;
• the accuracy and existence of references;
• the originality of wording, ideas, and interpretations;
• the accuracy of tables, figures, code, and datasets;
• compliance with ethical approval and consent requirements;
• compliance with copyright, licensing, and attribution rules;
• the absence of confidential or personal information disclosed without authorization;
• the absence of fabricated or misleading content;
• the appropriateness of conclusions drawn from AI-assisted analysis.

Authors must not rely on a statement produced by an AI tool merely because it appears plausible, well written, technical, or confident.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors are informed about and agree with any disclosed use of AI.

7. Data, Content, and Reference Verification

7.1 Factual Verification

AI-generated statements must be verified against reliable primary or authoritative sources. AI output must not be treated as evidence in place of a verifiable scholarly source.

7.2 Reference Verification

Authors must verify every reference included in the manuscript. AI systems may generate:

• non-existent articles;
• incorrect author names;
• incorrect article titles;
• incorrect journal names;
• incorrect publication years;
• fabricated volume, issue, or page information;
• invalid DOI or URL information;
• citations that do not support the associated statement.

Authors must access and examine the original publication before including it as a reference. A citation generated by an AI tool must not be retained solely because it appears correctly formatted.

7.3 Data and Calculation Verification

AI-assisted calculations, classifications, predictions, code, and statistical outputs must be independently checked. Where appropriate, authors should report:

• input data and preprocessing;
• software and model specifications;
• parameters and prompts relevant to reproducibility;
• validation procedures;
• error analysis;
• human oversight;
• known model limitations.

7.4 Bias and Limitations

Authors must consider whether an AI system introduces bias, omission, distortion, or unequal performance across populations, languages, contexts, or data categories.

Material limitations that affect interpretation must be disclosed in the manuscript.

8. Image, Data, and Research Output Generation

8.1 Fabricated Research Data

AI tools must not be used to fabricate, falsify, or deceptively modify research data, participants, observations, measurements, interview responses, experimental results, survey responses, or statistical findings.

8.2 Synthetic Data

Synthetic data may be used only when it serves a legitimate and methodologically justified research purpose. Authors must disclose:

• that the data are synthetic;
• how the data were generated;
• which system or model was used;
• the parameters and source data, where applicable;
• the validation procedure;
• the limitations of using synthetic data;
• how synthetic and observed data are distinguished.

Synthetic data must never be presented as observations collected from real participants, experiments, institutions, or field settings.

8.3 AI-Generated or AI-Modified Images

AI-generated or materially AI-modified images must not be presented as authentic research evidence unless their generation is the explicit subject or method of the study and is transparently described.

Prohibited image practices include:

• creating fictional experimental results;
• adding or removing research-relevant objects;
• altering measurements, labels, scales, or visual patterns;
• concealing defects or contradictory evidence;
• presenting generated people or locations as real participants or field sites;
• misrepresenting simulations as observed evidence;
• using generated images without considering copyright and licensing requirements.

8.4 Illustrative Images and Diagrams

AI-generated illustrations, graphical concepts, or non-evidentiary diagrams may be considered when:

• their use is disclosed;
• they are clearly identified as illustrative;
• they do not misrepresent research evidence;
• their accuracy is verified;
• copyright and licensing requirements are satisfied;
• they comply with journal production standards.

8.5 Manipulation of Research Images

Adjustments to research images must be limited, applied consistently, and described when they may affect interpretation. AI-based enhancement must not introduce, remove, or alter features relevant to the findings.

9. Reviewer Confidentiality

Manuscripts received for peer review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not upload manuscript files, unpublished data, figures, tables, supplementary materials, author information, or confidential correspondence to public or third-party AI services without explicit authorization and adequate data-protection safeguards.

Uploading a manuscript to an AI service may expose confidential content to:

• external processing;
• temporary or permanent data retention;
• model training or service improvement;
• unauthorized human access;
• cross-border data transfer;
• security, privacy, or intellectual-property risks.

9.1 Reviewer Responsibility

Reviewers remain personally responsible for the content and quality of their review. They must not submit an automatically generated report without independently reading and evaluating the manuscript.

9.2 Permitted Reviewer Tools

A reviewer may use locally controlled or institutionally approved tools only when:

• the use complies with journal confidentiality requirements;
• the manuscript is not retained or used for model training;
• personal and confidential data are protected;
• the reviewer has appropriate authorization;
• the tool does not replace the reviewer's scholarly judgment.

When uncertain, reviewers should not use the AI service and should contact the editorial office for guidance.

10. Editor Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff must protect submitted manuscripts, reviewer identities, author identities, editorial correspondence, ethical allegations, unpublished data, and decision records.

Editors must not upload confidential editorial materials to an AI service unless:

• the service has been formally approved for that purpose;
• appropriate contractual and technical protections are in place;
• the use complies with privacy and data-protection requirements;
• manuscript content is not used for model training;
• access is limited to authorized individuals;
• the authors and reviewers are not exposed to inappropriate risk.

10.1 Editorial Decision-Making

AI tools must not independently decide whether a manuscript should be accepted, revised, rejected, corrected, or retracted.

Automated tools may support administrative or analytical tasks, but final editorial judgment must be exercised by a qualified human editor.

10.2 Ethical Investigations

Confidential allegations, similarity reports, raw data, and personal correspondence relating to an ethical investigation must not be entered into public AI tools without appropriate authorization and safeguards.

11. Prohibited Uses

IJVEA prohibits the use of AI for activities that deceive readers, compromise research integrity, violate confidentiality, or misrepresent the origin or validity of scholarly work.

12. Undisclosed or Misleading Use

Failure to disclose substantial AI use may be treated as a breach of publication ethics when the omission could mislead editors, reviewers, or readers about:

• who produced the intellectual content;
• how the research was conducted;
• how data were generated or analyzed;
• how figures or images were produced;
• how references were identified;
• the originality of the manuscript;
• the reproducibility of the study;
• the reliability of the reported findings.

The seriousness of an undisclosed use will be evaluated according to:

• the extent of AI involvement;
• the importance of the affected content;
• whether the content was verified;
• whether the omission appears intentional;
• whether the use affects validity, originality, or ethical compliance;
• whether fabricated or misleading information was produced;
• whether confidential or personal data were exposed.

Minor failure to disclose routine language assistance will not necessarily be treated in the same manner as concealing AI-generated data, analysis, references, research images, or substantive arguments.

13. Editorial Assessment and Actions

When potential misuse of AI is identified, the editorial office may apply the following procedure:

1. Document the concern. The editor records the content, source, allegation, or pattern that requires assessment.
2. Conduct an initial assessment. The editor evaluates whether the concern could affect accuracy, originality, confidentiality, authorship, or research integrity.
3. Request author clarification. The corresponding author may be asked to describe the AI tool, purpose, prompts, outputs, verification, and affected sections.
4. Request supporting materials. Authors may be asked to provide raw data, code, revision history, source files, reference records, image files, or methodological documentation.
5. Obtain expert assessment. The editor may consult subject, methodological, statistical, image-integrity, data-protection, or research-integrity experts.
6. Determine a proportionate action. The action will reflect the evidence, seriousness, intent, and effect on the scholarly record.

13.1 Possible Actions Before Publication

• requesting an AI-use disclosure;
• requiring correction or verification;
• requesting revision of affected content;
• requiring replacement or removal of generated material;
• requesting raw data, code, or source documentation;
• suspending peer review;
• rejecting the manuscript;
• withdrawing the manuscript from consideration;
• notifying the authors' institution in serious cases.

13.2 Possible Actions After Publication

• publishing a clarification;
• publishing a correction;
• adding or correcting an AI-use disclosure;
• publishing an expression of concern;
• retracting the article;
• notifying relevant institutions, funders, or authorities;
• restricting future submissions in cases of serious or repeated misconduct.

Editorial action will distinguish between routine assistance, honest error, inadequate disclosure, negligent verification, and deliberate fabrication or deception.