Ai Policy

Artificial Intelligence Policy

This policy governs the use of generative artificial intelligence by authors, the editorial team, and reviewers of JOINMR. The principle is that artificial intelligence is a tool, not a responsible party. Responsibility for the content of a manuscript and for every editorial decision remains with people.

1. Artificial intelligence cannot be an author

AI tools do not meet authorship criteria: they cannot take responsibility for content, approve a final version, or answer questions about the accuracy of the work. AI tools must not be listed as an author or co-author.

2. Author obligations

  • Authors must disclose any use of artificial intelligence in the Declaration section, naming the tool, the version, and the task it assisted with, such as language editing, analysis code, or figure preparation.
  • Permitted use is limited to language assistance, tidying of text, and technical tasks that the authors verify themselves.
  • Prohibited: generating or altering data, results, figures, tables, or references; producing unverified statements; generating substantial portions of the manuscript without the authors' intellectual contribution.
  • Authors remain fully responsible for the whole manuscript, including any part produced with AI assistance, and for any violation arising from it.

3. Editorial team obligations

  • Editors must disclose to the Editor-in-Chief any use of artificial intelligence in editorial work, such as language checking or drafting internal summaries, and the use is recorded in the manuscript's editorial history.
  • Editors must not upload manuscripts, supporting files, author data, or review reports to public AI services, since manuscripts are confidential and uploading them breaches the authors' confidentiality.
  • Editorial decisions, including acceptance, revision and rejection, must be made by people. Artificial intelligence must not be used to make or draft decisions.

4. Prohibition for reviewers

  • Reviewers must not use artificial intelligence in any form to review a manuscript, including to summarise, assess, or draft the review report.
  • Reviewers must not upload a manuscript or any part of it to any AI service.
  • A reviewer who cannot review without AI assistance must decline the assignment.
  • Breach of this rule results in removal from the reviewer list and notification of the reviewer's institution.

5. Detection and sanctions

The editorial office may screen manuscripts with machine-generated-text detection tools as one input among others, never as sole evidence. Undisclosed use of artificial intelligence is treated as a breach of academic integrity under the Publication Ethics policy: the manuscript is rejected before publication, or corrected and retracted after publication.

Model statements

Artificial intelligence statement: The authors used [tool name, version] to assist with language editing in the introduction and discussion. All data, analysis, interpretation and references were produced and verified by the authors, who take full responsibility for the content.

Or, where none was used: The authors declare that no generative artificial intelligence tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.