Policies on the Use of Artificial intelligence in the New Marketing Research Journal, University of Isfahan
The New Marketing Research Journal at the University of Isfahan, committed to upholding scientific integrity and promoting transparency in the publication process, has established the following policies regarding the use of artificial intelligence technologies. These guidelines have been developed in accordance with international standards and ethical publication requirements, and compliance is mandatory for all authors, reviewers, and editors.
Authors bear full responsibility for the originality, accuracy, and scientific validity of their work and must ensure that the manuscript adheres to all ethical guidelines of the journal. This responsibility extends to any content produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools. Prior to submission, authors are required to review and validate all outputs generated by such tools for accuracy, proper scientific attribution, and absence of bias. The use of artificial intelligence in no way diminishes the author's ultimate responsibility for the content of the manuscript.
The use of artificial intelligence tools is permitted solely for enhancing writing quality, language editing, content organization, or preliminary literature review. However, artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as an author or co-author of the manuscript, as fulfilling authorship requirements—such as accepting legal responsibility, managing conflicts of interest, or signing copyright agreements—is exclusively within the capacity of humans.
Before utilizing any artificial intelligence tool, authors must review its terms and conditions concerning data privacy and the intellectual property rights of their scientific content. The use of tools that may gain unauthorized access to the manuscript's content or use it for training their models is prohibited.
If authors have used artificial intelligence tools, such as large language models or chatbots, to generate or edit any part of the manuscript, they are obligated to transparently disclose this. The disclosure regarding the use of artificial intelligence must be included in a separate section titled "Artificial Intelligence Disclosure Statement" at the end of the manuscript, preceding the reference list. This statement must precisely detail the following:
Note: The use of tools solely for spelling and grammar checking or common text editing software does not require disclosure.
The use of generative artificial intelligence technologies to create, modify, or manipulate images, figures, diagrams, and other visual elements of the manuscript is not permitted. Any alteration of images, such as enhancing quality, removing, or adding visual elements using artificial intelligence, is prohibited. Basic and routine adjustments, such as modifying brightness or contrast, are acceptable provided they do not lead to the distortion of scientific information.
The sole exception to this rule is when the use of artificial intelligence for generating or analyzing images constitutes an integral part of the research methodology. In such cases, authors must provide a comprehensive explanation of this process in the "Methods" section and, upon request by the journal, submit the original, unprocessed versions of the images.
Reviewers of the journal are obligated to maintain the complete confidentiality of received manuscripts. Uploading the full text or portions of a manuscript into artificial intelligence tools for any purpose, including summarization, analysis, or language improvement, constitutes a breach of confidentiality and is strictly prohibited. Preparing a review report with the assistance of artificial intelligence is also not permitted, as the peer review process requires specialized judgment, critical analysis, and original evaluation that can only be performed by humans. The reviewer bears full responsibility for the content of their report and must prepare it directly, without the intermediary of artificial intelligence tools.
Editors and members of the editorial team are also required to maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and related correspondence. The use of artificial intelligence tools for analyzing, evaluating, or making decisions on manuscripts is not permitted. All stages of the review process and final editorial decisions must be based on independent human judgment, informed by reviewer reports and the journal's policies. In the event of suspected violations of these artificial intelligence policies by authors or reviewers, the editor shall pursue the matter through the established channels.
The New Marketing Research Journal is committed to updating these policies in accordance with international developments and the standards of publication ethics.