Generative AI policies

Palestine Ahliya University recognizes both the opportunities that generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (AI tools) offer researchers and the challenges they raise for research integrity, transparency, and accountability. This policy is informed by the practices of major international publishers as well as the COPE position statement on AI tools and authorship and the STM white paper on generative AI in scholarly communications.

Governing principle: AI tools are assistive; they are never a substitute for human critical thinking, expertise, and scholarly judgement. Full responsibility for everything submitted to the journal — text, data, figures, and references — remains human and non-delegable.

Scope: This policy applies to all submission types (original research, review studies, thesis and dissertation abstracts, book reviews, conference proceedings) and to all parties in the editorial process: authors, reviewers, academic editors, and the editorial office.

Definitions. Generative AI (GenAI):

• Systems that produce new content (text, images, audio, code, synthetic data) in response to prompts — e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, DALL·E.
• AI-assisted technologies: tools supporting specific tasks such as language improvement, summarization, structuring, literature search, or deep research agents.
• Private tool: a tool whose terms explicitly state that inputs are not retained beyond what is necessary to provide the service, are not used to train or improve models, and are not shared with third parties.

For Authors

Authors may use AI tools when preparing a manuscript for tasks such as organizing and structuring content, improving language and readability, assisting with literature searches and gap identification, checking the manuscript against submission guidelines, and translating between Arabic and English. All such use must remain under direct human oversight and must never replace the author's own intellectual contribution.

Authors are responsible and accountable for the content of their work, including:

1. Verifying the accuracy, comprehensiveness, and impartiality of all AI-generated output, and checking every cited reference against its original source. AI tools frequently produce incorrect or entirely fabricated references; submitting fabricated references is treated by the journal as a serious breach of publication ethics.
2. Substantively editing and adapting any AI-assisted material so that the manuscript represents the author's own authentic analysis, interpretation, and insight. The Journal sets no percentage threshold and does not treat AI-detection scores as evidence of compliance or misconduct. "Substantive" refers to intellectual control, not to how much wording was changed. Authors must be able to show, on request, that they verified all AI-assisted claims and citations against primary sources, made the analytical decisions themselves, and can explain and defend any passage in their own terms without reference to the tool. Reworded text whose reasoning and conclusions remain the tool's does not meet this standard.
3. Making the use of any tool transparent to readers through a disclosure statement at submission.
4. Safeguarding data privacy and intellectual property by reviewing the terms of any tool before entering content into it.

Responsible use

Authors must review the privacy policy and terms of service of any tool, ensure the confidentiality of their data and unpublished manuscripts, and take particular care with personally identifiable data. Authors must confirm that they grant the tool only the right to use their material in order to provide the service — and no other rights, including the right to train on that material — and that the tool imposes no constraints on its outputs that would prevent subsequent publication. Outputs must be checked for factual errors and potential bias, especially on socially, culturally, or politically sensitive topics.

Disclosure

Authors must disclose the use of AI tools in a separate declaration included in the manuscript at submission; this statement will appear in the published article. The disclosure must state the tool name, version, developer, purpose of use, and the extent of author oversight.

Section title: Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the manuscript preparation process

Statement: During the preparation of this work, the author(s) used [TOOL NAME / VERSION / DEVELOPER] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article.

Placement: immediately before the reference list.

No declaration is required for: basic grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting checks; and AI features within disability-related assistive technology used solely for accessibility.

Declaration is required for: any intervention that substantively changes sentence structure or the organization of part of the text; machine translation of any part of the manuscript; and generation or optimization of code forming part of the study.

Use within research methods: where AI tools form part of the research design or methodology (data collection, analysis, classification, predictive modelling, content analysis), the use must be described reproducibly in the Methods section, including model name, version, developer, and the prompts used or appended.

Authorship

AI tools and large language models must not be listed as authors or co-authors, nor cited as authors. Authorship entails responsibilities only humans can carry: approving the final version, being accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work, and ensuring originality and non-infringement of third-party rights. AI tools may be mentioned only in the acknowledgements or the disclosure statement.

Examples

Appropriate (with disclosure where required): refining the wording of text written by the author; translating the author's own text; organizing manuscript structure; assisting a literature search that the author then verifies; checking completeness against guidelines; assisting with certain explanatory images (see The use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork).

Inappropriate: generating manuscript sections without genuine intellectual contribution; fabricating or altering data, results, or references; generating or altering images that represent research results; attributing claims to sources the author has not read; uploading confidential or personal data to public tools.

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork

AI tools may be used to create images only in specific circumstances; the rules differ by image category.

Explanatory images

Images illustrating concepts, processes, or relationships (flow charts, decision trees, timelines, schematic conceptual illustrations, experimental workflow diagrams).

AI tools may be used. The principles of responsible use, human oversight, transparency, disclosure, and authorship apply. Use must be disclosed in the caption of each image (specific tool, version, and how it was used) and in the general AI disclosure statement.

Research and data images

1. Data visualizations — outputs derived from datasets through analytical, computational, or statistical workflows (plots, charts, graphs, heatmaps).

AI tools must not be used to fabricate results, invent or alter underlying data, or generate figures not faithfully derived from the underlying data and methods.

AI tools may support the creation of data visualizations only where the visual output is directly derived from the underlying data via reproducible methods clearly reported in the Methods section. The model or tool name, version, and developer must be disclosed in the Methods section. The journal may request documentation of AI use and the original, unprocessed images for editorial assessment.

1. Primary research images — images representing primary observed or experimental data (microscopy, histology, western blots, radiology scans, patient images, and field or documentary photographs in humanities and social science research).

The use of generative AI to create, augment, enhance, reconstruct, denoise, or otherwise alter these images is prohibited without exception, including for material presented only in supplementary files. Standard instrument settings and uniform adjustments to brightness, contrast, or colour balance applied to the whole image remain acceptable provided they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any feature of the original. Authors must retain the unprocessed original files and submit them on editorial request; failure to produce them is grounds for rejection or, post-publication, retraction.

Note: This does not prevent the use of AI within the research design or methods themselves (e.g. AI-assisted imaging for data collection or interpretation, or predictive modelling); such use must be described reproducibly in the Methods section with model name, version, and developer.

Graphical Abstracts and Cover Art

Graphical abstracts: general-purpose generative AI image tools must not be used, as graphical abstracts combine multiple graphical elements, icons, and design components. Dedicated scientific illustration software with clear licensing terms is recommended.

Author Responsibilities for Images

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and originality of every image, for verifying that the concepts presented are correct, and for confirming that images reflect their own work and ideas. Where an image draws on existing artwork, attribution must be given and permission obtained before submission.

Images must not be generated that duplicate or refer to existing copyrighted images, depict identifiable real people, reproduce others' products or brands.

For Reviewers

Peer review is central to the scholarly ecosystem, and every manuscript sent for review is a confidential document.

Prohibition on uploading. Reviewers must not, under any circumstances, upload a manuscript or any part of it into an AI tool — including the abstract, figures, tables, images, or any related correspondence. Doing so violates authors' confidentiality and proprietary rights and may breach data-protection rights where the manuscript contains personally identifiable information.

Permitted use. Reviewers alone are responsible for the scientific assessment and judgement of the manuscript; no tool can replace their critical thinking or independent evaluation, as the technology may produce incorrect, incomplete, or biased conclusions. AI tools may be used in a supportive capacity only — for example to improve the language and structure of a review report, or to assist with a background literature search — provided confidentiality is fully maintained, no manuscript content is entered, and human control and oversight are exercised. Reviewers must use private tools only.

Disclosure. Reviewers should disclose AI use in their review report, stating the tool and purpose. Basic spelling and grammar checks need not be disclosed.

Suggested statement: During the preparation of this report, I used [NAME OF TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, I reviewed and edited the content as needed and I take full responsibility for its content.

Consequences. If the editorial office determines that AI tools were used inappropriately in preparing a review report, the report will be discarded and not counted toward the editorial decision, the manuscript will be reassigned to another reviewer, and the journal may cease inviting the reviewer in future.

For Editors

Academic editors (Editor-in-Chief, editorial board members, guest editors) uphold the journal's integrity and reputation through responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans.

1. Every manuscript under evaluation is a confidential document. Editors must not upload a manuscript, any part of it, or any related correspondence into an AI tool.
2. Editorial decisions. AI tools must not be used for editorial assessment, for decision-making, or to determine the substance of a decision. Editors remain fully responsible and accountable for the editorial process, the final decision, and its communication to authors.
3. Limited supportive use. Private AI tools may be used to improve the language or structure of decision letters, or to assist with background literature searches, provided no manuscript content is entered and full human oversight is maintained.
4. Handling suspected undisclosed use. Where undisclosed AI use is suspected, authors may be asked to provide a written explanation and supporting documentation, such as earlier drafts, raw data, analysis files, or unprocessed images. The journal uses Turnitin and its AI Writing Report as a screening tool only. A score of 20% or higher will normally trigger human review by the editorial team; it is not itself evidence of AI use or of misconduct, and no decision is taken on the basis of the score alone. Turnitin's detection is known to produce false positives, and its output is treated as one signal among several. Editorial decisions rest on human assessment of the manuscript, the author's explanation, and the totality of relevant evidence.
5. The journal informs authors, through the Author Guidelines and editorial correspondence, that AI tools may be used in a supportive capacity in the editorial process.

Breaches and Remedies

The following are treated as breaches of publication ethics and handled in line with COPE principles and journal policy: failure to disclose substantive AI use; inclusion of fabricated or unverified references; fabrication or manipulation of data, results, or images; uploading a manuscript under review to an AI tool by a reviewer or editor; and submitting text that is substantially machine-generated without genuine intellectual contribution.

Depending on severity and timing, remedies may include: a request for clarification and supporting documentation; a request for revision and resubmission; rejection; publication of a Correction, an Expression of Concern, or a Retraction after publication; notification of the author's institution; and cessation of engagement with the reviewer or editor concerned. The journal reserves the right to request drafts, raw data, and original images at any stage.

Effective Date and Review

This policy applies to all manuscripts submitted from the date of its publication on the journal website and forms an integral part of the journal's Publication Ethics Statement, Author Guidelines, Reviewers Guidelines, and Editors Guidelines. Given the pace at which these technologies and their governing standards evolve, the policy will be reviewed at least annually.