Ethical Guidelines for the Responsible and Transparent Use of Artificial Intelligence in Scholarly Publishing

Science, Education and Innovations in the Context of Modern Problems (SEI) recognizes the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in academic research, scholarly communication, and scientific publishing. The journal supports the responsible, transparent, ethical, and human-supervised use of AI tools in accordance with internationally recognized standards of publication ethics, research integrity, and editorial responsibility.

Authors may use AI-assisted technologies for limited supportive purposes, including but not limited to:

• language editing and readability improvement
• grammar, spelling, and punctuation correction
• formatting assistance
• coding and programming support
• data organization and visualization assistance
• literature organization and summarization

Basic grammar correction, spelling correction, punctuation correction, and minor language polishing performed through AI-assisted tools do not generally require formal disclosure.

AI-assisted translation tools may be used to improve linguistic quality and readability, provided that authors carefully review, verify, and approve the scientific accuracy, terminology, interpretation, and integrity of all translated content.

Artificial intelligence systems cannot independently produce valid scientific scholarship and cannot assume responsibility for academic work. AI tools must never replace human scientific judgment, critical thinking, interpretation, analysis, or scholarly responsibility.

Accordingly, AI systems and generative AI tools (including but not limited to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, or similar technologies) must not be listed or credited as authors or co-authors of a manuscript. Authorship is strictly reserved for human contributors who are capable of assuming full responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy, ethical compliance, and scientific validity of the work.

Authors remain fully responsible and accountable for:

• the accuracy, reliability, and integrity of all content
• originality of the manuscript
• interpretation and presentation of findings
• compliance with ethical and academic standards
• proper citation and referencing
• prevention of plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, misleading statements, or manipulated content
• verification of all AI-assisted references, citations, bibliographic data, and DOI information, as AI-generated references may be inaccurate, incomplete, or fabricated

Any substantial use of AI tools during manuscript preparation must be transparently disclosed within the manuscript, preferably in a dedicated “AI Use Disclosure” or “Acknowledgements” section.

Authors should clearly indicate:

• the name of the AI tool used
• the purpose of its use
• the extent of AI assistance
• the level of human oversight and verification applied

 If AI technologies are used within the research methodology, data analysis, computational modeling, coding, or other research processes, such use must be clearly described within the Methods section of the manuscript.

The use of AI technologies to fabricate data, generate misleading scientific content, create false or fabricated citations, manipulate peer review, falsify results, produce deceptive analyses, or otherwise compromise research integrity is strictly prohibited and may result in rejection, retraction, reporting to institutions, or other editorial actions in accordance with the journal’s ethical policies.

The journal reserves the right to reject manuscripts suspected of large-scale automated generation, paper mill activity, fabricated research content, or systematic AI-assisted misconduct.

The use of AI tools to generate, alter, enhance, manipulate, obscure, remove, reposition, or introduce specific elements within scientific figures, images, graphical data, microscopy images, medical images, or other visual materials is not permitted unless such use constitutes an explicit, reproducible, and scientifically justified part of the research methodology and is fully disclosed within the manuscript.

Minor adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are permitted only when such modifications do not obscure, eliminate, distort, or misrepresent original scientific information.

The journal may apply image integrity screening tools, plagiarism detection systems, AI-detection technologies, and forensic analysis methods during editorial evaluation and research integrity assessment.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, unpublished data, peer review reports, editorial communications, reviewer comments, or supplementary materials into publicly accessible AI systems or external generative AI platforms, as doing so may violate confidentiality, privacy, copyright, intellectual property protections, and data security obligations.

Editorial decisions, peer review evaluations, and scientific assessments remain exclusively human responsibilities. AI systems must not be used to make editorial judgments, peer review decisions, or final publication determinations.

The journal follows evolving international recommendations and best practices concerning AI ethics and scholarly publishing, including guidance from COPE, ICMJE, WAME, Elsevier, and other major academic publishers and indexing standards.

SEI reserves the right to request additional clarification, documentation, raw data, or methodological explanations regarding the use of AI tools at any stage of the submission, editorial evaluation, peer review, publication, or post-publication process.

• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): Artificial Intelligence and Authorship
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME): Recommendations on ChatGPT and Generative AI
• Elsevier Publishing Ethics and AI Guidance
• Clarivate Web of Science: Journal Editor Resource Kit — AI Tools and Fake Paper Risks