Authorship & AI Policy

 

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation, or preparation of the research and manuscript.

All listed authors must approve the submitted manuscript and accept responsibility for their respective contributions.

Individuals who provide technical, administrative, financial, language-editing, or other assistance that does not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged rather than listed as authors.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, and ghost authorship are not permitted.

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must include a clear explanation and written agreement from all authors. Changes after acceptance will only be considered under exceptional circumstances.

Conflict of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, professional, institutional, personal, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, peer-review process, interpretation of findings, or editorial decision.

Reviewers should decline review assignments where a conflict may compromise their objectivity. Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a relevant conflict.

Research Ethics and Informed Consent

Research involving human participants must be conducted in accordance with appropriate ethical principles and applicable institutional or national requirements.

Authors are responsible for protecting the dignity, privacy, confidentiality, safety, and rights of research participants.

Where applicable, authors should obtain ethical approval and informed consent. Research involving children or other vulnerable participants must include appropriate safeguards, including parental or guardian consent where applicable.

Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies may be used responsibly to support limited aspects of manuscript preparation, provided that their use does not replace the intellectual responsibility of the authors.

AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, integrity, citations, data, analysis, interpretation, and conclusions presented in their manuscripts.

Fabricated references, fabricated or manipulated data, unverifiable information, or AI-generated findings presented as empirical evidence are prohibited.

Substantive use of generative AI must be transparently disclosed.

Suggested AI Disclosure Statement:

During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [name of AI tool] for [purpose]. The author(s) subsequently reviewed and verified the content and take full responsibility for the final manuscript.