Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

AI-Assisted Writing and Peer Review

Bio Palembanica recognizes that AI-assisted writing is becoming increasingly common as artificial intelligence technologies become more accessible. AI tools that assist authors in improving their own work, such as tools used to enhance language, grammar, spelling, readability, or manuscript structure, are considered assistive AI tools. The use of such tools does not require disclosure by authors or peer reviewers.

Nevertheless, authors remain fully responsible for ensuring that their manuscripts are accurate, original, scientifically sound, and compliant with standards of rigorous scholarly research and publication ethics.

Peer reviewers may use AI tools solely for assistive purposes, such as improving the language, clarity, or formatting of their review reports. However, reviewers remain fully responsible for the content, accuracy, objectivity, and confidentiality of their reports. Reviewers must not upload, copy, paste, or otherwise disclose confidential manuscript content, unpublished data, or any information obtained through the peer-review process to public or third-party AI systems.

Use of Generative AI in Research and Scientific Publishing

Authors should cite and rely on original scholarly sources as the primary basis for their references. Generative AI (GenAI) must not be used as a substitute for primary, authoritative, or verifiable scientific sources. When AI is used to generate images, illustrations, infographics, diagrams, or visualizations, such use must be clearly disclosed and, where appropriate, the AI tool or service used should be identified in the figure caption or relevant section of the manuscript.

Authors should be aware that AI may produce inaccurate, misleading, biased, or unsupported information, including references or citations to sources that do not exist. Therefore, all AI-generated content must be critically reviewed, independently verified, and checked against the original sources before being incorporated into the manuscript. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, reliability, validity, and integrity of all content presented in their work.

Acceptable Uses of AI

The use of AI and/or GenAI in research and scientific publishing may be acceptable when used responsibly. Where AI use makes a substantive contribution to the research or manuscript, it must be appropriately disclosed in the Methods, Acknowledgements, or another relevant section of the manuscript.

Examples of acceptable uses include:

Assistance with literature searches or reviews, including the identification and compilation of potentially relevant sources.
Translation of materials or information used as part of the research process.
Use of AI-assisted software or computer code to support research, data analysis, or other research activities.
Assistance with data processing, analysis, or visualization.
Generation of representative illustrations, diagrams, or infographics for presenting research findings.
Assistance with developing, improving, checking, or debugging computer code.
Assistance with compiling or organizing references, provided that every reference is independently verified against the original publication.

Authors' Responsibility

The use of AI does not transfer scientific, ethical, or editorial responsibility from the authors to AI technology. Authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, validity, integrity, and scientific quality of their manuscript, including its data, methodology, analyses, interpretations, references, figures, code, results, and conclusions.

AI systems and AI tools must not be listed as authors or co-authors of manuscripts submitted to or published in Bio Palembanica. Authorship may only be attributed to individuals who meet the requirements for authorship and are able to assume full responsibility for the scientific and ethical content of the work.

Inappropriate Use of Generative AI

Bio Palembanica will not reject a manuscript solely because the authors have appropriately disclosed their use of GenAI. However, if the Editor determines that GenAI has been used inappropriately in the preparation of a manuscript and such use was not disclosed, Bio Palembanica reserves the right to reject the manuscript at any stage of the editorial or publication process.

Reviewers who use GenAI tools inappropriately to generate, analyze, or prepare peer-review reports may not be invited to review for Bio Palembanica in the future. Any review report found to have been generated through inappropriate use of GenAI may be excluded from consideration in the editorial decision-making process.

Editors must not use GenAI tools to generate editorial decision letters, evaluate unpublished research, or summarize confidential manuscript content. Editors and reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality throughout the peer-review process. Bio Palembanica and its publisher reserve the right to take appropriate action if an editor or reviewer breaches peer-review confidentiality through the use of GenAI or other AI technologies.

The following practices are considered inappropriate uses of GenAI in research, manuscript preparation, editorial work, or peer review:

Using inaccurate, misleading, fabricated, or unsupported AI-generated text or other content without appropriate verification or correction.
Generating research data, results, or substantive manuscript content through a series of AI prompts and presenting such material as original research.
Using GenAI tools to conduct interviews or replace human participants in qualitative research without an appropriate and scientifically justified methodology.
Using GenAI to generate, interpret, or analyze participants' experiences, perspectives, or qualitative themes in place of appropriate research procedures.
Plagiarism, unattributed reproduction, or inappropriate attribution of content or ideas derived from existing sources.
Presenting AI-generated images as original, unique, or novel research images when they do not represent actual observations, specimens, experimental results, or research data.
Generating or using fabricated references, nonexistent sources, falsified claims, or unverifiable scientific information.
Using GenAI to perform editorial evaluations, make editorial judgments, or conduct peer review in place of the responsible editor or reviewer.
Using GenAI to generate peer-review reports by uploading, copying, or pasting a submitted manuscript, or any part of a confidential manuscript, into a GenAI system.

Authors, reviewers, and editors remain personally responsible for ensuring that their use of AI complies with the principles of research integrity, publication ethics, confidentiality, transparency, and accountability.

Concerns Regarding Undisclosed or Inappropriate Use of Generative AI

Reviewers who suspect the inappropriate or undisclosed use of GenAI should report their concerns to the Editor. Editors should assess such concerns in accordance with the journal’s AI policy and publication ethics guidelines.

For published articles, Bio Palembanica and the Editor will investigate concerns regarding inappropriate or undisclosed use of GenAI in accordance with relevant COPE guidelines and the journal’s policies.

Where a violation is confirmed, Bio Palembanica may take appropriate editorial action, including requesting clarification or corrections, rejecting a manuscript, or issuing a correction or retraction for a published article, depending on the nature and severity of the violation.