Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

Journal of Surveying, Construction and Property (JSCP)

The Journal of Surveying, Construction and Property (JSCP) upholds the highest standards of research integrity, confidentiality, and ethical publishing. In response to the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in scholarly activities, this policy outlines the acceptable boundaries and disclosure mandates for authors, reviewers, and editors.

 

1. Classification of Acceptable and Prohibited AI Use

In alignment with the STM Association Classification Recommendations for AI Use, JSCP categorizes machine-assisted involvement as follows (Reference: https://stm-assoc.org/):

 

Categories

Status

Required Action / Declaration

Basic Editing

(Grammar, spelling, punctuation, basic formatting)

Permitted

No disclosure required for standard spell/grammar checkers.

Language Refinement & Style

(Improving flow, readability, or translation)

Permitted

Mandatory AI Disclosure in the Declaration Section.

Literature Search & Citation Tools

(Suggesting or compiling references)

Permitted with Caution

Authors must manually verify every citation for existence, accuracy, and relevance.

Mandatory AI Disclosure in the Declaration Section.

Code Refinement

(Formatting or optimizing research code without altering functionality)

Permitted

Must be noted in the relevant sections (i.e., Methods or Data Availability) AND the Declaration Section.

Generating Manuscript Text

(Wholesale drafting of sections, abstracts, or synthesis)

Prohibited

Manuscripts drafted wholesale by AI will be rejected without peer review.

Images, Figures, & Artwork

(Creating, modifying, or altering figures or graphical abstracts)

Prohibited

AI-generated or AI-altered figures are strictly forbidden, unless explicitly part of the research design (e.g., AI imaging methodologies).

Data & Citation Fabrication

(Presenting synthetic AI outputs as empirical research data)

Strictly Prohibited

Constitutes severe academic misconduct and will lead to immediate rejection or retraction.

 

2. Disclosure Requirements

Where disclosure is marked as mandatory in the table above, authors must declare in the Declaration section of the manuscript.

The declaration must explicitly detail:

·         The name and version of the AI tool used (e.g., ChatGPT-4o, OpenAI).

·         The precise nature and scope of its use (e.g., language refinement of Section 2).

·         Confirmation that the authors reviewed, verified, and take full responsibility for all content.

 

Required Declaration Example:

Declaration
Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) used ChatGPT (OpenAI, version 4o) in order to refine language clarity and structure in the Methods section. The author(s) reviewed, verified, and edited all content and take full responsibility for the final publication.”

 

3. Responsibility and Authorship

·         Human-Only Authorship: AI tools cannot meet authorship criteria, lack legal capacity to sign publishing agreements, and must not be credited or listed as co-authors.

·         Full Responsibility: Authors retain full legal and ethical responsibility for the content of their submissions, including any portion drafted or assisted by AI tools.

·         IP Protection: Authors must ensure that uploading data or manuscript text into third-party AI tools does not infringe intellectual property or violate confidentiality/privacy laws.

 

4. Editorial and Reviewer Confidentiality

To protect author intellectual property and comply with global data privacy standards:

·         Strict Confidentiality Ban: Editors and peer reviewers are strictly prohibited from uploading submitted manuscripts, abstracts, supplementary files, or peer review reports into external AI tools for evaluation, language checking, or summarization.

·         Human Expertise: All editorial evaluations and peer review decisions published in JSCP must be executed solely by qualified human experts.

 

5. Ethical Compliance & Enforcement

This policy is consistent with international ethical standards in academic publishing, including:

·         COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Guidelines

·         Elsevier’s AI and Ethics Recommendations

·         STM Recommendations for Classification of AI Use (2025)

·         WAME (World Association of Medical Editors) Recommendations on AI

 

Unacknowledged AI usage or violations of these rules will be handled according to COPE workflows, which may lead to immediate rejection, institutional notification, or article retraction.

 

6. Review and Updates

This policy will be periodically reviewed in response to technological developments and evolving best practices in academic publishing.