Authorship and contributions
Authorship is limited to people who made a substantive contribution to the research or manuscript, approve the version submitted for publication, and accept responsibility for their contribution and the integrity of the work.
Every listed author must:
- approve the title, author order, affiliations, abstract, manuscript, and public metadata;
- describe substantial contributions when requested during intake;
- disclose relevant conflicts, funding, and prior dissemination;
- participate in resolving questions about the work; and
- approve substantive revisions and author-name or bibliographic corrections.
Contributors who do not meet the authorship standard should be acknowledged with their permission. Faculty sponsorship, course instruction, funding, editing, technical assistance, or data access does not automatically qualify someone as an author. Ghost, guest, and honorary authorship are not permitted.
AI systems are not authors
An AI system cannot be listed as an author, contributor responsible for the work, or source with whom accountability rests. Authors remain responsible for every claim, citation, calculation, image, translation, code output, and conclusion, whether or not an AI tool assisted.
Authors must verify generated citations against the original sources, test generated code and calculations, check images and translations, and correct unsupported or fabricated output before submission.
What use must be disclosed
Material use of generative AI must be disclosed. This includes material rewriting, coding, data analysis, translation, literature synthesis, figure generation, or interpretation.
Ordinary spelling or grammar correction need not always be disclosed when it does not materially generate or transform scholarly content. When uncertain, authors should disclose the use and explain it specifically.
The preferred model is:
Generative AI disclosure: The authors used [tool and version, if known] for [specific purpose]. All outputs were reviewed and verified by the authors, who take full responsibility for the manuscript, analysis, citations, and conclusions.
The disclosure must identify the tool and purpose precisely enough for readers and editors to understand the role it played. A generic statement that “AI was used” is not sufficient for material assistance.
Restricted information and AI tools
Authors must not upload restricted, confidential, or personally identifiable information into a public AI system. This includes student records, unpublished private data, credentials, secrets, contract-restricted data, identifiable human-subject information, or licensed content that the user is not authorized to disclose.
Authors and faculty sponsors are responsible for following the data provider’s terms, applicable law, university requirements, and any IRB or research-ethics limitations before using an AI service.
Public biographies and photographs
Author and editor biographies, photographs, personal profile links, and personal contact information are optional and require separate consent. Consent to publish a manuscript is not consent to publish those profile elements, and participation in a public profile is not a condition of manuscript publication.
Consent evidence is retained privately. The public site contains only the profile fields the person has approved for publication.
Undisclosed or unreliable use
The Editorial Board may request an explanation, source material, code, or a corrected disclosure when material AI use appears undisclosed or when generated content raises an integrity concern. The response may include revision, deferral, rejection, correction, an expression of concern, or withdrawal under the applicable policy. Formal research-misconduct questions are referred to the responsible university office; the Series does not adjudicate them.