Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage Policy

Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Generative AI Policy

Civitas: Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat supports responsible AI use while maintaining human accountability, research integrity, confidentiality, transparency, community protection, and ethical responsibility.

HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY AI DISCLOSURE CONFIDENTIALITY
✓ AI may assist manuscript preparation. ✓ Meaningful AI use must be disclosed.
✓ Authors remain fully responsible for all content. ✕ AI tools cannot be authors or co-authors.
✕ Reviewers/editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or community data to AI. ✕ AI must not replace human scientific or editorial judgment.
1. Use of AI by Authors

Authors may use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies to support activities such as language improvement, literature organization, idea development, data exploration, transcription support, translation assistance, community-program documentation, or manuscript preparation. AI tools must not replace the authors' critical thinking, scholarly judgment, community understanding, ethical responsibility, analysis, interpretation, or original contribution.

Authors are responsible for:

  • verifying factual accuracy and checking references generated by AI;
  • reviewing and substantially editing AI-assisted content;
  • checking for bias, hallucination, fabricated citations, or misleading information;
  • protecting confidential participant information, community data, photographs, personal stories, copyrighted materials, institutional records, and unpublished information;
  • independently verifying AI-assisted transcription, translation, coding, evaluation, classification, or interpretation; and
  • ensuring that the final manuscript represents the authors' own scholarly and community-engagement work.
Important: Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, ethical compliance, and respectful representation of communities in all submitted content, regardless of whether AI tools were used.
2. AI Disclosure

Meaningful use of generative AI in manuscript preparation must be disclosed in a separate AI Declaration. The declaration should identify the tool used, its purpose, and the extent of human review and oversight.

Suggested AI Declaration
The authors used [tool/model name] for [specific purpose]. All AI-assisted outputs were critically reviewed, verified, and substantially revised by the authors. The authors take full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and ethical appropriateness of the manuscript.

Basic spelling, grammar, or punctuation checks do not normally require disclosure. If AI forms part of the community-service method, needs assessment, program design, data analysis, participant-feedback analysis, transcription, translation, monitoring, evaluation, or impact assessment, its use must be described in sufficient detail in the Methods section.

3. AI and Authorship

AI tools, chatbots, and language models must not be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship requires human responsibility for the integrity of the work, approval of the final manuscript, accountability for its content, responsibility toward participating communities, and the ability to respond to questions regarding the program, methods, and reported outcomes.

4. AI-Generated Images, Figures & Artwork

Generative AI must not be used to create, manipulate, obscure, remove, or introduce features in photographs, community-service documentation, participant images, figures, charts, screenshots, or other visual evidence in a manner that misrepresents actual activities, participants, locations, outputs, or outcomes.

An exception may apply when AI-assisted image generation, visualization, image analysis, or synthetic media is itself part of the community-engagement method, educational intervention, technological implementation, or research methodology. In such cases, authors must describe the tool, model/version, procedure, inputs, validation, and role of the AI system in the Methods section.

5. Use of AI by Reviewers

Submitted manuscripts are confidential documents. Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, manuscript excerpts, photographs, participant information, community records, program documentation, supporting files, or review reports into public generative AI systems.

Peer review is a human scholarly responsibility. AI tools must not be used to generate scientific assessments, independently evaluate community-program quality, assess ethical appropriateness, determine reported impact, or determine review recommendations. Reviewers remain personally responsible for the content, accuracy, fairness, sensitivity, and integrity of their reports.

6. Use of AI by Editors

Editors must not upload submitted manuscripts, confidential correspondence, reviewer reports, author responses, participant information, unpublished community data, photographs, or editorial decision letters into public generative AI systems.

AI must not replace human editorial judgment or be used to determine acceptance, revision, or rejection. Editors remain fully responsible for editorial evaluation, reviewer selection, confidentiality management, ethical assessment, communication, conflict-of-interest management, and final publication decisions.

7. AI in the Publication Workflow

The journal may use appropriately controlled AI-assisted technologies for limited technical and administrative purposes, with human oversight.

✓ Technical submission checks ✓ Duplicate-submission detection
✓ Research-integrity screening ✓ Reviewer matching support
✓ Copyediting and production assistance ✓ Identification of technical inconsistencies
Human oversight remains mandatory throughout all editorial and publication processes.

Violations & Consequences

Misuse or undisclosed use of AI may be handled under the journal's publication-ethics procedures. Examples include fabricated references, invented participant statements, fabricated community activities, manipulated photographs, undisclosed AI-generated evaluation results, unauthorized processing of personal or community data, or inappropriate dependence on AI-generated interpretation. Depending on severity, actions may include request for clarification, manuscript rejection, correction, retraction, institutional notification, or restrictions on future submissions.

Policy Governance

This policy follows principles of transparency, accountability, confidentiality, human oversight, fairness, intellectual-property protection, participant protection, privacy, respectful community representation, and research integrity. It will be reviewed periodically as AI technologies, community-engagement practices, and international publication standards evolve.