Policy on Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

1. Purpose and Scope

Wawasan: Jurnal Ilmiah Agama dan Sosial Budaya recognises that generative artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technologies may support limited aspects of research, manuscript preparation, language editing, data organisation, and scholarly communication.

This policy establishes standards for the responsible use of such technologies by authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff. It aims to protect originality, scholarly accountability, research integrity, confidentiality, intellectual property, source accuracy, and the dignity of individuals and religious communities represented in published research.

For the purposes of this policy, “AI tools” include, but are not limited to, large language models, generative chatbots, machine-translation systems, AI-assisted writing applications, image-generation systems, transcription tools, AI-based coding assistants, and other systems capable of generating or substantially modifying text, images, audio, data, code, or scholarly content.

2. Core Principles

AI tools may assist human researchers, but they must not replace human scholarly judgment, critical reasoning, theoretical analysis, interpretation, or editorial responsibility.

All authors remain fully responsible for every part of their manuscripts, including all statements, arguments, citations, translations, data, images, interpretations, and conclusions produced or modified with the assistance of AI tools.

AI-generated output may contain factual errors, fabricated references, inaccurate translations, cultural bias, doctrinal oversimplification, misrepresentation, or misleading interpretations. Authors must therefore verify all AI-assisted output against reliable and original sources.

3. Authorship and Human Accountability

AI tools cannot be listed as authors, co-authors, contributors, or sources of scholarly authority.

Authorship is limited to human contributors who can:

  1. make a substantial intellectual contribution;

  2. approve the submitted and published versions;

  3. respond to editorial questions;

  4. disclose conflicts of interest;

  5. take responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work; and

  6. cooperate in investigations, corrections, or retractions when necessary.

The use of an AI tool does not reduce any author's responsibility.

4. Permitted Uses by Authors

Authors may use AI tools for limited, supportive purposes, provided that appropriate human supervision, verification, and disclosure are in place.

Permitted uses may include:

  1. correcting spelling, punctuation, and basic grammatical errors;

  2. improving the readability of text without changing its scholarly meaning;

  3. assisting with the organisation of notes or non-confidential research materials;

  4. providing preliminary transcription support;

  5. assisting with formatting tables, references, or metadata;

  6. producing preliminary translations that are subsequently verified by a competent human author or language specialist;

  7. supporting coding, data organisation, or visualisation when the procedures are transparent, reproducible, and fully described in the Methods section; and

  8. helping authors identify issues that require further human examination.

Basic spelling checks, conventional grammar checks, and reference-management functions that do not generate or substantially rewrite scholarly content do not normally require disclosure.

Substantive rewriting, summarisation, translation, coding, analysis, content organisation, or generation of tables and figures must be disclosed.

5. Requirements for Religious and Socio-Cultural Research

Because Wawasan publishes research concerning religion, sacred texts, beliefs, rituals, religious authority, communities, identities, traditions, and socio-cultural practices, authors must apply additional caution when using AI tools.

Authors must independently verify:

  1. quotations from sacred texts and religious literature;

  2. Qur’anic verses, hadith references, biblical passages, and texts from other religious traditions;

  3. classical and contemporary commentaries;

  4. translations and transliterations;

  5. manuscript titles, shelfmarks, colophons, archival references, and catalogue information;

  6. historical dates, names, places, and events;

  7. doctrinal, theological, legal, philosophical, and ethical terminology;

  8. interview quotations, oral histories, field notes, and ethnographic descriptions; and

  9. representations of religious groups, minority communities, Indigenous traditions, and culturally sensitive practices.

AI tools must not be treated as religious authorities, interpreters of sacred texts, issuers of religious rulings, or substitutes for recognised scholarly expertise.

AI-assisted translations may be used only as preliminary aids. Authors must verify the final translation against the original text and take full responsibility for its accuracy, context, terminology, and interpretive implications.

Authors must not upload confidential interviews, unpublished archival materials, identifiable participant information, sacred or restricted community knowledge, or other sensitive research data to an AI system unless informed consent, legal permission, data protection, and institutional ethical approval clearly permit such processing.

6. Prohibited Uses

Authors must not use AI tools to:

  1. generate an entire manuscript or replace the author’s core intellectual contribution;

  2. formulate the central argument, interpretation, findings, or conclusions without meaningful human analysis;

  3. fabricate references, quotations, page numbers, DOIs, archival records, manuscript information, field data, interview statements, or research findings;

  4. generate literature reviews based on sources that the authors have not personally located and verified;

  5. create fictitious participants, observations, surveys, transcripts, field notes, or historical evidence;

  6. conceal plagiarism, duplicate publication, inappropriate paraphrasing, or copyright infringement;

  7. misrepresent the methodology, results, evidence, or limitations of a study;

  8. generate deceptive images, figures, audio, video, or data;

  9. imitate the distinctive scholarly work of another author without appropriate attribution;

  10. disclose personal, confidential, copyrighted, sacred, or restricted materials to an unauthorised AI service; or

  11. manipulate evidence to support a predetermined theological, ideological, political, or institutional position.

AI-generated references must never be included without verification through the original publication or an authoritative bibliographic database.

7. Images, Figures, Audio, and Research Data

Generative AI must not be used to create or alter images, figures, photographs, audio recordings, video materials, or primary research data in a manner that could mislead readers.

An exception may apply when AI-generated material is itself the object of study or an explicitly stated part of the research methodology. In such cases, authors must:

  1. Describe the AI system and version used;

  2. explain the prompts or procedures where relevant;

  3. identify all AI-generated or AI-modified materials;

  4. explain the validation process;

  5. preserve the original files and relevant documentation; and

  6. address copyright, consent, privacy, and research ethics requirements.

Routine adjustments that do not alter the substantive meaning of an image or figure must comply with the journal’s image-integrity standards.

8. Disclosure Requirements for Authors

All submitted manuscripts must include one of the following statements in a separate section immediately before the References.

Declaration when Generative AI was used

Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [NAME AND VERSION OF TOOL/SERVICE, IF AVAILABLE] provided by [PROVIDER] for [SPECIFIC PURPOSE]. The tool was used in the following part(s) of the research or manuscript: [IDENTIFY THE RELEVANT SECTIONS OR TASKS]. The author(s) reviewed, verified, corrected, and approved all AI-assisted output and take full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and final content of the manuscript.

When AI is used as part of the research methodology, authors must also describe the tool, version, procedures, prompts or parameters, where relevant, validation measures, and limitations in the Methods section.

Declaration when Generative AI was not substantively used

Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

The author(s) declare that no generative AI or AI-assisted technology was used to generate substantive scholarly content, arguments, interpretations, data, figures, or conclusions in this manuscript. Conventional spelling, grammar, formatting, or reference-management tools, when used, did not generate or substantially modify the scholarly content.

Failure to disclose substantive use of AI may be treated as a breach of publication ethics.

9. Policy for Peer Reviewers

Submitted manuscripts and associated materials are confidential and privileged communications.

Reviewers must not upload or reproduce manuscripts, supplementary files, review forms, editorial correspondence, author information, unpublished data, or substantial extracts from submissions in publicly available or third-party AI systems where confidentiality, data ownership, privacy, and intellectual property cannot be guaranteed.

Reviewers must not delegate the intellectual work of peer review to an AI tool. The evaluation of originality, methodological quality, evidence, theoretical contribution, religious interpretation, socio-cultural sensitivity, and academic significance must be performed by the human reviewer.

AI tools must not write the reviewer’s report or determine the reviewer’s recommendation.

A reviewer who has used an AI-assisted tool in an authorised and confidentiality-protected manner must disclose the name of the tool and the specific purpose of its use to the handling editor.

Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, fairness, originality, and integrity of their reports.

10. Policy for Editors and Editorial Staff

Editors and editorial staff must protect the confidentiality of all submitted materials.

They must not upload manuscripts, reviewer reports, author identities, unpublished findings, editorial correspondence, or confidential data to external AI systems unless the journal has formally approved the system and verified its confidentiality, data protection, intellectual property, and security standards.

AI tools must not:

  1. make acceptance or rejection decisions;

  2. replace editorial assessment;

  3. determine reviewer recommendations;

  4. evaluate the theological or scholarly validity of an argument;

  5. identify anonymous authors or reviewers;

  6. produce final editorial correspondence without human review; or

  7. compromise on editorial independence.

Editors remain responsible for every editorial decision.

The journal may use approved and secure digital tools for administrative support, metadata checking, language assistance, similarity screening, production, or accessibility. Such use must include meaningful human oversight and must not determine the scholarly outcome of a submission.

11. Editorial Investigation and Consequences

When the journal has reasonable concerns about undisclosed, inappropriate, or unethical AI use, the editorial office may request clarification, supporting sources, original data, relevant methodological documentation, or an amended disclosure statement.

Depending on the nature and severity of the case, the journal may:

  1. request revision and correction;

  2. require an AI-use declaration;

  3. suspend editorial processing;

  4. reject the manuscript;

  5. withdraw an acceptance decision;

  6. publish a correction, expression of concern, or retraction;

  7. restrict future submissions; or

  8. Notify the authors’ institution or the relevant ethics body when serious misconduct is established.

Suspicions about AI use will be assessed fairly and in context. The journal will not treat the results of an automated AI detection system as conclusive evidence of misconduct without further editorial examination.

12. Policy Review

This policy will be reviewed periodically in response to developments in technology, research ethics, data protection, copyright, and international scholarly publishing standards.

Questions concerning this policy may be sent to:

Editorial Office
Wawasan: Jurnal Ilmiah Agama dan Sosial Budaya
Faculty of Ushuluddin, UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung
Email: wawasan@uinsgd.ac.id
Alternative email: jur.wawasan@gmail.com

Effective date: 7 August 2026
Approved by: Editorial Board of Wawasan: Jurnal Ilmiah Agama dan Sosial Budaya