AI Usage Policy

POLICY ON THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) AND GENERATIVE AI IN SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING

BANUA: Jurnal Kesehatan Lingkungan 

1. Purpose

BANUA: Jurnal Kesehatan Lingkungan is committed to maintaining academic integrity, scientific originality, transparency, and ethical standards throughout the scholarly publication process.

This policy establishes requirements for the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), including Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and AI-assisted technologies, in manuscript preparation, submission, editorial assessment, peer review, and publication.

The policy aims to ensure that AI technologies support scholarly activities without replacing human intellectual contributions, scientific judgment, or professional responsibility.

BANUA recognizes the potential benefits of AI technologies in improving academic writing, research communication, and administrative efficiency. However, inappropriate AI use may introduce risks related to research accuracy, fabricated information, plagiarism, data confidentiality, authorship, and publication integrity.

This policy follows internationally recognized publication ethics principles, including relevant guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

2. Scope

This policy applies to all individuals involved in the editorial and publication activities of BANUA, including:

  1. Authors and co-authors submitting manuscripts to the journal.

  2. The Editor-in-Chief, associate editors, and members of the Editorial Board.

  3. Peer reviewers involved in the scientific assessment of manuscripts.

  4. Editorial staff, copyeditors, layout editors, and other personnel supporting manuscript processing and publication.

This policy covers the use of AI-assisted technologies in original research articles, literature reviews, case studies, and other scholarly contributions within the scope of environmental health sciences.

It also applies to AI-assisted activities involving manuscript writing, research analysis, data interpretation, image generation, reference preparation, editorial communication, and publication-related processes.

3. General Principles

The use of AI technologies in BANUA must comply with the following principles:

  1. Human Accountability: Authors, editors, and reviewers remain fully responsible for their scholarly contributions, decisions, and professional judgments. AI systems cannot assume responsibility for scientific accuracy or publication integrity.

  2. Transparency: The substantive use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies must be clearly disclosed. Authors must provide sufficient information about the tools used and their contributions to manuscript preparation or research activities.

  3. Confidentiality: Unpublished manuscripts, research datasets, personal information, reviewer reports, and editorial correspondence must not be uploaded to AI systems that cannot adequately protect confidentiality and data privacy.

  4. Academic Integrity: AI must not be used to fabricate, falsify, manipulate, plagiarize, or misrepresent scientific information, research findings, references, images, or other scholarly materials.

  5. Scientific Originality: AI-assisted technologies must not replace the original intellectual contributions, critical analysis, interpretation, or scientific reasoning of human researchers.

  6. Verification and Accuracy: Authors and editorial personnel must critically evaluate AI-generated content and verify its accuracy, reliability, relevance, and scientific validity before incorporating it into scholarly work.

  7. Ethical Compliance: AI use must comply with applicable research ethics, intellectual property rights, data protection requirements, and the journal's publication ethics policies.

4. Policy for Authors

4.1 Permitted Use of AI

BANUA permits authors to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies responsibly as supportive tools during manuscript preparation.

Permitted activities include:

  1. Correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, and academic language.

  2. Improving sentence clarity, readability, and manuscript organization.

  3. Supporting the development of manuscript outlines and research ideas.

  4. Assisting with translation when the translated content is subsequently verified and edited by the authors.

  5. Supporting the identification of relevant scientific terminology and literature search strategies.

  6. Assisting with technical formatting and other tasks that do not replace the authors' intellectual contributions.

  7. Supporting appropriately designed scientific analyses when the use of AI is methodologically justified, documented, validated, and transparently reported.

For environmental health research, AI-assisted methods may be applied to activities such as environmental exposure modeling, air or water quality prediction, geospatial analysis, environmental risk assessment, and other computational research methods.

When AI forms part of the research methodology, authors must describe the tools, analytical procedures, validation methods, and limitations in sufficient detail to support scientific evaluation and reproducibility.

The use of AI must not replace the authors' responsibility for research design, data collection, scientific analysis, interpretation of findings, or conclusions.

4.2 Mandatory Disclosure of AI Use

Authors must transparently disclose the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation.

This requirement applies to manuscripts submitted for publication beginning with Volume 6, Issue 2 (2026), consistent with the journal's announced AI disclosure requirement.

The disclosure must include:

  1. The name of the AI tool or technology used.

  2. The purpose of its use.

  3. The manuscript section or research activity in which AI assistance was applied, when relevant.

  4. Confirmation that the authors reviewed, verified, and edited the AI-generated content.

  5. Confirmation that the authors accept full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the manuscript.

Authors who use AI-assisted technologies for research data processing, statistical analysis, predictive modeling, or image generation must also provide an appropriate methodological explanation in the Methods section.

Routine spelling correction or conventional grammar-checking functions that do not involve generative content creation do not ordinarily require a separate declaration.

However, authors must disclose the use of generative AI tools in manuscript writing, including when such tools substantially improve, rewrite, translate, or generate manuscript content.

4.3 Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

Authors who use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies during manuscript preparation must include a declaration before the References section.

The following statement must be used:

Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies in the Writing Process

During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [NAME OF TOOL/SERVICE] for [PURPOSE OF USE]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as necessary and take full responsibility for the content of the published article.

Authors must replace the bracketed information with the actual AI tool and its specific purpose.

The declaration must accurately reflect how AI was used. Authors remain responsible for verifying the accuracy of all AI-assisted material, including scientific statements, statistical information, references, and interpretations.

4.4 Prohibited Uses of AI by Authors

Authors must not:

  1. List AI systems, chatbots, or generative AI technologies as authors or co-authors.

  2. Use AI to fabricate or falsify research data, laboratory results, environmental measurements, or field observations.

  3. Present AI-generated or synthetic data as actual empirical observations without a scientifically justified methodology and transparent disclosure.

  4. Generate false references, fabricated digital object identifiers (DOIs), or nonexistent scientific sources.

  5. Use AI to manipulate research findings or produce misleading scientific interpretations.

  6. Use AI-generated text to conceal plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, or unauthorized duplication of published materials.

  7. Submit confidential participant information, unpublished datasets, or sensitive research documents to public AI platforms without appropriate authorization and safeguards.

  8. Use AI to generate or manipulate research photographs, laboratory images, environmental monitoring records, or graphical evidence in ways that misrepresent actual findings.

  9. Allow AI-generated conclusions to replace independent scientific evaluation and critical reasoning.

  10. Present AI-generated content as verified scientific evidence without checking its accuracy and reliability.

All authors are responsible for ensuring that AI-assisted content complies with the journal's Plagiarism Policy, Research Ethics Policy, and other applicable publication requirements.

4.5 Responsibility for Scientific Accuracy

Authors retain full responsibility for the scientific integrity of all submitted manuscripts, regardless of whether AI tools were used.

Authors must independently verify scientific facts, statistical analyses, references, research interpretations, and conclusions.

Particular attention must be given to AI-assisted environmental health research involving public health risks, environmental exposure, labor