Journal of Aquatic and Fisheries Products Technology (AFISH) recognizes that Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI) and AI-assisted technologies are increasingly used in scientific research, writing, editing, data analysis, and scholarly communication.
AFISH permits the responsible use of such technologies when their use supports, rather than replaces, human intellectual contribution, scientific responsibility, and editorial judgment.
Generative AI tools, Large Language Models (LLMs), chatbots, or other AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as an author or co-author of manuscripts submitted to AFISH.
Authorship requires responsibilities that can only be fulfilled by human contributors, including accountability for the accuracy and integrity of the work, approval of the final manuscript, management of conflicts of interest, and responsibility for research ethics.
Authors may use Generative AI and AI-assisted tools as supporting technologies during manuscript preparation, provided that human authors remain responsible for the scientific content.
Permitted uses may include:
Authors remain fully responsible for all manuscript content, including content generated, suggested, revised, analyzed, or summarized using AI tools.
Authors must carefully verify:
Authors must disclose the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies when such tools have contributed substantively to manuscript preparation, analysis, interpretation, coding, content generation, or other elements of the submitted work.
The disclosure should identify the tool used and describe how it was used. The statement may be included in the manuscript before the References or in another section specified by the Editorial Team.
During the preparation of this manuscript, the authors used [name of AI tool/service] for [describe purpose]. The authors reviewed, verified, and edited all AI-assisted output and take full responsibility for the content of the publication.
Routine tools used only for spelling, grammar, punctuation, formatting, or basic language correction generally do not require a formal AI disclosure, provided that they do not generate or substantially modify the scientific content of the manuscript.
When a tool generates new paragraphs, interpretations, analyses, code, substantive summaries, or other intellectual content, disclosure is required.
Authors must not use Generative AI to create, manipulate, enhance, obscure, or fabricate scientific images, data visualizations, experimental results, or other research evidence in a manner that could misrepresent the original data.
Where Artificial Intelligence or machine-learning image processing is itself part of the research method, its use must be clearly described in the manuscript, including the relevant method, software or model, and the nature of the processing performed.
Authors must ensure that the use of AI tools complies with applicable requirements for research ethics, confidentiality, intellectual property, personal data protection, and data security.
Confidential, proprietary, personal, unpublished, or otherwise restricted research data should not be uploaded to public or third-party AI platforms unless the authors have appropriate authorization and the service provides suitable safeguards.
Authors are responsible for confirming that every citation and reference in the manuscript corresponds to a real and appropriate source.
Fabricated, inaccurate, unverifiable, or AI-generated references will be treated as a publication-integrity concern.
Manuscripts submitted to AFISH are confidential documents. Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, manuscript excerpts, figures, unpublished data, reviewer reports, or other confidential submission materials to publicly accessible Generative AI systems.
Reviewers may use approved tools for limited language or administrative assistance only when confidentiality and data security can be maintained.
Editors must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts and must not upload unpublished submissions or confidential editorial information to public Generative AI systems.
AI-assisted technologies may be used for limited administrative, organizational, language, or screening support when appropriate safeguards are in place.
Editorial decisions, including whether a manuscript is accepted, revised, rejected, or sent for peer review, must remain under human editorial responsibility.
Generative AI must not be used as a substitute for scientific reasoning, critical interpretation, expert judgment, peer review, or author responsibility.
Authors must be able to explain and defend the methods, analyses, arguments, interpretations, and conclusions presented in their manuscript independently of any AI system used during its preparation.
AFISH may request clarification from authors when there is reasonable concern regarding inappropriate, misleading, or undisclosed use of Artificial Intelligence.
Depending on the nature and severity of the issue, the journal may take appropriate editorial action, including requesting revision, rejecting the manuscript, correcting the published record, or applying the journal's Retraction, Withdrawal, and Correction Policy.
Artificial Intelligence technologies and scholarly publishing practices continue to evolve. AFISH may revise this policy periodically to reflect developments in publication ethics, research integrity, technology, and scholarly communication.
