Guidelines for AI Use in Peer Review

TJAS acknowledges the increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in scholarly activities. To safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, and quality of our peer review process, the following policies apply to all participants (editors, reviewers, and editorial staff):

1. Confidentiality & Data Privacy

• Manuscripts under review are strictly confidential.

• No content—including text, datasets, tables, figures, or supplementary materials—may be uploaded to AI tools/platforms that:

  • Process data on external servers,

  • Store user inputs, or

  • Risk exposure of unpublished research.

• Tools used must comply with robust data privacy standards (e.g., end-to-end encryption, GDPR/COPPA compliance).

2. Permitted Uses of AI

AI may assist only in limited, non-substantive tasks:

• Reviewers: Refine grammar, clarity, or tone of review reports (not manuscript content).

• Editors: Draft editorial correspondence or decision templates—provided:

  • Final judgments derive from human assessment and reviewer recommendations.

  • AI output undergoes rigorous human verification.

3. Prohibited Uses of AI

AI must not:

• Analyze, interpret, or summarize manuscript content (e.g., experimental results, methodologies).

• Generate reviewer comments, editorial decisions, or accept/reject recommendations.

• Assess originality (plagiarism checks remain with licensed software like Turnitin/iThenticate).

• Compromise confidentiality (e.g., inputting sensitive agronomic data into public AI tools).

4. Accountability

• Human oversight is mandatory: All decisions must reflect independent expert judgment.

• Disclosure required: Reviewers/editors must declare AI-assisted edits in reports.

• Violations may result in revocation of review privileges or manuscript rejection.

Rationale for TJAS

Agricultural sciences involve proprietary methodologies, field data, and sensitive agrotechnical insights. TJAS prioritizes:

• Preventing data leakage of unreleased crop studies, livestock trials, or soil analyses.

• Maintaining human expertise in evaluating context-specific research (e.g., regional farming practices).

• Upholding ethical standards aligned with COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).