SAGA: Journal of Technology and Information Systems recognizes that artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI and AI-assisted technologies, may support legitimate activities in research and scholarly writing.
The use of such technologies must remain transparent, responsible, and subject to meaningful human oversight. Authors remain fully accountable for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and ethical compliance of all material submitted to the journal.
AI and AI-assisted technologies may be used as supporting tools, but they must not replace the intellectual contribution, critical reasoning, scholarly judgment, or accountability of human authors.
Authors are responsible for reviewing and verifying all AI-assisted outputs before including them in a manuscript. Responsibility for submitted and published content remains entirely with the human authors.
Artificial intelligence systems, large language models, chatbots, and other automated tools must not be listed as authors or co-authors of manuscripts submitted to SAGA.
Authorship requires responsibilities that can only be fulfilled by accountable human contributors, including responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work, approval of the submitted manuscript, management of conflicts of interest, and accountability for questions concerning the publication.
Authors must transparently disclose the substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in preparing or conducting the research where such use could materially affect the content, interpretation, methodology, analysis, or presentation of the work.
Where applicable, the disclosure should identify:
Appropriate disclosure enables editors, reviewers, and readers to understand the role of AI-assisted technologies in the research and publication process.
Routine tools used solely for spelling, grammar, language correction, formatting, reference management, or other non-substantive editorial assistance do not normally require the same level of disclosure as substantive generative AI use, provided that they do not materially generate or alter the scientific content of the manuscript.
However, when a generative AI system is used to substantially generate, rewrite, summarize, interpret, or develop scholarly content, its use should be disclosed.
When AI, machine learning, large language models, or other computational AI systems constitute part of the research methodology itself, their use should be described with sufficient methodological detail to permit appropriate scholarly evaluation and, where reasonably possible, reproducibility.
Depending on the study, relevant information may include the model or system used, version or access date where relevant, configuration, input data, prompts or procedures where methodologically significant, validation methods, evaluation criteria, and known limitations.
This methodological reporting is distinct from disclosure of generative AI used merely to assist in manuscript preparation.
Authors must critically review and verify AI-assisted material before submission. AI-generated output must not be assumed to be accurate, unbiased, original, or appropriately referenced.
Authors remain responsible for:
Generative AI output should not be treated as a substitute for original scholarly sources. Authors must verify factual and scientific claims against appropriate and reliable sources.
Authors must not include fabricated or unverifiable references generated by AI systems. References included in a manuscript remain the responsibility of the authors and should point to the original scholarly or authoritative source wherever appropriate.
Authors must transparently describe the use of AI where it is involved in generating, transforming, enhancing, reconstructing, or analyzing research data, images, figures, code, or other research materials when such use is scientifically relevant.
AI-generated or AI-modified material must not be presented in a way that misrepresents the underlying evidence, fabricates research results, obscures inappropriate manipulation, or misleads readers regarding how the research was conducted.
Authors must also ensure that the use of AI-generated materials does not violate applicable copyright, privacy, confidentiality, consent, or other legal and ethical obligations.
Automated AI-detection tools may be used by the journal as supporting editorial indicators where appropriate. However, an AI-detection score alone will not be treated as definitive evidence that a manuscript was generated by AI or that a violation of this policy has occurred.
Where an automated screening result raises a legitimate concern, the editorial team may conduct further assessment and may request clarification or disclosure from the authors.
Editorial decisions concerning undisclosed or inappropriate AI use will therefore be based on the available evidence and contextual assessment rather than solely on a numerical AI-detection percentage.
Editors and reviewers must protect the confidentiality of unpublished manuscripts and all associated editorial information.
Editors and reviewers must not use generative AI or similar automated systems to generate, draft, or substantially produce peer-review reports, editorial assessments, recommendations, or publication decisions.
Confidential manuscripts, supplementary materials, reviewer reports, author identities, editorial correspondence, or other non-public information must not be uploaded to third-party generative AI systems where confidentiality, intellectual property, privacy, security, or data-retention requirements cannot be appropriately assured.
Limited use of automated tools for routine editorial support may be permitted where appropriate, provided that such use does not compromise confidentiality, is transparently governed by the journal or publisher, and remains subject to meaningful human oversight.
All peer-review evaluations and editorial decisions must ultimately reflect the independent scholarly judgment and accountability of qualified human reviewers and editors.
Where potentially inappropriate or undisclosed AI use is identified, SAGA may request clarification, additional disclosure, correction, or revision from the authors.
Serious cases involving fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, misrepresentation, confidentiality violations, or other research or publication misconduct will be considered under the journal's applicable Publication Ethics, Plagiarism and Similarity Screening, and post-publication policies.
Where disclosure is required, authors should include an Artificial Intelligence Use Statement in the manuscript's disclosure/declaration section.
During the preparation of this manuscript, the authors used [AI tool and version, if applicable] for [specific purpose]. The authors reviewed and verified the resulting output and take full responsibility for the content of the manuscript.
The statement should be adapted to accurately describe the actual use of AI in the research or manuscript.
SAGA permits responsible use of AI and AI-assisted technologies where appropriate, but transparency, verification, scholarly judgment, and accountability must remain with human authors.
