The aim of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education is to uphold rigorous standards of research quality in the scholarship of Learning Development and Teaching and Learning while embracing innovation that can expand knowledge and improve practice. As the Editorial Board of JLDHE recognises that technological innovations are continuous in relation to supporting writing, editing and research, this policy has been written to support authors and readers with our position on Artificial Intelligence (AI) – inclusive of ‘Large Language Models (LLMs)’, ‘AI Chatbots, ‘Generative AI’, and other related technologies.
While we recognise the potential benefits of using AI tools to transform research and writing practices, we are also aware of its risks, which raise important ethical considerations that we expect our authors to address when submitting their work to JLDHE. In an effort to uphold principles of academic integrity and trustworthiness, authors submitting manuscripts that have used AI in any step of the research and/or writing process must adhere to the following principles:
Transparency – Transparency in writing and dissemination is critical to the peer review process and our journal’s academic standards. A lack of transparency undermines trust, and we expect authors to clearly disclose the use of AI systems in the creation of their manuscripts. This includes attribution to the specific AI system used, as well as transparency about how and to what extent the technology was implemented. This includes details on the type of system, the extent of its use (text generation, research design, methods design, data analysis, data visualisation and other uses), and the purpose within the study. Any AI tasks relevant to methodology should be explained in the Methods section of the manuscript. This will allow editors, reviewers and readers to better evaluate the work.
Authorship – AI tools, and particularly the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) which generate written text, diagrams and figures, should be used to augment, not replace, original analysis and authorship. Authors retain responsibility for the final product, and should ensure it contains original thought, synthesis, and critique. The AI system itself is not the author, nor should it be listed in the references.
Accuracy – AI tools can confidently produce erroneous or incorrect outputs, often referred to as ‘hallucinations’. All work produced with AI should be carefully reviewed to ensure accuracy, logical coherence, and alignment with the scholarly literature. Errors, inaccuracies, biases or misrepresentations introduced by the AI system must be corrected prior to submission.
Ethics – Any research involving human subjects that informs AI-produced or analysed content must adhere to ethical practices and be approved by an institutional review board. Considerations must be made regarding intellectual property, privacy, and the responsible use of data sources used to train generative systems. The limitations and biases inherent in any AI tools utilised must be acknowledged in the Limitations section of the manuscript.
By adopting the above principles, we aim to thoughtfully integrate these emerging technologies into our journal and field. Our commitment to transparency, integrity, author accountability and ethics will guide decisions around publishing AI-generated, processed or analysed content. Authors considering the use of AI systems are encouraged to discuss options with the editorial team before submission.
In publishing with us, authors can be confident that we do not use AI for any of our author, reviewer or external content creation and correspondence, nor do we feed any submissions into AI tools that summarise or review academic papers.
We welcome feedback from our scholarly community as we continue to evaluate appropriate uses of AI in research and publishing.
This page was last updated on 26 January 2024.
Disclosure in the manuscript
All authors must disclose the use of AI technologies in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript:
[Please delete as appropriate:]
The authors did not use AI technologies in the creation of this manuscript.
OR
The authors used the following AI tools in the preparation of this manuscript: ______. The tasks performed by [specify the tool] include: text generation, research design, methods design, data analysis, data visualisation, literature analysis, etc. [rephrase as appropriate, separately for each tool used]. The tasks relevant to methodology are explained in the Methods section and the limitations and biases inherent in AI are acknowledged in the Limitations section of the manuscript. The authors have complied with the JLDHE’s principles of AI use.
[NOTE to authors – we do not expect you to disclose the use of tools used for the correction of spelling and grammatical errors unless such tools are undertaking substantive re-writing beyond the sentence level. If you are unsure, please discuss it with the editor.]