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Cited by 125Academic integrity and plagiarismPublishing and Scholarly CommunicationEthics and Social Impacts of AI

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 57 of the 58 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 1 are not checked yet; 3 of the 29 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Academic publisher guidelines on AI usage: A ChatGPT supported thematic analysis

Open access
Perkins, Mike, Roe, Jasper·2024·F1000Research

Abstract

Background As Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI (GenAI) have become more common in academic settings, it is necessary to examine how these tools interact with issues of authorship, academic integrity, and research methodologies. The current landscape lacks cohesive policies and guidelines for regulating AI’s role in academic research which has prompted discussions among publishers, authors, and institutions. Methods This study employs inductive thematic analysis to explore publisher policies regarding AI-assisted authorship and academic work. Our methods involved a two-fold analysis using both AI-assisted and traditional unassisted techniques to examine the available policies from leading academic publishers and other publishing or academic entities. The framework was designed to offer multiple perspectives, harnessing the strengths of AI for pattern recognition while leveraging human expertise for nuanced interpretation. The results of these two analyses are combined to form the final themes. Results Our findings indicate six overall themes, three of which were independently identified in both the AI-assisted and unassisted, manual analysis using common software tools. A broad consensus appears among publishers that human authorship remains paramount and that the use of GenAI tools is permissible but must be disclosed. However, GenAI tools are increasingly acknowledged for their supportive roles, including text generation and data analysis. The study also discusses the inherent limitations and biases of AI-assisted analysis, necessitating rigorous scrutiny by authors, reviewers, and editors. Conclusions There is a growing recognition of AI’s role as a valuable auxiliary tool in academic research, but one that comes with caveats pertaining to integrity, accountability, and interpretive limitations. This study used a novel analysis supported by GenAI tools to identify themes emerging in the policy landscape, underscoring the need for an informed, flexible approach to policy formulation that can adapt to the rapidly evolving landscape of AI technologies.

Verified 2026-11-13 · 1 reference not checked yet

Overview

CoChat Summary

TL;DR

This study analyzes 28 unique academic publisher AI policies using manual thematic analysis and ChatGPT-assisted analysis, finding broad consensus that human authorship remains paramount and GenAI use is allowed but must be disclosed. It also demonstrates a dual-method approach, with three themes identified independently by both analyses and AI-generated quotes requiring verification due to hallucinations.

Key findings

  • From 107 entities reviewed, 36 had AI policies; after removing 8 replicas, 28 unique policies were analyzed. Six final themes emerged: Human-Exclusive Authorship, Author Accountability, Disclosure and Transparency, Research Integrity, Fluid Policy Landscape, and Constraints and Exclusions; three were independently identified in both AI-assisted and manual analyses.
  • Publishers broadly agree AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume ethical or legal responsibility, and authors remain accountable for all content, including AI-assisted or generated portions.
  • GenAI use is generally permitted for support such as text generation and data analysis, but disclosure is a near-universal requirement, though the degree and format of disclosure vary; some policies impose constraints or outright prohibitions.
  • No significant differences in approach were noted across publisher categories, and the AI-assisted analysis produced inaccurate, misattributed, condensed, or fabricated policy quotes that required manual verification.

Methods

  • Inductive thematic analysis following Braun & Clarke’s six-phase approach; manual analysis by Researcher 2 using QDA Miner, and AI-assisted analysis by Researcher 1 using ChatGPT Plus/GPT-4 default and Advanced Data Analysis modes on July 27 and September 11, 2023, with results combined into final themes.
  • A master list of 107 entities was compiled from publisher rankings/lists and web searches, excluding suspected predatory publishers; manual website searches found 36 entities with AI policies, 8 replicas, leaving 28 unique policies.
  • Coding was at the semantic level; final themes were developed by comparing and grouping manual and AI-assisted themes, with manual editing and verification of quotes.

Limitations

  • Stated: the analysis was confined to a limited set of publisher policies available at the time; it focused on English-language and flagship/major publishing houses, excluding non-academic publishing and professional/governmental guidelines; it used a single AI tool, though four analyses over two time periods; GenAI may have missed nuanced interpretations while human analysis was limited by time and cognitive load; and the study did not empirically test the effectiveness or reliability of AI tools.
  • Stated: the data were straightforward and simple compared with interview data, so further studies are needed, and findings should be considered a snapshot of an evolving landscape.
  • Evident from the text: the AI-assisted analysis hallucinated, misattributed, condensed, or fabricated policy quotes, and only 28 policies were analyzed, so coverage may be incomplete and rapidly outdated.

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Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.12688/f1000research.142411.2

Cites

57 of 58 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

3 Valid · 2 Not valid · 21 Not checked · 152 Own results and interpretations

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Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

1 of 1

Cited works that were retracted

Works this paper cites that were later retracted, from the retraction notices publishers deposit. Major when the notice came out before this paper was published.

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Citations

Cites

1 retracted

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. 2023, February 20, What is SSRN’s policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in papers posted at SSRN? - SSRN Support Center.
  2. J Henley, 2023, June 20, German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI., The Guardian.
  3. L Nowell, 2017, Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria., Int. J. Qual. Methods., 16, 10.1177/16094069177338 · DOI
  4. 2023, Rankings of academic publishers., Wikipedia.

Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Perkins, M., & Roe, J.
Affiliations
  • British University Vietnam (VN)
  • James Cook University Singapore (SG)
Corresponding author
Perkins, Mike
Venue
F1000Research
Published
2024-01-16
Volume
12
Pages
1398
ISSN
2046-1402 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4387881071
Cited by
123
References
53
Citations by year
2026: 44 · 2025: 59 · 2024: 20
FWCI
35.04
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
  • cc-by
  • creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • F1000Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • ResearchOnline - JCU (James Cook University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Academic integrity and plagiarism
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Publishing and Scholarly Communication
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
Keywords
generative AI, scholarly publishing, publisher policies, AI-assisted writing, authorship, academic integrity, AI disclosure, AI-assisted research, ChatGPT, algorithmic bias, research accountability
MeSH terms
Data Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, Authorship, Humans, Organizations, Software

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

The claim verdicts this report counts are experimental: their accuracy is not yet measured.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-11-13, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-11-13 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Cited sources are checked with a language model’s help (qwen3.8-omni-flash).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

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Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.