AI Usage Policies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Policies

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and publication of scientific articles is on the rise, generating new ethical and legal questions. The Revista Universidad de Guayaquil recognizes that the generative capacity of AI technologies can be leveraged to support scientific writing and publication, provided it is done ethically and transparently.

Permitted Ethical Uses of AI

Authors may use AI tools for the following support purposes:

  • Ideation: Generating ideas or inspiration on the topic to be written based on keywords.
  • Synthesis: Summarizing information from previous studies to better understand the literature and identify key points.
  • Data grouping: Collecting and structuring relevant information by leveraging machine learning.
  • Originality review: Exploring content similarity to facilitate the insertion of citations, detect unintentional plagiarism, and avoid duplication (taking care not to store the document in open repositories that generate false positives in the final manuscript).
  • Style editing: Suggestions for language alternatives, grammatical correction, and improving the flow and coherence of the text.

Recognized Risks and Limitations

Despite its benefits, the use of AI carries risks that compromise scientific rigor, such as:

  • Hallucinations, dissemination of erroneous information, or fake citations.
  • Lack of quality or bias in the AI training data.
  • Uncertainty regarding privacy, information security, and intellectual property protection.
  • Need for specific competencies to understand and validate the results generated by the models.

To guarantee the integrity, transparency, and quality of the research, the Revista Universidad de Guayaquil establishes the following mandatory guidelines for all interested parties.

1. Guidelines for Authors

The Revista Universidad de Guayaquil strictly states that the use of AI to write articles on its own is not permitted, nor will a Large Language Model (LLM) be accepted as a co-author. AI lacks the capacity to assume legal or moral responsibility for the content and cannot grant consent for publication.

Responsible Use and Transparency:

  • Mandatory declaration: Authors must explicitly declare the use of generative AI in the creation of text, figures, translation, or data analysis.
  • Data verification: It is the absolute responsibility of the authors to verify the facts, data, and the veracity of all bibliographic references suggested by the AI.
  • Privacy and Ethics: The policies of the AI tools regarding sensitive data must be reviewed, ensuring that informed consent is obtained from participants and that confidential data is not compromised.
  • Bias analysis: Authors must critically evaluate the AI's results to detect and declare possible algorithmic biases (gender, race, social class, etc.) that may affect the study's conclusions.

Methodological Documentation: If AI was used in the research, the manuscript must include a section detailing:

  • The specific tools used (name, version, creator company).
  • The parameters, algorithms (if applicable), and the impact of the tool on the process.
  • The way in which the authors humanly validated the content generated or processed by the AI.

2. Guidelines for Reviewers (Blind Peers)

The Revista Universidad de Guayaquil does not prohibit the use of AI to support the evaluation work, but informed, human critical judgment must always prevail over any automated analysis.

  • Rigorous confidentiality: Reviewers must exhaustively review the terms of use of the generative AI to guarantee that the authors' unpublished texts are not used to train public models (information leak).
  • Evaluation of AI use by the authors: The reviewer must analyze whether the authors ethically documented the use of AI, evaluating possible biases and the quality of the methodology employed.
  • Declaration of use: If the reviewer uses AI to draft or structure their evaluation report, they must disclose it at the end of their comments to the editor. Example: "I performed the style correction of this review with the help of [Tool, Version, Year]".
  • Final responsibility: The human reviewer is solely responsible for the comments and verdicts issued.

3. Guidelines for the Editorial Committee

The editorial policy will be updated periodically to reflect technological advances. Complementing peer review, the Revista Universidad de Guayaquil will subject all manuscripts to textual similarity analysis and AI detection through Turnitin.

The central evaluation will always be the scientific value of the work, prioritizing human analysis. However, for the management of AI detection reports, the Editorial Committee will apply the following ranges of action:

  • Low Range (0% - 20% AI detection): The text is considered to maintain its human originality and is acceptable. No exceptional justifications are required. (Note: The maximum number of authors allowed under this regular workflow is up to five researchers).
  • Moderate Range (21% - 40% AI detection): Acceptance is conditional. Authors will be required to include a detailed subsection in the Methodology section explaining exactly how they used the tool, how they verified the originality of the content, and what real sources support the detected text.
  • Critical Range (Over 40% AI detection): The manuscript will be automatically rejected and discarded from the editorial process due to a lack of verifiable human originality.

Normative References