AI Policy for Reviewers

Bioscird Journal Club Reviews and Reports (BJCRR)

The Bioscird Journal Club Reviews and Reports (BJCRR) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of ethical peer review, confidentiality, and academic integrity. Reviewers play a vital role in ensuring the scientific quality and credibility of published research. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) or AI-assisted tools during peer review must strictly follow the guidelines outlined below.

1. Confidentiality and Data Protection

All manuscripts submitted for peer review are strictly confidential documents. Reviewers must not upload, share, or input any part of a manuscript—including text, figures, tables, or supplementary materials—into any AI system or external platform.

This restriction is essential to protect author confidentiality, intellectual property rights, and research integrity.

The same confidentiality obligations apply to review reports. Under no circumstances should AI tools be used to process or store confidential manuscript content.

2. Use of AI in Scientific Evaluation

Peer review is a scholarly responsibility that requires independent judgment, subject expertise, and critical academic evaluation.

AI tools must not be used to analyze, interpret, summarize, or evaluate submitted manuscripts.

Reviewers are fully responsible for ensuring that their assessments are original, accurate, and based solely on their own academic expertise.

3. Language and Report Writing Assistance

AI tools may be used only for improving grammar, language clarity, or readability of review reports.

However, reviewers must ensure that no confidential manuscript content is entered into any AI system at any stage of the review process.

Manuscript confidentiality and ethical integrity must be preserved at all times.

4. AI in Editorial Operations

The journal may use AI-assisted tools internally to support administrative and editorial workflows such as plagiarism screening, initial manuscript checks, and reviewer assignment.

These systems operate under strict confidentiality, security, and data protection protocols.

However, AI systems do not replace editorial judgment or peer review decisions. All final decisions are made exclusively by human editors.

5. Reviewer Accountability

Reviewers remain fully responsible for the content, quality, and integrity of their review reports and recommendations.

Any misuse of AI tools that compromises confidentiality, ethical standards, or the integrity of the peer review process may result in:

Removal from the reviewer database
Revocation of reviewing privileges
Notification to the editorial board for further action