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

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.

The use of Generative AI in qualitative analysis: Inductive thematic analysis with ChatGPT

“…This phase involved extensive discussion and collaboration to identify the final set of themes (cf. Perkins & Roe, 2024), and to ensure they were both comprehensive and grounded in the data. It became evident that while the GenAI tool used had strong capabilities in identifying themes for further exploration, a deep understanding of the intricacies and potential pitfalls of using this software was essential to obtain the best possible results and avoid AI hallucinations.…”

“…This enhanced functionality allows ChatGPT to perform additional tasks beyond simple text-based interactions, such as data analysis, complex problem solving, and code generation. These capabilities make ChatGPT an important tool for academic inquiry across various disciplines (Perkins & Roe, 2024;Salah et al, 2023) because of its capacity to swiftly review extensive datasets, discern patterns, and provide nuanced interpretations complemented by traditional human-centric analytical approaches (Bowman, 2023). Such synergy between machine and researcher can lead to richer insights and more comprehensive interpretations.…”

“…In this article, we report on the use of ChatGPT as a key methodological innovation when analyzing leading academic and educational publishing house policies regarding the use of ChatGPT in authoring research (Perkins & Roe, 2024). The aim of this article is to highlight a specific use case in which ChatGPT and other GenAI tools can help offer greater depth in the analysis of textual data, leading to deeper insights and interpretations.…”

The Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS): A Framework for Ethical Integration of Generative AI in Educational Assessment

“…There is now evidence from empirical research that major academic publishers of scholarly journals do not prohibit the use of GenAI; conversely, many encourage their use to refine and improve manuscripts if their use is declared transparently and if the author takes full responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of the work (Perkins & Roe, 2024). Pragmatically, this seems to be the only option that prepares academics and students for the rapid advances in AI; given that text detection services and combative approaches are flawed (Sadasivan et al, 2023), and a 'postplagiarism' world may be on the horizon (Eaton, 2023).…”