Journal policies
The editorial and ethical policies of Behaviour, AI and Society. They apply to authors, reviewers and editors alike.
Publication ethics
The journal follows the Core Practices and guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Editors decide on manuscripts on their scholarly merit alone, independent of the authors' institution, nationality or beliefs, and independent of the publisher's commercial or institutional interests.
Competing interests
Authors, reviewers and editors declare any financial, institutional or personal interest that could affect, or appear to affect, their judgement. Editors and reviewers withdraw from manuscripts where such an interest exists. Manuscripts by editors, or by staff of the publishing institute, are handled by an independent editor and are never reviewed by colleagues from the same institution.
Use of AI tools
AI tools cannot be authors. Authors disclose any use of generative AI in preparing the work or the manuscript, naming the tool and its purpose, and remain fully responsible for the content. Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts or reports to generative AI services, because doing so breaks confidentiality.
Research with people and AI systems
Research involving human participants or personal data reports approval from an appropriate ethics committee and how informed consent was obtained, or explains why these were not required. Research that collects data from AI services or online platforms respects their terms of use and the privacy of the people represented in the data.
Data, code and materials
Every research article includes a data availability statement. Authors are encouraged to share data, code and materials in a public repository and to cite them; where data cannot be shared, the statement explains why and how they may be accessed. Preregistered studies and registered reports are welcome.
Research integrity
Submissions are checked for text similarity. Suspected plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, citation manipulation or image manipulation is handled following COPE's guidance, and may be reported to the authors' institutions.
Corrections and retractions
Errors are corrected through a published correction. Articles with serious, unresolvable problems receive an expression of concern or are retracted following COPE's retraction guidelines. Notices are linked to the original article, which stays online and is clearly marked.
Appeals and complaints
Authors may appeal an editorial decision within 30 days by writing to the editorial office with their reasons. An editor not involved in the original decision considers the appeal. Complaints about the journal's conduct can be sent to the institute's email address and receive a reply.
Copyright and licensing
Authors keep the copyright in their articles and grant the journal the right to publish them first. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).
Preservation
The journal will arrange long-term preservation of its articles with a recognised digital-preservation service before its first issue, and will name the service here.
Privacy
Personal data collected through submission and review are handled as described in the institute's privacy policy. Privacy policy