MUSLIM EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH (MER) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) POLICY

MUSLIM EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH (MER) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) POLICY

 
 

FOR AUTHORS 

 

1. Prohibited Uses of AI 

Muslim Education Review (MER) is an international journal published by the Education Faculty of Indonesian International Islamic University, Indonesia, and is committed to good scholarly practice and Islamic ethical values. MER recognises the value of artificial intelligence (AI) in supporting the research and writing process, while ensuring that the originality, integrity, and accountability of scholarship remain with human authors. 

 

2. What Counts as AI Tools? 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools include large language models (LLMs) (e.g., ChatGPT), grammar checkers, translation tools, summarisation tools, and other software that can generate or substantially change/modify text.  

 

3. Permitted Uses of AI 

Authors may use AI tools only for non-substantive support, such as: 

  • checking grammar, spelling, and punctuation checks; 

  • improving clarity, style, and readability; 

  • formatting references and headings (with human verification); 

  • producing a first draft translation of the authors’ own text, followed by careful human revision. 

In all cases, authors must read, check, and take full responsibility for the final text. 

 

4. Prohibited Uses of AI 

The following uses of AI are not allowed: 

  • writing substantial parts of the manuscript (e.g., introduction, literature review, theory, analysis, discussion, conclusion); 

  • generating research questions, theoretical frameworks, or arguments; 

  • analysing, coding, or interpreting data (qualitative or quantitative); 

  • fabricating or altering data, quotations, or findings; 

  • creating or modifying references and DOIs without verification; 

  • citing AI tools as scholarly sources; 

  • uploading identifiable or sensitive data (e.g., students, teachers, institutions) into public AI tools; 

  • creating or altering images (e.g, editing an image or figure to change how it looks, hide or remove parts, or add new elements) unless the use of AI or AI-assisted tool is a part of the research design or research methods (must be transparently described in the method section). 

 

5. Disclosure Requirement 

All use of AI tools in preparing a manuscript must be transparently declared. Authors must include an “AI Use Statement” at the end of the manuscript before the reference list, indicating: 

  • tool name and provider (e.g., Grammarly, Grammarly Inc.); 

  • purpose of use (e.g., grammar checking, language polishing). 

 

Example statement: 

“We used Grammarly (Grammarly Inc., premium version) for grammar and spelling checks only. All content/material in the manuscript has been reviewed and approved by the authors.” 

 

If no AI tools were used, authors may state: 

“The authors confirm that no AI tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.” 

 

6. Responsibility and Authorship 

AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Human authors are still responsible for all content, including any text suggested by AI tools. 

 

7. MER editors may: 

  • asking for clarification or supporting documents (e.g., drafts, raw data); 

  • reject submissions that has potential in breaching this policy; 

  • retract published articles if serious violations are detected. 

Serious misconduct may be reported to authors’ institutions or funders. 

 

 

AI GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS  

These guidelines are intended to help reviewers for Muslim Education Review (MER) use AI tools ethically, responsibly, and consistently with MER’s AI Policy. 

 

1. Your role as a reviewer 

As a reviewer, you are trusted to: 

  • evaluate the manuscripts in a fair and confidential way; 

  • provide constructive feedback based on your own expertise; 

  • respect the trust of authors, their institutions, and the research participants. 

AI may help you with small tasks, but they must not must never replace your own reading, thinking, and evaluation of the manuscript. 

 

2. How you may use AI as a reviewer 

You may: 

  • use AI to check grammar and clarity of your review text (your comments), provided you do NOT paste confidential manuscript content into public tools; 

  • use a secure, institutional AI tool (if available) to tidy your wording, after checking that it does not store or reuse data. 

 

You must NOT: 

  • upload the manuscript (or large chunks of it) to public AI tools; 

  • ask AI to read and evaluate the manuscript for you (e.g., “Summarise this whole paper and tell me if it is publishable”); 

  • allow AI to “write your review” (your comments must be your own professional judgement); 

  • reveal any confidential information (author names, institutions, unpublished data) in AI chats that may be stored. 

You remain fully responsible for what you submit as a review.