Declaration of Ethics and Good Practices

The Journal Acta Scientiarum. Education is a vehicle for scientific dissemination, to promote the development of research focused on the field of education within ethical standards appropriate for scientific publications. Ethics as premise for conducting scientific dissemination goes beyond the limits of publications and also denotes the understanding of science and education as means of maintaining and improving social life.

Concern for these aspects is part of the journal's mission, in enabling the registration and preservation of knowledge. To this end, we constantly seek to improve practices to ensure the reliability of the process and avoid plagiarism and fraud, having as our main reference the principles established by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). These are recommendations developed since 1997, intending to provide support, guidance, and instruction to editors who intend to adopt these practices in their journals. Both in the Code of Conduct for Journal Editors (Code Of Conduct And Best Practice Guidelines For Journal Editors - COPE) as in the 2017 Core Practices, which replaced the previous document, COPE offers a set of substantial guidelines applicable to academic literature.

Compliance with the COPE approach has enabled the adoption of means and instruments for recording procedures, evaluating submissions, and the stages of the publication process. Those involved in the publication process – authors, editors, editorial board, scientific board, ad hoc reviewers, librarians, and technicians – must be aware of practices related to: allegations of misconduct; conflicts of interest; authorship and contribution; intellectual property; reproducibility data; peer review; and ethical oversight. Another important aspect that needs to be constantly improved is the means of communication, both during the submission and evaluation process and post-publication, so that corrections, appeals, complaints, and discussions are encouraged appropriately and transparently (cf. Flowchart).

Editorial Ethics Guidelines

The journal's main objective is to promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge through the adoption of open science practices.

In this sense, authors are encouraged to provide detailed information on the sources used, the methods used in data collection and analysis, and the results obtained in their research. The journal maintains constant communication with its authors, reviewers, and readers, aiming to clarify doubts and respond to any requests for review of manuscripts.

In order to ensure the impartiality of the evaluation process, the editors carefully monitor the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest, both on the part of the reviewers and the editorial team. The decision to accept or reject a manuscript is based on ethical principles of research and scientific dissemination, under current legislation and best academic practices. The identity of the authors and reviewers is kept confidential throughout the editorial process, and the authors are solely responsible for the content of the published articles.

The Journal Acta Scientiarum. Education reiterates its commitment to editorial independence, not being subject to any commercial or financial interests. The identities of authors and reviewers will remain confidential during the editorial process and after its completion. The published texts are the sole responsibility of the authors.

The Journal Acta Scientiarum. Education protects its editorial process from commercial or financial interests.

Ethical decisions and procedures are based on the following documents:

We also highlight, regarding Open Science, the Journal's concern regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in scientific production we have adopted the political measures below.

Policy on the use of artificial intelligence

The Journal Acta Scientiarum. Education values ​​articles written by human beings, since in times when Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developing rapidly and interfering, not always positively, in the scientific production process, human intellect must be valued.

Given this, the authorship of the submitted article must belong to the authors. We understand that the use of AI has driven debates on ethics and the development of knowledge from the use of AI and the authorship of academic works (Peres, 2024). Furthermore, Sampaio et al. (2024) emphasize that AIs cannot be considered authors, as they are not responsible for the content produced.

Researchers, when using AI, must, according to Peres (2024) and Sampaio et al. (2024), highlight the use of this tool, including as much information as possible, such as the name of the AI, version, time, date, and must necessarily include, as an attachment, the conversation on the platform in the work prepared.

In this sense, the reflections of Sampaio, Sabbatini, Limongi (2024, p. 30) are useful for thinking about the ethical use of AI, “AI tools offer significant advantages in the search and synthesis of academic materials, but they should be used as a complement, not as a substitute for the critical judgment and expertise of the researcher”.

Thus, the use of artificial intelligence raises issues related to academic/professional misconduct, plagiarism, and academic productivism, since, when preparing scientific materials, researchers must bear in mind that intelligences only analyze materials produced by humanity, only reorganizing them according to their questions, without producing new science.

Scientific innovation, especially in the field of Human Sciences, can only be produced by the intellectual discovery of human beings. Articles submitted to the Journal will be subject to verification of correspondence and plagiarism, especially from AI platforms, through Turnitin.

If any AI is used, you must inform, at the time of submission, what was generated by the AI, as well as which AI was used.

Use of artificial intelligence

  • The use of AI to generate images to be inserted into scientific articles is prohibited. We reiterate the prohibition of the use of images generated by AI.
  • AI can be used to search for synonyms and grammatical adequacy of the language. However, this does not rule out the need for a review of grammatical, linguistic, formatting, and foreign language aspects by a professional in Literature. The reviewer(s) is/are responsible for the review report.
  • The use of AI to create or manipulate data is unacceptable, in such cases the submission will be rejected, and the author will not be able to submit it again.
  • If plagiarism or the use of AI for the preparation of an already published article is detected, the editorial committee will contact the author for possible explanations or the article will be removed from the journal's website and will include a retraction about the situation.

Policy for using AI in writing

  • Allowed use (0-20%).
  • Use >20% will not be allowed, i.e., the article will not be accepted by the Journal. Example of disclosure: “ChatGPT (OpenAI)/Gemini or other [indicate which] was used to generate 20% [change percentage] of the content of the introduction and results section [interpretation, prediction, editing, etc.]. The authors verified the accuracy and originality of the AI-generated content.” This example was generated with AI. This structure helps maintain transparency and academic integrity while allowing the use of AI tools in research.

References

Peres, F. (2024). A literacia em saúde no ChatGPT: explorando o potencial de uso de inteligência artificial para a elaboração de textos acadêmicos. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 29(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-81232024291.02412023

Sampaio, R. C. et al. (2024). ChatGPT e outras IAs transformações a pesquisa científica: reflexões sobre seus usos. Revista de Sociologia e Política, 32, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-98732432e008

Sampaio, R. C., Sabbatini, M., & Limongi, R. (2024). Diretrizes para o uso ético e responsável da Inteligência Artificial Generativa: um guia prático para pesquisadores. Editora Intercom.