Policies

Code of Conduct

JMSACL is committed to maintaining a respectful, inclusive, and ethical scholarly environment. All publishers, editors, reviewers and authors associated with the journal are expected to adhere to the following principles:

Principles of Conduct

  • Respect and Professionalism: Treat all individuals with courtesy and fairness. Discrimination, harassment, or abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
  • Integrity and Transparency: Uphold the highest standards of academic honesty. This includes proper citation, avoidance of plagiarism, and full disclosure of conflicts of interest.
  • Inclusivity: JMSACL values diverse perspectives and encourages contributions from underrepresented communities. We do not tolerate bias based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, or religion.
  • Confidentiality: Manuscripts under review and editorial communications are confidential. Participants must not share or misuse privileged information.
  • Accountability: Violations of this Code may result in removal from editorial roles, rejection of submissions, or notification to institutional authorities.

Reporting Misconduct

Concerns about behavior or ethical violations should be reported confidentially to the Managing Editor at chris.herold@msacl.org. All reports will be reviewed promptly and fairly, in accordance with Stanford University Press’s ethical oversight procedures.

AI Retention and Confidentiality Policy

Our journal uses enterprise‑grade AI services -- specifically OpenAI Business and Anthropic Team -- to support limited, confidential editorial tasks. These services operate under formal Data Processing Agreements (DPAs) that define how data is handled, protected, and deleted. Under these agreements, all manuscript content remains owned by the user, is encrypted in transit and at rest, and is never used to train AI models.

Any manuscript text or editorial material processed through these AI tools is used only for the immediate task and is deleted from our AI systems once the task is complete. In accordance with OpenAI Business and Anthropic Team retention policies, transient processing data held on their servers is automatically purged within 30 days. No manuscript content is stored, reused, or incorporated into model behavior, and no data is shared across customers or used for model improvement.

Internally, we retain the final AI‑produced files (e.g., reports, consistency checks, technical screens) for compliance and audit purposes. These files are stored securely locally (encrypted) and in our Dropbox Advanced for Companies environment, which provides enterprise‑grade encryption, access controls, and administrative oversight. In alignment with scholarly publishing best practices, these retained files are preserved for at least seven years to support editorial accountability, post‑publication inquiries, and research‑integrity investigations.

These controls ensure that AI‑assisted steps in our workflow meet the confidentiality, privacy, and security expectations required for scholarly publishing, including GDPR‑aligned data protection standards.

Desk Review

Following submission, your manuscript will initially undergo a Desk Review to ensure that it is within scope and appropriate for the journal. This Desk Review step is the first instance under which your manuscript will be analyzed by AI. In this case, AI will provide a Desk Review report that will be used by the Editors-in-Chief to assess whether it should move to the next stage.  

Scientific and Technical Check

Following Desk Review, your manuscript will initially undergo an AI-Driven Scientific and Technical Check to ensure that its format and content follows the required journal submission guidelines. If it fails the Technical Formatting Check it will either be  returned to the primary author for revision or be rejected (multiple rounds of non-compliance). It will not be rejected at this stage for actual or perceived scientific deficiencies, only for lack for response to formatting requirements.  

Peer Review Policy

JMSACL uses a single-anonymized peer review process. Reviewer identities are concealed throughout the review process.

Reviewer Responsibilities

  • Provide timely, constructive, and unbiased feedback
  • Evaluate manuscripts based on scholarly merit, clarity, and relevance
  • Disclose any competing interests before accepting a review
  • Maintain confidentiality and avoid sharing or citing unpublished content
  • Destroy all copies of the manuscript, and any related documents, after review
  • Must Not retain any version of the manuscript
  • Must Not use manuscript content for any purpose after review

Editorial Oversight

Editors select reviewers based on subject expertise and prior performance. Reviews are assessed for quality and tone before decisions are made. Editors may override reviewer recommendations at their discretion.

Competing Interests

Reviewers must decline assignments if they have:

  • Recent collaborations with the author(s)
  • Personal or institutional relationships
  • Financial or ideological conflicts that may impair objectivity

Appeals and Reconsideration

Authors may appeal editorial decisions by submitting a written request with justification. Appeals are reviewed by a senior editor or advisory board member not involved in the original decision. Submit appeals to the Managing Editor at chris.herold@msacl.org.

Ethical Standards

JMSACL adheres to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the ethical publishing standards of Stanford University Press. Suspected misconduct (e.g., plagiarism, data fabrication) will be investigated and may result in retraction or notification to relevant institutions.

Licensing

We offer authors one user license, which defines the permitted reuse of articles.

  • Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
    • Allows users to: distribute and copy the article; create extracts, abstracts, and other revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation); include in a collective work (such as an anthology); and text or data mine the article. These uses are permitted even for commercial purposes, provided the user: gives appropriate credit to the author(s) (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI); includes a link to the license; indicates if changes were made; and does not represent the author(s) as endorsing the adaptation of the article or modify the article in such a way as to damage the authors' honor or reputation.

Copyright

Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restriction.

Author Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

JMSACL supports the use of AI by authors for checking grammar and phrasing, as well as generating text, under the condition that it is performed with human verification and oversight. 

Authors remain fully accountable for accuracy, originality, ethical compliance, and any AI‑assisted content included in their work.

AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Consistent with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance, authorship remains a human responsibility.

JMSACL does NOT permit the use of AI for image manipulation, "cleaning" or generation of primary factual, scientific, clinical, or documentary images.

Declaration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use

Clear disclosure is required when generative AI tools are used for content creation, data processing, image generation, coding, or translation.

No disclosure is required for limited language‑clarity tools (e.g., spell‑checkers or grammar‑checkers) and reference formatting, aligned with STM (International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers) guidance.

Editorial Use of AI on Submitted Manuscripts

JMSACL uses enterprise‑grade artificial intelligence and AI‑assisted tools as part of its internally managed editorial and production workflows. Their use is governed by the requirements outlined below.

1. Confidentiality of submitted manuscripts

Submitted manuscripts are confidential scholarly materials. Manuscripts, figures, tables, supplementary materials, reviewer identities, and editorial correspondence are processed only through AI systems with enterprise-grade security and privacy.

Editors, reviewers, authors acting as reviewers, and other participants in peer review are NOT permitted to independently upload confidential manuscript materials into personal, free, consumer, or otherwise unapproved AI systems.

2. Permitted journal-controlled uses

Approved AI systems may assist journal staff with activities including:

  • manuscript completeness and submission checks;
  • journal formatting and structural compliance;
  • identification of missing sections or required information;
  • reference and citation consistency checks;
  • identification of apparent internal inconsistencies for human review;
  • language, grammar, and clarity screening;
  • preparation of editorial checklists or Author Task Lists;
  • research-integrity screening;
  • reviewer or subject-area matching;
  • administrative workflow assistance; and
  • other editorial or production functions authorized by the journal or Press.

3. Human editorial responsibility

Artificial intelligence may support but may not replace human scholarly judgment.

AI systems will not independently:

  • determine whether a manuscript should be accepted, rejected, or revised;
  • make final assessments of scientific validity, novelty, significance, or methodological quality;
  • serve as an autonomous peer reviewer; or
  • make final editorial decisions.

Editors and reviewers remain responsible for all scientific assessments, recommendations, decisions, and communications.

4. Peer reviewers

Reviewers are NOT permitted to upload manuscripts or confidential manuscript content into an AI system unless that system is expressly provided or approved by JMSACL for that purpose.

5. Accountability and oversight

AI-generated outputs is treated as decision-support material rather than authoritative findings.

Preservation and Archiving

JMSACL preserves all published content through participation in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN). PKP PN provides distributed, LOCKSS‑based preservation to guarantee the ongoing accessibility and integrity of the journal’s scholarly record.