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Ethics Statement

This journal’s policies have been developed to ensure that the journal’s editorial and publication practices remain transparent, accountable, and aligned with current international research and creative work publication standards, including governing the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in research, artistic practice, and publishing.

As part of our commitment to environmental sustainability, the journal prioritizes digital-first, low-environmental-impact publication workflows. We encourage reflection on the ecological and material dimensions of creative and technological practices, including the use of AI tools.

Contents

Our commitment to transparent and ethical publication practices

The journal adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Committee on Publication Ethics - COPE), ensuring accountability, fairness, and trust across all stages of publication.

These principles include:

  • Editorial independence and defined governance;
  • Transparent peer review and decision-making processes;
  • Anti-racist and equity-centered peer review practices that actively work to recognize, interrupt, and prevent bias, exclusion, and harm in evaluation and publication processes;
  • Disclosure of conflicts of interest for editors, reviewers, and authors;
  • Ethical authorship, correction, and retraction procedures;
  • Data accessibility and integrity in alignment with disciplinary norms;
  • Open communication regarding journal scope and policies.

Academic integrity and research ethics

All submissions must be original, properly cited, and free from plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification.

Projects involving human participants (including students, performers, or interviewees) must comply with institutional ethics review and informed consent protocols, in alignment with the standards in the discipline. Each contribution involving human subject research will have documentation of the informed consent protocols used, or IRB waiver if appropriate, and the journal may ask for this documentation.

If data is used in research for a contribution selected for publication, authors must retain research datasets and code in compliance with privacy, ethics, and copyright policies and regulations. Datasets that are not publicly available via formal repository may be requested by the editorial board for review.

Creative submissions and practice-based research must include a critical reflection situating the creative process within a scholarly context, and include citations relevant within the discipline.

Image, Audio, and Media Rights

Contributors must secure rights and permissions for all media materials used in the article before publication, and attest to this upon submission of the final publication version.

Editorial Board Integrity

All members of the editorial board must affirm, upon appointment and periodically thereafter, that to the best of their knowledge they are not currently affiliated with, nor actively participate in, any publication or publisher recognized as predatory or engaged in deceptive publishing practices. Board members are expected to uphold recognized standards of scholarly publishing ethics, transparency, and academic integrity in all professional affiliations.

If a potential conflict or concern arises regarding a publication with which a board member is associated, the editorial board member must disclose this promptly to the Editor-in-Chief in accordance with the journal’s ethical governance policies.

Our commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

The journal values the wide range of expertise that contributors — authors, artists, peer reviewers, editors, and editorial board members — bring to the publication. We are committed to cultivating a scholarly environment in which diverse intellectual traditions, creative practices, identities, and lived experiences are recognized as vital to the advancement of knowledge in arts, design, and media higher education. The journal affirms that belonging is foundational to scholarly exchange and strives to foster processes in which contributors feel respected, welcomed, and meaningfully engaged.

The journal recognizes that concepts such as rigor, maturity, and even “research” are shaped by disciplinary background, institutional norms, and cultural frameworks. It therefore encourages reflective awareness of how such perspectives inform evaluation. All contributors are encouraged to draw on diverse scholarly traditions and, where appropriate, to recommend communication and citation practices that reflect a breadth of canons, epistemological foundations, and ways of knowing.

Accessibility is integral to the journal’s mission. Contributors are encouraged to consider clarity of communication, multimodal accessibility, and inclusive design in all aspects of the publication process. The journal supports efforts to make research and creative work accessible to broad and diverse audiences, including individuals with disabilities and those working across linguistic, geographic, and disciplinary contexts.

Since Tradition-innovations in Arts, Design, and Media Higher Education publishes work that may experiment with format, media, and ways of knowing, editors and peer reviewers are asked to approach unfamiliar methods, creative practices, or knowledge frameworks with openness and intellectual curiosity. When a submission falls outside an editor’s or reviewer’s primary disciplinary training, this may signal an opportunity for careful engagement rather than grounds for early dismissal.

Editors and peer reviewers are also asked to remain attentive to scholarship that may unintentionally reproduce harm, exclusion, or inequity. Thoughtful and critically reflective engagement strengthens individual submissions and helps the journal recognize, address, and prevent harmful dynamics within both the review process and the scholarship it publishes.

In evaluating submissions, editors and peer reviewers are encouraged to consult the following resource, especially the sections on recognizing different kinds of expertise and epistemologies: Anti-racist scholarly reviewing practices: A heuristic for editors, reviewers, and authors (2021) .

Editors participate in training to recognize how systemic biases (including racism, sexism, ableism, and other forms of inequity) operate in publishing, and to practice strategies for reducing these biases in their editorial decisions and feedback.

Our commitment to ethical uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The journal supports a human-centric approach grounded in values that promote human dignity, autonomy, fairness, and sustainability, and aligns its AI policy with guidelines recommended by COPE (2023–2024), the EU Guidelines on Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (European Commission High-Level Expert Group on AI, 2019), the EU AI Act (2024), UNESCO (2021), ICMJE (2024), and emerging frameworks from the Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Historical Association (AHA).

Human authorship and accountability

  • Following MLA–CCCC (2024) and AHA (2024) guidance, all contributors to the journal must disclose AI use and reflect critically on its effect on writing, interpretation, and representation.
  • Creative practitioners should contextualize AI-assisted works with a reflective critical discussion of authorship, labour, and cultural meaning.
  • AI systems cannot be credited as authors.
  • Human authors retain full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and ethical standing of all work.
  • Undeclared AI use is an ethical violation under COPE (2024).
  • Peer reviewers and editors are not allowed to enter the text of contributions into AI platforms used for training AI systems, since this violates intellectual property rights.

AI use disclosure requirements

Contributors should disclose the meaningful use of AI tools where such use shapes authorship, creative agency, representation, or interpretation of the work. Disclosures should briefly describe how AI functioned within the creative or scholarly process (e.g., drafting, editing, image, sound, or media generation).

All AI-generated or AI-modified materials—text, images, data visualizations, or audio—must be clearly labeled as such within the submission.

AI systems must not be used to generate or assist in producing illegal or unethical materials, and must not be used to perpetuate discriminatory or biased content.

Responsibility for the conceptual, ethical, and expressive dimensions of the work remains with the human author(s).

This policy seeks to ensure that all submissions meet the standards of transparency, accountability, and integrity in line with the journal’s ethical commitments.

AI Use by Editors and Reviewers

  • Manuscripts and peer review materials are strictly confidential and must not be uploaded to any AI platform or system without explicit written permission from the journal and the contributors.
  • Editorial decisions must always be based on human scholarly judgment, informed by disciplinary expertise and critical evaluation.

Reflective and Sustainable Practice

Contributors are encouraged to address:

  • Ethical implications of their AI use
  • Steps to mitigate social and ecological impact of their AI use
  • Reflect on the collaborative dynamic between human creativity and computational tools.

Policy Development

Journal policy framework sources

The policy draws on the frameworks and recommendations from the scholarly, ethical, and regulatory bodies listed below, adapting their principles to the specific context of arts and humanities scholarship and creative practice for this journal.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) — COPE’s recommendations serve as the foundation for ethical authorship and disclosure requirements in this policy. It provides guidance on issues of AI authorship and disclosure, emphasizing that AI tools cannot be listed as authors and that all uses of AI in the preparation of manuscripts must be transparently declared and documented.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) — Outlines criteria for editorial quality and transparency. For arts journals, DOAJ recognizes editorial review with at least two editors involved as an acceptable alternative to anonymous peer review. Creative and editorials undergo such an editorial review. Research articles undergo a double-blind peer-review process. This principle informs our standards for editorial oversight and review integrity.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) — Although developed for biomedical publishing, ICMJE’s authorship criteria and conflict-of-interest standards provide a well-established model for defining contributor roles and responsibilities, ensuring clarity about human accountability in all publications.

Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Historical Association (AHA) — The recommendations from these institutions offer emerging disciplinary perspectives on AI use and academic integrity, particularly relevant to the interpretive and creative methods characteristic of the humanities. Their approaches guide this policy’s emphasis on responsible, transparent, and context-sensitive use of AI in scholarship and pedagogy.

UNESCO and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) — These international standards articulate broad ethical frameworks that promote transparency, accountability, and human oversight in AI use. Following these international standards underpins the journal’s commitment to safeguarding human judgment and integrity throughout the editorial and publication process for its global audience.

By following these recommendations, the editors want to ensure that the journal’s policies uphold the highest standards of academic integrity, transparency, and ethical responsibility in scholarly publishing in the arts and humanities.

AI use statement

The first draft of this policy - subsequently significantly revised - was prepared using the research and drafting tools in ChatGPT-5, trained on the publicly available recommendations and frameworks issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Modern Language Association (MLA), the American Historical Association (AHA), and the UNESCO and EU AI Ethics Guidelines, including the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (2024).

The use of ChatGPT-5 was limited to research synthesis and drafting support under human oversight. After the generation of a first draft using ChatGPT-5, the Editor-in-Chief reviewed and revised it to ensure accuracy, disciplinary relevance, and adherence to the journal’s ethical standards. The draft was then reviewed, discussed, and revised before the vote to adopt the policies by the Editorial Board. This process reflected the journal’s commitment to transparency, accountability, and responsible integration of AI tools in policy development, consistent with the standards established by international regulatory and professional bodies.

References

American Historical Association. (2024). Guiding principles on artificial intelligence in historical scholarship.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (n.d.). Principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing.

Creative Commons. (2019). https://creativecommons.org/

European Parliament, EU AI Act: First Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (2024).

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (2024). Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals.

Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (DOAJ). (n.d.). Principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing.

Modern Language Association & Conference on College Composition and Communication. (2024). Task force on writing and artificial intelligence.

UNESCO. (2021). Recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence.

World Wide Web Consortium. (2018). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.

Contact

Editor-in-Chief

For all submission, peer review, journal policy, and ethics inquiries, including AI use and conflict of interest disclosures, please contact Editor-in-Chief Dr. Yvonne Houy at Yvonne.Houy@unlv.edu

UNLV College of Fine Arts
4505 S. Maryland Pkwy, Box 455013
Las Vegas, NV 89154-5013

Organizations sponsoring Tradition-Innovations in Arts, Design, and Media Higher Education