AI Policy

ISTE+ASCD Book Author Guidelines for Using Artificial Intelligence

While artificial intelligence (AI) is a valuable assistive tool for writers, we believe that creative and intellectual work must remain fundamentally human. ISTE+ASCD does not intend to publish material written by AI. We agree with publishing and AI expert George Walkley: “AI is a hand, not a brain.” 

We’ve compiled these guidelines for ISTE+ASCD book authors to ensure that our published works maintain their authenticity, their educational value, and the author’s genuine voice while allowing for appropriate technological assistance. We will review and update these guidelines regularly to reflect the evolving use of AI.

Using AI During the Writing Process

We recognize that AI tools may provide helpful assistance during the long and often frustrating creative process. You may want to use AI to assist you as you write, but you should not think of AI as a ghostwriter that will do the actual writing for you or an artist that will create images for you. Our readers expect that our books are written by educators for educators, and they value the expertise and experience you have to share. The arguments and insights in your book should originate from you and represent an original contribution to the field, even if AI tools help you along the way. When in doubt, if the concept or expression originated from AI rather than from you, do not include it in your manuscript.

AI Tools to Assist in Writing

Similar to working with an editor, research assistant, or colleague, authors may use AI tools in an assistive capacity during the writing process for support. Some AI tools have both assistive and generative features, so be mindful not only about which tools you use but how you use them. 

Acceptable uses of AI for assistance include the following:

  • Brainstorming initial ideas that you develop on your own
  • Finding relevant articles or research reports to read to build your background knowledge
  • Providing feedback on the structure or content of an outline or chapter you’ve drafted to assist you in revising and refining your work (but note the caution below on uploading your writing into AI tools)
  • Transcribing audio or video interviews that you’ve conducted
  • Providing accommodations for accessibility, such as speech-to-text programs 
  • Checking grammar and spelling and performing other copyediting tasks to ensure consistency, accuracy, and clarity 
  • Checking your writing to ensure accessibility and readability 
  • Formatting citations and references for sources you’ve consulted (but note that you should carefully check citations because AI often makes mistakes in this area)
  • Using technology tools with built-in AI functionality like Photoshop to enhance your own images
  • Using AI-assisted layout tools like Canva to create an original graphic using your own content

If you use any AI tools to assist you during the writing process, be sure to carefully review any output from AI, as these tools are powerful but may not always be accurate and have been shown to sometimes reflect biases and “hallucinate” or make things up. 

AI Tools to Generate Content 

AI tools draw on existing visual and written content, much of which may be under copyright and not licensed for use, and should not be used to draft content for your book. Using AI instead of doing your own writing or creating your own images compromises the integrity of your voice and puts your reputation at risk—as well as ours as your publisher. 

Unacceptable uses of AI for generative purposes include the following:

  • Generating text for verbatim inclusion in your book, including paragraphs, scenarios, and reflection questions 
  • Generating text that you closely paraphrase for inclusion in your book. Similar to drawing on material from another source, merely paraphrasing is not considered original writing and is not a protection against potential plagiarism. If you incorporate text suggestions from AI tools, you should substantially rewrite and refine the suggestions to make them your own. 
  • Developing case studies or examples, which should instead draw from your own authentic experience or from a cited source
  • Generating research findings or creating or modifying research data
  • Summarizing research studies, interpreting research results, or paraphrasing research findings, as the risk of AI fabricating or misrepresenting research is too high to be reliable
  • Generating creative artwork, images, or graphics for inclusion in your book, such as a classroom image in the style of a photograph or a series of icons that a designer would create

If using excerpts of AI-generated text or including an AI-generated image is crucial to the context of your book—for example, to show readers how to teach students to use AI—please discuss exceptions with your acquisitions editor and be sure to flag that content for readers as having been generated by AI. For guidance on how to cite AI-generated text in your manuscript, we recommend consulting the APA Style Guide or checking with your editor. 

Understanding AI and Copyright

The legal landscape related to AI is continually evolving, but the courts have ruled that content generated by AI is not copyrightable; only content authored by humans is copyrightable in the U.S. According to the U.S. Copyright Office (2025), “Where AI merely assists an author in the creative process, its use does not change the copyrightability of the output. At the other extreme, if content is entirely generated by AI, it cannot be protected by copyright.” 

This means that any text or images generated by AI, even if you later refine it, would not be considered your original work and would not be protected by copyright (regardless of whether you or ISTE+ASCD owns the copyright to the book). Because AI content generation draws on existing sources, neither the AI company nor the person prompting the AI has ownership in the AI output.

Your intellectual property—your original work—is valuable, and we strongly discourage you from uploading your content into AI platforms or other tools, whether in draft or final form, unless you are sure that the tool you are using will not subsequently train its AI on that material. Some businesses like ISTE+ASCD have a proprietary license to a specific AI tool, for example, that prohibits use of uploaded content outside of that licensed version. Even if you are using, say, a paid version of a chatbot, you need to carefully review the terms of your license to see if material you upload is protected from being used for AI training and data mining. 

Much like when someone illegally uploads a digital version of your book to the internet, once your intellectual property has been uploaded to an AI tool it becomes available for anyone to draw on and very difficult to protect, making it much easier for unscrupulous actors to create a counterfeit version of your work or pass it off as their own. And uploading information about real students, educators, and schools that AI tools could use for training purposes could be problematic from a privacy perspective.

If sharing materials digitally with colleagues, editors outside of ISTE+ASCD, or other third parties, you should make it clear that they are not allowed to upload your work into AI tools for providing you with feedback, writing a foreword for your book, drafting an endorsement, or any other purpose. 

Disclosing AI Use

When you sign a book with us, you warrant that your manuscript is original. Although we do not require disclosure of every instance of using an AI tool or a list of prompts, if you have used AI tools in any capacity while developing and writing your manuscript, we ask that you disclose which tools you’ve used and how you’ve used them. We recommend that you keep a running record throughout the writing process indicating the AI tools you’ve used. When you submit your manuscript to your acquisitions editor, include a brief statement regarding your use of AI and confirm that all final content represents your original thinking and expression.

Example: “I used Grammarly for grammar checking and Claude for suggestions on research to read related to student test scores in math. I used Canva to create Figure 2.1. All final content, ideas, and expressions are my original work.”

If you are working with a coauthor on your manuscript, be sure to be transparent with one another about how you may be using AI during the writing process. If you or a coauthor used AI when working on the manuscript, in addition to informing your acquisitions editor about your AI use, we recommend including a statement to readers regarding AI use and the originality of your work on the first page of the manuscript that we can incorporate into the front matter or the Acknowledgments section of your book. 

It’s essential for our community of educators to know and trust that the books published by ISTE+ASCD represent human thought, experience, and expression.