Expert-Validated Reporting Framework

Make AI involvement in research visible, assessable, and accountable.

PETMALU-AI helps authors document how generative AI contributed to research writing and helps editors and reviewers evaluate whether that use has been reported transparently.

Choose your role

One framework, two purpose-built workflows.

Authors document what occurred. Editors and reviewers evaluate whether applicable information is adequately reported.

Author workspace

Combine a materiality profile with one or more AI functions, manage multiple tools, document item-level reporting, and generate several manuscript-ready outputs.

  • Multi-project and multi-tool support
  • No-AI-use declaration workflow
  • JSON, CSV, text, and print export
  • Seven report formats
Open the author workspace →

Editor and reviewer workspace

Determine likely applicability, assess reporting, record evidence, and generate item-linked revision requests without a misleading pass/fail score.

  • Adequate, partial, missing, unclear, or N/A
  • Detailed evidence-to-look-for guidance
  • Multiple comment formats
  • Assessment import and export
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Proportional but systematic

Use a materiality level and AI functions together.

The paper’s provisional levels establish reporting depth. The website adds a separate multi-select function layer—such as translation, literature synthesis, coding, synthetic data, or figures—to help users construct an initial applicable checklist.

Learn how applicability is determined →
1

Select materiality

Minimal editorial, moderate writing, substantive process, data-generative, or no AI.

2

Select AI functions

Choose all tasks that actually occurred.

3

Review every item

Confirm, add, remove, document, or justify non-applicability.

Methodological safeguard: Every recommendation remains provisional implementation guidance. It is not a validated subscale or automatic minimum.
Three overarching dimensions

Authorship, Logging, and Use organize the complete framework.

The nine PETMALU-AI domains are grouped into three complementary dimensions that make human responsibility, process traceability, and the substantive use of AI visible.

A · Authorship

Who contributed and who remains accountable?

Covers disclosure and scope, human contribution and responsibility, authorship compliance, ethical considerations, policy compliance, bias mitigation, and privacy safeguards.

Domains 1, 2, and 7
L · Logging

How was the AI-assisted process documented?

Covers the AI system and version, access context and configuration, prompting and interaction records, output curation, reproducibility information, and supporting materials.

Domains 3, 4, and 9
U · Use

What did AI do, and how was its influence evaluated?

Covers AI-generated or transformed data and content, human verification, validation, error and bias review, robustness checks, limitations, reflexivity, and reproducibility constraints.

Domains 5, 6, and 8
Explore the nine domains
Nine domains

Understand not only what to report, but why the items differ.

Read all domain guides
Content provenance

Validated content and implementation guidance are clearly labeled.

The official item title, description, rationale, and example originate from the validated framework. Plain-language explanations, additional examples, suggested reviewer comments, and scenario mappings are supplementary implementation aids.

Validated PETMALU-AI content Supplementary implementation guidance Illustrative example
Too broad "AI helped with the paper."
Assessable "ChatGPT was used to improve grammar and sentence clarity in selected sections. It was not used for source selection, analysis, interpretation, or conclusions. All changes were checked by the authors, and no identifiable data were entered."
Cite PETMALU-AI

Using the framework, checklist, or companion resources?

Please cite the published paper so readers can locate the framework’s development, validation, and official 33-item checklist.

Open the article
Published Research

APA citation

Garcia, M. B. (2026). PETMALU-AI: A reporting checklist for transparent and accountable generative AI-assisted research writing. Education Sciences, 16(7), 1127. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16071127

33 validated items 9 domains 3 dimensions
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Report AI use clearly—or evaluate whether it has been reported well.