Turkey - GAI Ethics Guide

Overview

The Council of Higher Education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, YÖK) published the "Ethics Guide of Generative Artificial Intelligence Use in the Scientific Research And Publication Process Of Higher Education Institutions" to inform Turkish universities about responsible GAI adoption in research and publication. The Guide was prepared through expert committees and stakeholder workshops and distributed to universities in May 2024. It is designed as national authoritative guidance rather than hard law and emphasizes ethical values and practical measures to preserve scientific integrity. The full guide and press material are available from YÖK: YÖK Ethics Guide (PDF) and the YÖK announcement page: YÖK press release (English). The Guide targets researchers, university administrators, research ethics committees and journal editors, and it sets out a set of principles, risk analyses and recommended institutional practices to ensure transparency, reproducibility and protection of rights.

Definitions

The Guide defines key terms concisely for institutional use: "Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI)" — models and systems that produce novel content (text, code, images, data) from learned patterns; "user prompts/inputs" — the data and queries provided to GAI systems; "hallucination" — model outputs that are plausible but factually incorrect or fabricated; "human oversight" — designated researcher responsibility for validating outputs and decisions; and "sensitive data" — personally identifiable information, confidential datasets, or proprietary information that require protection. These definitions are intended to standardize institutional understanding across universities and to support consistent disclosure practices.

Governance and Institutional Framework

YÖK positions the Guide as a framework for universities to operationalize GAI governance. It recommends that each institution adopt a clear local policy aligned with YÖK principles, designate responsible offices (e.g., research integrity office, data protection officer, library services, or an AI ethics committee), and integrate review of GAI use into existing ethics and research integrity processes. The Guide proposes roles and responsibilities: researchers must disclose and validate GAI use; principal investigators and supervisors must ensure oversight and recordkeeping; institutional review/ethics committees should assess projects with significant automated decision-making or sensitive-data usage; and university legal/compliance teams should review contracts with third-party GAI providers. YÖK encourages training programs for academic staff and students to ensure consistent application and understanding. See the YÖK announcement and the full Guide for the recommended governance elements: YÖK press release (English) and YÖK Ethics Guide (PDF).

Key Focus Areas

The Guide concentrates on several interlocking topics. Transparency and Disclosure: researchers should clearly state where and how GAI materially contributed (methods, acknowledgements, or author contribution statements). Scientific Integrity: authors remain responsible for verifying outputs; GAI cannot be listed as a sole author, and hallucinated citations or fabricated data are unacceptable. Data Protection and Privacy: the Guide warns against uploading identifiable or confidential data to third-party GAI platforms without contracts and technical safeguards; institutions should consult data protection officers and comply with national privacy rules. Accountability and Documentation: record model versions, prompts, and parameter settings where possible to support reproducibility and audit trails. Risk Management and Safety Evaluation: teams should conduct pre-use risk assessments evaluating accuracy, bias, and downstream impacts; for high-risk applications additional testing and expert review are required. Equity and Fundamental Rights: the Guide urges assessment of bias risks and adverse impacts on historically marginalized groups. Research Integrity Processes: institutional review boards (IRBs) and ethics committees should be prepared to evaluate GAI-related protocols when human participants, sensitive data, or consequential decisions are involved. The Guide also includes practical recommendations for editors and peer reviewers to request disclosure statements and to evaluate manuscripts for undisclosed GAI-derived material.

Implementation Framework

YÖK recommends a staged institutional implementation: adopt an institutional policy aligned with the Guide; establish or expand governance bodies and points of contact (research integrity office, AI ethics committee); provide mandatory training modules for researchers and students; require disclosure templates for manuscripts, grant proposals and theses; integrate GAI checks into existing plagiarism and research-integrity workflows; and ensure contractual and cybersecurity reviews for external GAI services. The Guide provides suggested language for disclosure statements and templates for prompt/version documentation. It also encourages universities to update local examination and supervision rules (e.g., for theses) to reflect GAI use and to coordinate with publishers, funders and libraries to harmonize expectations.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The Guide urges continuous monitoring and periodic evaluation. Institutions should collect basic metrics on GAI usage patterns, disclosures made in submissions, and any reported incidents (e.g., data leaks or suspected fabricated outputs). Periodic audits of compliance and sample revalidation of GAI-assisted results are recommended. YÖK encourages universities to report back aggregated lessons and to update local policies as technologies evolve. The Guide suggests establishing KPI targets for training completion, number of disclosures, and incidence of remedial actions, and recommends that institutional oversight bodies publish periodic internal reports summarizing findings while preserving confidentiality of individual cases.

Penalties, Liability, and Appeals

While the Guide itself is advisory, it explicitly notes that misuse of GAI that undermines scientific integrity may trigger existing institutional disciplinary procedures and publication corrections or retractions. Potential outcomes listed include correction or retraction of published work, withdrawal of degrees in severe academic-misconduct cases, administrative or disciplinary sanctions pursuant to university regulations, and loss of eligibility for institutional or external funding. The Guide recommends that institutions ensure due process and clear appeals routes for researchers facing sanctions, and that sanctions be proportionate and documented within existing university frameworks. YÖK leaves specific sanctioning mechanisms to each institution but emphasizes transparency and fairness in enforcement.

Relationship to Other Instruments

The Guide is designed to complement — not replace — existing legal and institutional obligations, including data protection law, research integrity rules, ethical review standards, and contractual obligations with third-party providers. YÖK notes that universities must continue to comply with national laws on personal data protection and export controls where applicable, and that the Guide should be integrated into local regulations for theses, dissertations, academic honesty policies and research ethics committee procedures. It also encourages coordination with publishers and funders to harmonize disclosure and verification practices. The YÖK Guide is thus a sectoral ethics document aligned with broader legal and policy frameworks.

International Alignment

YÖK frames the Guide within international discussions on trustworthy and ethical AI. It aligns with common global principles — transparency, accountability, human oversight and data protection — reflected in EU and OECD AI policy debates and in international research-integrity guidance. YÖK encourages interoperability of disclosure practices with international journals and cross-border collaborations; it also recommends that universities monitor international standards and update local policies accordingly. The Guide therefore positions Turkish higher education institutions to meet many of the expectations set by international funders and journals while remaining adaptable to jurisdictional differences.

Implementation Timeline

Sources and References