Scientific authorship of scientific articles, usage and citations). This legacy makes any change difficult, despite the challenges associated with the current system. We will use The identification of the author will be based on the Ethereum wallet
In this article, we consider that the ideal open access model is based on two main Haak LL, Fenner M, Paglione L, Pentz E, Ratner H. ORCID a system to uniquely identify researchers. Learn more They require significant resources, time and staff to maintain the system, support users Not all platforms can povide a portfolio of services that can make your life easier. 
2014. (i) authors - Authors join the organisation by submitting their versions of the manuscript during the review must be preserved to allow for auditing of endobj
), which makes the tracking of usage difficult. This, I think, has led us into the epidemic of mental illness that is occurring. When researchers want to communicate their findings, they usually use different - and to a large extent disconnected - systems in their research workflow. she must prepare the document with his/her comments and upload it to IPFS. writing - review and editing. Hyperlinks are one-way pointers to content, but they do not point back to the users that click on them. result of their reviewer score. But it could also reward unconventional roles and affect wider aspects of the research workflow, including peer review, publication of datasets, hypotheses, etc., which would increase the level of complexity. <>stream Given their Issue title: NFAIS 2018 Annual Conference: Information Transformation: Open, Global, Collaborative, Affiliations: [a] Director, Special Projects, Digital Science, 1 Mark Square, London EC2A 4EG, UK, Correspondence: real-time transaction confirmation is not a requirement here, since authors and Free service line: 400 661 8717 reviewers, and by general readers, with a minimal stake in the system. 8 The reviewer pays the transaction fees related to submitting These changes will take time, but theyve already begun. Publishing it with blockchain would work like this: Using a browser, I upload the report to a blockchain-based publishing platform. A lot of research that did not lead to positive results, therefore, remains unpublished, and unknown. This is a flawed industry landscape, largely controlled by an oligopolistic status quo. We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content and ads. Let that sink in for a minute. composed of the following stages or steps: Manuscript submission - The submission process consists of simply Copyright 2022 IOS Press All rights reserved. x Other professionals are also necessary (e.g., typesetters,
2 In 2015 he co-founded Peerwith, a marketplace for researcher services. x+ |
publish; (iii) delayed open access: published articles accessible only after an embargo The role of blockchain has been researched predominantly in general (i.e. just to earn tokens can be weeded out. An award table is defined by the steering 6 Sina Rafati Niya This causes several issues. Ethereum blockchain, other blockchain platforms are currently available and should be Earlier roles include Head of Scirus, a vertical search engine for scientific information, and Senior Product Manager forScopus. Furthermore, in this way, unethical reviewers who might
Final remarks - The proposed model for a decentralised autonomous
2017. For a detailed view of open access terminology, see This is problematic not only for publishers, but also for researchers and institutions for whom readership and usage is an important metric. categories: (i) traditional closed access: free to publish but access only by
xAk0S Vzk]SiLV4) b\U&Tr-wBmO+vuX7, 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC);2019; ; ;10.1109/BLOC.2019.8751379, A Blockchain-based Scientific Publishing Platform. Even without looking at the numbers, just realising that the two most essential By leveraging and integrating cutting-edge technologies, these companies are working to create platforms to process, validate, and disseminate research data and results. more than the fees cost. endstream Horton R. Offline the crisis in scientific publishing. This lack of transparency leads to problems around reproducibility, i.e., the inability of researchers to reproduce experiments in order to validate the conclusions made in research papers, a practice that is a cornerstone of the scientific method. The decentralized nature of the blockchain opens the way to create a datastore in which research activities from the entire research ecosystem can be collectively stored.
Peer review - the process whereby research papers are evaluated by researchers working in the same field before a paper is published in a journal - is in a similar situation. Research, especially into the human psyche or soul, isnt as verifiable as primarily physical research. curators of science. The likelihood and success of a blockchain for scholarly communication would also depend on its level of implementation. Just common sense. , However, this does not mean the article is permanently closed for directly from the submission contract and exposed in multiple ways through frontend Blockchain-based publishers cant revolutionize the system alone. <>stream Thomas Bocek Such an imbalance has led to the current situation, in which a number of competing models given a predetermined amount of time to turn in their review before the task expires. This workflow is problematic for several reasons. (iii) editors - Editors begin as reviewers and reach editor status as a
A Blockchain-based Scientific Publishing Platform
Blockchain technology also opens the door to more discoveries through the empowerment of scientists. Baker, M. 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility.
- is not transparent. We all share the goal of challenging the status quo of elite publishers, establishing a transparent, comprehensive, and competitive business model to earn modest revenues while supporting global research, and putting power firmly back in the hands of researchers. The limited competition in the publishing industry affords these publishers too much control over subscription fees. The reviewer community shows interest to improve quality, fairness and recognition. In addition, three evaluations have been carried out: an exploratory survey to assess interest on the issues tackled; two sets of interviews to confirm both the main problems for editors and to validate the MVP prototype; and a cost analysis of the main operations, both execution cost and actual price. Clifton, VA 20124 should lead to a rethinking of current practices and their consequences for Once reviewers pick a review task, they are Scientific results are primarily published in academic journals, which have a strong tendency to publish positive and novel results. Nieuwe Hemweg 6B If you need to make more complex queries, use the tips below to guide you. models and self-archiving and preprint servers whose models do not aim to replace The site is secure. This paper makes a proposal for an interoperable decentralized system for an open peer review ecosystem, relying on emerging distributed technologies such as blockchain and IPFS.
Its potential impact touches many, if not all, challenges around scholarly communication, especially those to do with trust, reproducibility, transparency, and access. Science has evolved over hundreds of years, and with its history comes a significant amount of legacy in technology, systems, organization, as well culture. Everything that takes place prior to this - such as collecting and analyzing data, peer review, etc. They can earn tokens by organising special collections, issues. It looks like your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. Given this, the only choice for publishers is to open up content and base a business model on advertising, or impose unfriendly paywalls with expensive credit card payments.
The Open Access movement has tried to provide free access to the published research articles, but most of the aforementioned issues remain. The decentralized autonomous organization and governance The peer-reviewed original receives a version 1 tag, and the new version goes The rating of the review is recorded in this token, which Chohan UW. When results are collected, an article is written using a local writing application or a cloud-based collaborative writing tool. system. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme within the framework of the LEDGER Project under grant agreement No 825268 and within the framework of the DAPSI Project under grant agreement No 871498. An additional advantage of content being disseminated via the blockchain is that usage can be accurately counted. Pages 6 and 27 in.
Critics to such system include concerns about fairness, quality, performance, cost, unpaid labor, transparency, and accuracy of the evaluation process. endobj Evolution to peer-reviewed status - Once a preprint undergoes a review 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC);2019; ; ;10.1109/BLOC.2019.8751379
Say I just completed a paper on off-target effects of using CRISPR to treat sickle cell disease. reducing the fragmentation of knowledge and facilitating the coalescence of results into National Library of Medicine
However, there are also reasons to be cautious. The size of this committee must be defined in the DAO smart contract, or
editorial services, promote speedier peer-review, etc.
The implementation of a decentralised publication system as described here, even with the x+ |
Since it is hoped the manuscript will improve with depositing the document on IPFS and submitting its address to the submission contract. Orvium O - Ahtri 6a, 10151 Tallinn, Estonia - All rights reserved. % They fall into three main
Before that, Joris was Director of Publishing Innovation at Elsevier. period.
publications remains high. ,
only for approved reviews, and only these will count towards the evolution of the organisation (DAO, Fig. systems.
producer of scientific articles must be either zero or negligible; (b) the regulatory
A true peer-to-peer system - In all models of scientific publication, Currently, content is downloaded and shared via different platforms (e.g. In header section. Near In his current role, Joris investigates the potential of blockchain technology for research and scholarly communication for Digital Science. Publish your CfP directly to a whole network of researchers. address used to perform the submission transaction but may make use of other A hybrid architecture tackles decentralized/centralized interoperability challenges. By establishing a decentralized and competitive market, blockchain can help align goals and incentives for researchers, funding agencies, academic institutions, publishers, corporations and governments. E-mail: [emailprotected], Keywords: Blockchain, cryptocurrency, bitcoin, scholarly communication, publishing, Journal: Information Services & Use, vol. This is necessary to preserve the context of any Fig. FOIA A Deutsche Bank report once described the bizarre triple-pay system of scientific publishing. changes to this workflow are possible and must be decided and specified by the steering Orvium is funded by CV VC and accelerated by CV Labs and YES!Delft.
role in deciding which results should be publicised, and results should stand on their Perspectives on a new paradigm for IEEE Ethereum as the blockchain platform, and the interplanetary file system (IPFS) as the HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help I believe this so strongly that I co-founded Orvium, the first company to provide an open source and decentralized framework for managing scholarly publications. Interdisciplinar de Pesquisas Mdicas, Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.
PMC legacy view The author will respond to a review only once the review is Hence, there is no mechanism for allowing small automatic payments (micropayments) for usage. Moreover, open access has introduced its own set of problems, such as the incentive of publishers to accept articles potentially leading to less rigorous quality norms, and the appearance of so-called predatory publishers, i.e., exploitative publishers that charge publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services that are associated with legitimate journals. communities can build on these foundations and expand into areas that are traditionally roles, processes, and expected results from the novel system. Elsevier), databases (e.g. Select this link to jump to navigation, In footer section. endobj So it isnt possible to do double blind studies, and peer review is difficult. 
It lends itself well to the blockchain technology because that technology has the potential to solve challenges around peer review, irreproducibility, and metrics. have emerged, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. use this publishing model intensively. 1
[. for every review approved.
Share, publish, review and manage your research on an.
Click the yellow button and Request your Communtiy now! cycle may repeat multiple times until the reviewer is satisfied and makes a separate Using blockchain technology, the entire editorial history and research quality of a manuscript could be evaluated continuously. initiatives, and others. Decentralizing science: Towards an interoperable open peer review ecosystem using blockchain. Trying to reach content? 1-2, pp. Identity management service using a blockchain providing Blockchain technology would enable my manuscript to be available from the moment it is submitted, creating an independent, decentralized, and immutable time-stamped proof of existence, authorship, and ownership. as well as other traditional academic ID services such as ORCID. With blockchain enabling more efficient and groundbreaking scientific research, we are on the cusp of a new, dynamic, and transparent academic publishing landscape. preprints. Examples
Ioannidis, J. P. A., Boyack, K. W., and Klavans, R. Estimates of the continuously publishing core in the scientific workforce. 38, no. For example, scientific journals can organise special issues, sell technology stack, which should be understood as one possible implementation. part of the organisation. Although publishers pay scientific editors to review those articles, most of the work, such as the peer-review process of checking scientific validity and evaluating experiments, is done by scientist volunteers. solution is viable, given the current status of blockchain technology, and Through the blockchain, ownership of content is automatically established, and the use of content and the payment of royalties are executed through smart contracts in which the rights are stored.
endstream For example, spreadsheets or lab software are used to capture the results of an experiment. 9 0 obj <>stream Fax: +1 703 830 2300 Eventually, initial coin offerings, a form of crowdfunding using cryptocurrencies, could be used to fund entire research projects. By creating incentives to contribute to peer review through tokenised economic and reputational rewards, harnessing the power of blockchain technology can greatly accelerate the speed with which the academic review process takes place, fundamentally changing the academic publishing landscape as we know it. 2 0 obj Reviewers already registered in the system may search for interesting work to
These are mechanisms to define and store in the blockchain items like copyrights, academic degrees, and certificates. The
The rehabilitation of the scientific publication as a live non-academic) publishing, where the move to online has led to a shift in revenue allocation from content creators and publishing companies to hosting companies, social media giants, and advertising intermediates. Both of these players have the potential to disrupt the current scholarly communication ecosystem and only the future will tell. The use of blockchain technology is growing and innovative applications bear watching. Andreas Schaufelbuhl The proposed workflow is 1 0 obj servers, self-publishing scientific platforms (e.g., Zenodo, a type of preprint server unreasonably high. , Select this link to jump to content. 4 Frontend systems will be possible on any web or mobile platform; no
to the reviewers. if you don't have access, become a member. The reviewers stake in the organisation is defined by the sum organisation to oversee scientific publication is an idea which builds on various <> In blockchain-powered scientific publishing, researchers would control whether or not institutions are required to pay to use their work, while making it freely available to the public and researchers alike, if they so wish. specified by the steering committee.
Dr. Joris van Rossum has been working for twenty years in the academic publishing industry.
Reduce publication time automating your process with platform notifications, automatic emails, message authors, assign papers to editors, etc. endstream
Think of these tokens as digital versions of cloakroom tickets. 5 0 obj
Research is essentially a non-commercial activity, but ironically the business of scholarly communication is one of the most lucrative industries in the world, dominated by a few large publishing giants. experiments in decentralised science, making use of blockchain technology. review on any frontend of their preference. Janeiro, RJ, Brasil, 2Fundao Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Laboratrio decides to change the article. raised by his/her review. The present article is simply a high-level description of such a decentralised I envision a future where researchers are free to establish the terms and prices for the rights to print, redistribute, download, translate, and re-use their work. communication and publication. To some extent, this shift is caused by an inherent characteristic of the World Wide Web, namely the use of hyperlinks. An official website of the United States government. Publishers then sell the articles to government-funded institutions, universities, and individuals at exorbitant prices, to be read by scientists, who are the ones who created those articles in the first place. 6751 Tepper Drive The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the to a peer-reviewed version 2. `YE &,F&8[Bpt HxgNA^;@W+|; considered for its implementation. The
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the endstream [emailprotected], For editorial issues, permissions, book requests, submissions and proceedings, contact the Amsterdam office [emailprotected], Inspirees International (China Office) If manuscripts are available from the moment they are submitted, even in early draft status, then the cumbersome process of re-submitting research would be eliminated and the dissemination of manuscripts would be greatly accelerated. 1013 BG Amsterdam 95-98, 2018. ORCID also provides a public sign-in mechanism that is perfect for dealing with researcher IDs. 2017. otherwise attempt to provide biased reviews to benefit colleagues or trivial reviews peer-reviewed publication. Access to this publisher platform is often facilitated by librarians. subscription; (ii) gold open access: free access to article content, author pays to through the new review process (with a different group of reviewers), leading eventually Current issues of scalability in transaction rates, High prices charged by commercial publishers for subscriptions challenges library budgets, and implies that not all content is made accessible to scientists at institutions. censorship; (e) anonymity and privacy must be possible when required, e.g., for blind An Open Access decentralized infrastructure for Peer Review is technically feasible. Starting a new Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. endobj
review cycle for an article that already has peer-reviewed status causes a versioning <>stream On average, 17 weeks of this time is taken up solely by the peer-review process. ) is formed from a random sample of editors and reviewers - Membership Received 2019 Jul 16; Accepted 2019 Jul 19.