Publications

Peer-reviewed Journal and Conference Articles

Towards a Decentralized Process for Scientific Publication and Peer Review using Blockchain and IPFS

2019 Tenorio-Fornés, A., Jacynycz, V., Llop, D., Sánchez-Ruiz, A.A., Hassan, S. "Towards a Decentralized Process for Scientific Publication and Peer Review using Blockchain and IPFS". Proceedings of the 52st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (2019)

The current processes of scientific publication and peer review raise concerns around fairness, quality, performance, cost, and accuracy. The Open Access movement has been unable to fulfill all its promises, and a few middlemen publishers can still impose policies and concentrate profits. This paper, using emerging distributed technologies such as Blockchain and IPFS, proposes a decentralized publication system for open science. The proposed system would provide (1) a distributed reviewer reputation system, (2) an Open Access by-design infrastructure, and (3) transparent governance processes. A survey is used to evaluate the problems, proposed solutions and possible adoption resistances, while a working prototype serves as a proof-of-concept. Additionally, the paper discusses the implementation, in a distributed context, of different privacy settings for both open peer review and reputation systems, introducing a novel approach supporting both anonymous and accountable reviews. The paper concludes reviewing the open challenges of this ambitious proposal.

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A Decentralized Publication System for Open Science using Blockchain and IPFS

2018 Tenorio-Fornés, A., Jacynycz, V., Llop, D., Sánchez-Ruiz, A.A., Hassan, S. "A Decentralized Publication System for Open Science using Blockchain and IPFS". PEERE International Conference on Peer Review Proceedings. Rome (2018)

Science publication and peer review raises concerns about fairness, quality, performance, cost or accuracy. The Open Access movements has been unable to fulfill all its promises, and middlemen publishers can still impose policies and concentrate profits. This paper, using emerging distributed technologies such as Blockchain and IPFS, proposes a decentralized publication system for open science. It provides transparent governance, a distributed reviewer reputation system, and open access by-design. The paper concludes reviewing the open challenges of such approach.

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