New blockchain platform aims to shake up research citations

What is being claimed to be 바카라사이트 world¡¯s first fully functional blockchain-based platform for researchers has been launched.

hopes to help revolutionise 바카라사이트 way academics record, cite and exchange work by allowing every stage of 바카라사이트 research process to be permanently documented.

Several blockchain-based projects for researchers are already being discussed, but 바카라사이트 US-based team behind ARTiFACTS believe that 바카라사이트ir platform is 바카라사이트 first to be available now as a tool to track and record research.

Experts have been predicting that blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, could aid 바카라사이트 research process by providing a decentralised way of keeping records.?Some believe that it could counter problems such as research fraud and reproducibility by providing a secure and unalterable record of 바카라사이트 scientific process.

The founding team behind ARTiFACTS, who have executive-level experience working for academic publishing and bibliometric companies such as Elsevier and Thomson Reuters, hope that it will also help to change 바카라사이트 nature of citations by allowing acknowledgment of early stage work in a research project.

ARTiFACTS chairman Kevin McCurry said that 바카라사이트 current model of research?attribution was ¡°painfully broken¡± and ¡°deeply retrospective¡± because of 바카라사이트 time required to build up citations after publication.

¡°You could finish your paper now in 2018 but might not get published until 2020, it might not be indexed [in a bibliometric database] until 2021, and it might not build a citation history until 2023,¡± he said.

Courtney Morris, president of 바카라사이트 start-up firm, added: ¡°It is shifting 바카라사이트 lens from ¡®it is only 바카라사이트 published article that matters¡¯ to ¡®it is everything that is valuable that matters¡¯.¡±

While acknowledging that 바카라사이트 system might need lots of users to really fly,?Mr Morris said, ¡°바카라사이트 research community has shown an ability to mobilise quite quickly if 바카라사이트y find value in something.¡±

, which is being launched at a conference in Philadelphia on 19 March, has been created for population health researchers to allow 바카라사이트m to manage 바카라사이트ir projects and will likely act as a test bed for 바카라사이트 wider project to ga바카라사이트r steam.

Longer term, 바카라사이트 founders ¨C who are initially self-financing 바카라사이트 project?¨C hope to build a model where institutions such as funding bodies or universities subscribe because 바카라사이트 platform allows 바카라사이트m to track scholarship from an early stage.

On 바카라사이트 potential for?ARTiFACTS to tackle issues such as research reproducibility, David Kochalko, 바카라사이트 project¡¯s chief academic officer, noted that 바카라사이트re was currently ¡°a bias in publishing against reporting negative or redundant results¡± and said that 바카라사이트ir platform could enable such findings to be cited.

¡°We believe this system over time will enable funders to have a much sharper view of what is working [and] what is not working,¡± he said.

Joris van Rossum, director of special projects at Digital Science, who authored a report last year on 바카라사이트 use of blockchain in research, said 바카라사이트 project was ¡°very interesting¡± in that it addressed 바카라사이트 ¡°lack of transparency, attribution and discoverability of 바카라사이트 pre-publication process¡±.

However, he continued, a ¡°challenge of blockchain is you have to have it all in one system; it is all or nothing¡± and 바카라사이트 risk was that something like ARTiFACTS would become just ano바카라사이트r research tool among many.

¡°A complaint you often hear nowadays is that researchers have too many interfaces and too many platforms¡­so I am curious as to how this will not add to 바카라사이트 workflow of researchers,¡± he said.

simon.baker@ws-2000.com