The Problem with Peer Review
Scientists and researchers want to publish their findings to achieve maximum impact for their work. Doing so requires finding a journal willing to publish them and going through the peer review process. Their work is sent to one or two reviewers with subject domain knowledge who critique and make suggestions. Once they are satisfied, the work can be published.
Publishing is crucial not only for its communication purposes, but also to secure funding and academic positions. But the entire enterprise rests upon academics themselves, usually operating anonymously or with no centralized record of their contribution, offering their expertise in peer review. No other industry on Earth requires specialised professionals to work in this way, with no pay.
Is blockchain the solution?
What can blockchain and cryptocurrency systems do to help? I found this article by Michael Spearpoint on a proposed currency system (r-coin) for rewarding peer review. There are two key points to his idea.
A decentralised ledger that can be accessed and checked by any institution, funder, or researcher to acknowledge peer reviews. Decentralisation is crucial here, as the average researcher will look to publish in journals from different publishers and tap different funding sources. Under this model, all would be able to access a central, permanent record.
A coin or token rewarded for each peer review undertaken, which can be used to pay for open access publications, or perhaps even journal subscriptions. Spearpoint also considers whether the currency should be tradeable and whether it should decay over time to encourage holders to continue reviewing.
Another aspect that Spearpoint does not touch upon is the potential of the r-coin to be used as a reputation or influence proxy. Academic publishers are always looking for new metrics against which to measure individual articles and even individual researchers, and perhaps the accumulation of r-coin could help distinguish individuals on this basis. If users could trade r-coin though, or buy it using other cryptocurrencies, this could open the entire system up to gaming.
What do you think? Leave a comment and let's have a discussion about it.