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Is there value in a blockchain based academic journal? have it be well distributed, and only let universities submit new articles if they prove themselves doin

• frenchy 7y ago
  Possibly. There's rougly two problems here: - distributing research: blockchain is useless here. Things like SciHub already solve this problem on a practical level currently. I used SciHub regularly through my undergrad because it was so much easier to use. - tracking the "notability" of research. A blockchain might be useful here, but I think you'll have a hard time unseating the existing journals.
• Vinnl 7y ago
  There have been many, many initiatives based on this thought. However, in my opinion they don't quite hit the mark. The problem blockchain solves is wanting to store data, making sure that it is not tampered with, but without a single party you can trust. That's not the problem of Open Access though. Everybody does trust Elsevier not to intentionally tamper with scholarly articles, and they have no reason to. The problem is the oligopoly they and a couple of other publishers have, and the ridiculous prices they charge as a result. Those aren't just solved by adding another failed player; you need to remove the reason the oligopoly can continue to exist. Blockchains do not do that.