FAQ

You are a private company. What tells me that you won’t just increase the prices of access to your platform?

We do not set the prices for publishing. The only thing we will set is the minimum number of tokens one needs to submit a paper to the platform. This will be set in an immutable smart-contract that we will not be able to change. The actual monetary value of these tokens will be set by the supply/demand of the tokens. Publishers will want the tokens to cost less while token owners (reviewers and curators) will want the tokens to cost more.

Why are you charging a fee?

We need to pay for the running expenses of operating servers, ethereum transaction fees, and for the developing of new features.

Why would publishers pay for something they now get for free?

For a number of reasons. 1) Because scientists will demand it. Reviewers add value to scientific publications but are not compensated for it. In part this is because there was no infrastructure for it. We will create such an infrastructure. 2) Because publications will be able to get a faster and cheaper service. Studies have shown that crowdsourced peer review produces results that allow the editor to make a decision faster without any detriment to the quality of the review. At the same time, publishers report that about 1/3 of the cost of publication comes from the indirect costs of peer review. Furthermore, publishers will gain good will from the community at a time when feelings towards for-profit publications are at an all time low.

What is a smart-contract?

A smart contract is a piece of code that runs autonomously on a distributed blockchain and is immutable. Once it is deployed it will execute no matter what. In our case, the smart contract will be used to distribute tokens and update reviewers’ reputations in a pre-prescribed manner that no one can change.

Why a blockchain?

First, because it allows for a trusted record of reviewing activities. Once the smart contract that controls changes to the reputations or service record of a reviewer is deployed, its rules are immutable. A reviewer will only gain credit for a review if it is signed by him/her and others recognize its value. Second, it allows us to create a means of compensating reviewers financially, without incurring in extremely high costs, by allowing us to create a cryptocurrency that tracks the value of reviewing activity.