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Citations

60

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Grant support

This work was partially supported by the project P2P Models (https://p2pmodels.eu) funded by the European Research Council ERC-2017-STG [grant no.: 759207]; Decentralized Science (https://decentralized.science) funded by European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme within the framework of the LEDGER Project [grant agreement No 82526]; the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness [grant no.: TIN2017-87330-R], the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [grant no.: RTI2018-096820-A-100], and the UCM, Spain [Group 921330]. We would like to express out gratitude to Viktor Jacynycz for the first implementation of the proof-of-concept described, and to David Llop for his involvement on the initial iterations of the same proof-of-concept.

Analysis of institutional authors

Tenorio-Fornes, AmbarAuthor

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March 21, 2025
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Article
Hybrid Gold

Decentralizing science: Towards an interoperable open peer review ecosystem using blockchain

Publicated to:INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT. 58 (6): 102724- - 2021-09-09 58(6), DOI: 10.1016/j.ipm.2021.102724

Authors: Tenorio-Fornes, Ambar; Perez Tirador, Elena; Sanchez-Ruiz, Antonio A; Hassan, Samer

Affiliations

Decentralized Acad Ltd, Decentralized Sci, Madrid, Spain - Author
Harvard Univ, Berkman Klein Ctr Internet & Soc, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA - Author
Univ Complutense Madrid, GAIA, Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Complutense Madrid, Knowledge Technol Inst, GRASIA, Madrid, Spain - Author

Abstract

Scientific publication and its Peer Review system strongly rely on a few major industry players controlling most journals (e.g. Elsevier), databases (e.g. Scopus) and metrics (e.g. JCR Impact Factor), while keeping most articles behind paywalls. Critics to such system include concerns about fairness, quality, performance, cost, unpaid labor, transparency, and accuracy of the evaluation process. The Open Access movement has tried to provide free access to the published research articles, but most of the aforementioned issues remain. In such context, decentralized technologies such as blockchain offer an opportunity to experiment with new models for scientific production and dissemination relying on a decentralized infrastructure, aiming to tackle multiple of the current system shortcomings. This paper makes a proposal for an interoperable decentralized system for an open peer review ecosystem, relying on emerging distributed technologies such as blockchain and IPFS. Such system, named "Decentralized Science"(DecSci), aims to enable a decentralized reviewer reputation system, which relies on an Open Access by-design infrastructure, together with transparent governance processes. Two prototypes have been implemented: a proof-of-concept prototype to validate DecSci's technological feasibility, and a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) prototype co-designed with journal editors. In addition, three evaluations have been carried out: an exploratory survey to assess interest on the issues tackled; two sets of interviews to confirm both the main problems for editors and to validate the MVP prototype; and a cost analysis of the main operations, both execution cost and actual price. Additionally, the paper discusses the multiple interoperability challenges such proposal faces, including an architecture to tackle them. This work finishes with a review of some of the open challenges that this ambitious proposal may face.

Keywords

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 33.68, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Jul 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-07-18, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 24
  • Scopus: 33

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-07-18:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 149.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 164 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 30.1.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 23 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on Wikipedia: 1 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United States of America.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (TENORIO FORNÉS, ÁMBAR) .