Blockchain Publishing Can End Corporate Dominance Of Science; Orvium can redress inequities in the current system of academic publishing | Crypto Briefing

ab1630's bookmarks 2018-06-09

Summary:

"Which industry has higher profit margins than Google and saw a growth in revenue last year that was larger than that of the global film industry? No, not the big banks or smartphone manufacturers, nor any sector whose presence in mainstream society seems ubiquitous. Instead, in the niche world of scientific publishing, the three biggest companies – which constitute over half the industry – have yet again found themselves near the top of the profit tree. The New York-based Elsevier, which itself represents 24% of the scientific journal market, announced profits of over $900m, up $60m from 2016 and with a profit margin of 36.8%; and in the past month, shares in Wiley-Blackwell have experienced a 5.2% surge. The only bad news so far is that Germany’s Springer Nature, which wants to raise a reported $1.2bn from an IPO but has had to postpone its plans following weak investor demand, as reported by Reuters. Why So Profitable? “The problem at the moment is that I have to pay for my own research from the publishers”, says Manuel Martin, co-founder and senior project leader of Orvium, a decentralized platform for scientific papers and findings to be managed and published. “At present, the publishing industry actually introduces limitations on the scientific community”. Unlike other forms of publication, such as newspapers and magazines, which effectively pay for content by employing a full-time team of writers and editors, scientists are often funded by governments or institutions. They give their findings to journals for free – which, in turn, take the copyright – and then they rely on the academic community to peer review content on a voluntary basis....

Established in the summer of 2017, Orvium will allow contributors to retain ownership of their papers, and gives them the right to determine whether the work and all the associated findings and data will be free at the point of access – or subject to some sort of paywall.

“It’s important for us that the creator can decide what to do with access”, says Martin. “Many scientists know full-well that companies, whether they be pharmaceutical or engineering firms, often profit from their work: they can decide whether private institutions have to pay to use their work, whilst making it freely available to individuals or fellow researchers.”

Although Orvium won’t charge contributors or individuals for using its platform, Martin says that the plan is for Orvium to take a share of the fees charged for content that has to be paid for.

The platform is also holding an ICO for its ORV tokens, either in July or August, with plans to raise $20m for further project development: Crypto Briefing asked Martin why Orvium needed such a large amount of money, especially as the project has yet to release an MVP.

“Our development team has experience in utilizing this type of tech and so we know the full costs of conception and production”, argues Martin. “We spent a lot of time on the proof of concept and ensuring that our MVP will work with our whitepaper: it is currently in the testing phase.”

With tokens valued at $0.10 each, ORVs will not only be used as a means to access pay-for-content, but can also be used to reimburse validators, who assess contributions on the platform and, under the current model, work on a voluntary basis.

“Everything is at the user’s discretion, but Orvium will allow validators to charge for peer reviews”, says Martin. He also mentioned that Orvium would require contributors to upload used data and other resources, in order for reviewers to accurately assess every aspect of the published research: not just the end product.

“Of course collecting data that is used in research papers is often the most costly and time-intensive part, and there’s nothing to stop a scientist also putting a paywall on the raw data as well, should they want to”, Martin added...."

Link:

https://cryptobriefing.com/blockchain-publishing-corporate-dominance-science/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » ab1630's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.publishing oa.blockchain oa.monopoly oa.publishers oa.profits oa.scholcomm oa.funding oa.taxpayers oa.government oa.quality oa.orvium oa.reproducibility oa.authors oa.prices oa.business_models oa.platforms oa.green oa.data oa.repositories

Date tagged:

06/09/2018, 13:15

Date published:

06/09/2018, 09:16