Jourchain: using blockchain to avoid questionable journals

Scholarly publishing currently is faced by an upsurge in low-quality, questionable predatory/hijacked journals published by those whose only goal is profit. Although there are discussions in the literature warning about them, most provide only a few suggestions on how to avoid these journals. Most solutions are not generalizable or have other weaknesses. Here, we use a novel information technology, i.e., blockchains, to expose and prevent the problems produced by questionable journals. Thus, this work presented here sheds light on the advantages of blockchain for producing safe, fraud-free scholarly publishing.

Automated summary

The scholarly publishing industry is currently dealing with a surge in low-quality, questionable journals published by profit-driven individuals. This study proposes the use of blockchain technology to address these issues and promote safe and fraud-free scholarly publishing.