ORVIUM- PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES
To get to where we are at present, there has always been that new discovery that has come along to change up the game and make life a whole lot easier for all by, in the process, solving that one basic human need. There was Fleming’s penicillin in medicine, Gutenberg’s printing press in documentation and communication, Wright brothers’ air plane and several others that have come our way more recently like computers, the internet, smartphones, human Genome project or even bride of the moment, the blockchain. These have all left solid foundations that have provided platforms for much more spurious advancements in the scientific field and have made a lot of formerly arduous processes much easier and better.
However, none of these discoveries came by chance or happenstance. They were all products of scientific researches and studies and for them to have had wide awareness and acceptance as they have, they had gone through the basic steps of submission to journals, peer review by other scientists and finally, publishing to the general scientific community. So, it is agreeable that any improvements in the processes scientific discoveries take to get awareness and acceptance will have positive feedback on science as a whole. This is what ORVIUM has come to do.
Orvium is a project that is set to be the first open source scientific publishing platform to do to science what science has done to life and make a currently expensive, slow and biased process much simpler, cheaper and transparent. It is to bring together the blockchain, smart contract, Big Data analytics and cloud computing under one roof to attack frontally, the myriad of problems plaguing the process currently. As all projects to be built on the blockchain, it is to bring the element of transparency and trust into the process while bringing down the cost. Cloud computing will help make it more easily accessible and the combination of Big Data analytics and machine learning to handle the volumes upon volumes of data that will be poured in day after day.
It is a known fact that for there to be a solution, there must be a problem to be solved or challenge to be resolved. So what are the problems facing the scientific publishing industry as it is? What are the ways Orvium aims to deal with them? Here are some of them.
(Problem) Transparency issues: the processes after submission till publishing are usually not accessible by the public and as such could be easily manipulated and the work plagiarized.
(Orvium solution) Transparency is back: Being built on the blockchain brings a lot of benefits primarily of which is transparency and security. All transactions (processes) carried out on the Orvium platform will be easily traceable and accessible anytime and by anyone. So all authors are fully rest assured of their works being handled in the fairest of manners.
(Problem) Long periods of delay: presently, every part of the process from the submission to the review and then publishing takes too much time especially for an era of rapid scientific advancements like ours that needs a massive and continuous flow of new information and discoveries to enable it to move at its present pace. Averagely, this process at present takes a period of 12 months which is frustrating to the author(s) of the work as the work can still be rejected thereby necessitating another long wait.
(Orvium’s solution) Speedy publication: with Orvium submitted works are published immediately and seen as “early draft” so the authors have immediate recognition for their works even before publishing. All changes made by the author subsequently are also updated upon confirmation by the author and seen as a new version.
(Problem) No pay: Reviewers are currently not rewarded or recognized for their work as most times, their contributions are concealed.
(Orvium’s solution) Pay! Pay! Pay!! : With Orvium, reviewers earn payment for reviewing submissions and could get acknowledged for them. Also, Orvium plans on introducing a multi-author review where more than one reviewer goes through submission to reduce the problem of rejection and bias.
(Problem) Publisher’s copyright: currently, publishers are the ones that get to defend the copyright of the work as the authors usually give up these rights for the benefits offered by the publishers
(Orvium’s solution) Author’s copyright: on Orvium, authors have complete control over the copyright of their works as it should be.
All the above-mentioned problems, as well as the solutions Orvium plans on bringing to them, are just some of the many. There are other problems such as high costs of accessing results, an increase in the numbers of low-quality journals, and use of journal quality as the basis of evaluation of a work. These problems did not go unnoticed by Orvium and they have made out clear plans to resolve them as well as bring on certain benefits such as being an Open source software and hence easily available for development, increase competitiveness in the scientific publication sector, and support for some researches that have shown clear impact to the society through a transparent award process.
For more information about this outstanding advancement for science (project) and to learn more about the benefits they aim to bring along to the Science Publishing industry, check them out through the following links and sites: