Cardano: What is peer review? Know here | Livecoins
Posted originally on Livecoins in 25/07/2019 por marcusoregano. Translated and revised by Marcus Vinicius.
The Cardano project is known to have based its development on academic research using peer review. So much so that the project does not have a single White Paper like other Blockchain projects like Bitcoin. However, what does this mean in practice? We have prepared a simple and short article simplifying the essence of the Cardano design process. We also invited a researcher to share his experiences with a peer review the process.
Introduction
In the academic environment, peer review is a fundamental mechanism for publishing articles in magazines, journals or presentations at congresses. This process consists of a flow in which the researcher basically:
1- Submit your manuscript to a journal;
2- The manuscript undergoes an evaluation by specialists in its research area who issue opinions with feedbacks;
3-Editors arbitrate about publishing, returning or refusing the manuscript;
Generally, this process takes place anonymously (single-blind or double-blind), where editors hide metadata that identifies authors and / or reviewers such as: name, institution or any other form of identification. In peer review, reviewers (knowledge specialists in the area in question) play a key role in the academic publishing process. They provide feedback, guide the quality and help to develop the manuscript until the final version.
This process has already proven to be relatively efficient, even in times when it was not yet so institutionalized. An example of this success is, now widely accepted. The back and forth of concepts, models, criticisms and dialogue in the academic community allowed the discovery of the structure of DNA, from the evolution of the idea to the double-helix model we know today. The concept was developed through a series of academic “dialogues” between researchers such as Linus Pauling, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins.
On the story about the development of the DNA model, we recommend the following podcast: https://castbox.fm/episode/061-A-forma-do-DNA-id1392747-id148970454
Today, even with the greater fluidity of information provided by the internet, the process still occurs in major publishers specialized in the publication of academic articles. The publications in the image below are manuscripts, which after this review process, were published as articles in a specialized magazine.
Cardano Project — Peer Review
In the following lines we will create a fictitious example of how a possible flow of development of a manuscript. Begining with a research member of the Cardano project. We will draw something that could happen until a manuscript becomes a scientifically valid article.
A Cardano project member submits a research manuscript on “feature X” for a given journal/congress. In this case, after completing the manuscript, the IOG member, through some platform for managing the journal’s articles, can submit its manuscript.
After the manuscript is in possession of the journal, the peer review process begins, where a group of experts will evaluate the article and may or may not suggest revisions for the work, if the article has revisions to be made or authors have to make these requested revisions. This occurs to contribute to the quality of the work to be published. In this peer review process, the article can be accepted for publication with corrections to be made, accepted for publication without corrections or refused. Most of the time, the evaluators request changes. This entire communication process between authors and reviewers is arbitrated by one or more editors who make up the journal’s scientific committee. The “back and forth” can foster a great development of the propositions and hypotheses.
Peer Review on Cardano
Therefore, the peer review, by which the Cardano project has reviewed more than 20 articles, exists to ensure that journals, journals and congresses in the various research areas publish or present higher quality studies. In other words: research that brings a greater benefit to the entire scientific community.
This process is important to ensure that the premises, arguments and conclusions are sufficiently valid. The following images illustrate this process in the review of the “ Ouroboros ” protocol paper at a congress:
Check out the lecture by Aggelos Kiayias at the 37th International Cryptology Conference. The event was held at the University of California, Santa Bárbara (UCSB), from August 20 to 24, 2017. The conference is sponsored by the International Association for Cryptological Research (IACR), in cooperation with the Department of Computer Science at UCSB.
Another example of a paper reviewed and accepted at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2019
Other * papers from the Cardano project can be found on the IOG page https://iohk.io/research/papers/
Comparatives
Cardano is a project based on multidisciplinary peer-reviewed research. It is possible to compare it to a decentralized and open source (open source) version of non-university research institutions (based on peer review). A work similar to that of the “ Max Planck Society “, which works with multidisciplinary research on topics such as basic science, natural sciences and computing.
The philosophies are similar, but the Cardano project has a budget at least 130 times smaller, taking into account a period of 4 years for the project and the amount collected in its ICO (annualized). Another difference is that, in the case of Cardano, the work is oriented towards the delivery of a specific solution in Blockchain , and not research in basic and natural sciences as in the Max Planck Society.
The Max Planck Society conducts grassroots research in the natural sciences, life sciences and humanities. Since its founding in 1948, 18 Nobel Prize winners have emerged from its ranks. The Max Planck Society, with its 84 Max Planck Institutes and facilities, is the leading international center of German science. Funded by the federal and state governments of Germany, the Max Planck Society had an annual budget of 1.8 billion euros in 2018.
Pros and cons
The peer review process tends to raise the quality of publications. However, the process is usually time-consuming. There are some recurring criticisms of the traditional review method. Involving some points like:
- poor editorial arbitration;
- predatory economic model adopted by magazines;
- lag in the method of communication and distribution of research materials;
- lack of timeliness;
- lack of incentives for reviewers generated by anonymity;
- lack of imputability of the manuscript reviewer;
- very conservative system with very new propositions;
- overload of manuscripts on reviewers;
- lack of transparency in arbitrations;
Such problems stimulated an increase in the volume of draft articles published without the traditional review method. Like the increase in the production and publication of “ working papers “. In addition to the proliferation of a series of systems with other editorial and review flows: as indexers and preprint servers. Below we separate an image comparing 2 streams. A traditional peer review flow and an alternative one using preprint servers.
Note that in the alternative flow, on preprint servers or in publishing primary versions such as working papers, the manuscript is made available to the academic community much faster.
Example of: Brazilian preprint server (IMPA)
* https://institucional.impa.br/preprint/index.action
Interesting videos on the subject
Interview with a brazilian reasearcher
Questions
To better exemplify the flow of peer review we have brought in this article the contribution of a Brazilian researcher with experience in the peer review process. Thiago Reis has a degree in Information Systems, a professor of Computing and a researcher in the area of Computer Science.
Answers
- What does CNPq do? What is your difference from CAPES? Have you had any experience with these research institutions or any other?
- How was your last publishing and review experience? Journals, conferences, lectures, advisor etc.
- What advantages and disadvantages do you see in the process of publishing and peer review? (single blind, double blind, open, etc.)
R.1) CAPES and CNPq are two important funding agencies for Brazilian research and grant scholarships to students and professors at different levels, from high school with scholarships for scientific initiation, to master’s, doctorate and even post-doctorate. During the master’s and doctorate period, I was a CAPES scholarship holder and today I have already obtained a scientific initiation scholarship for my students in the scientific initiation projects.
R.2) Annually I always publish and participate in congresses in my research area. My last publications were in the area of digital games for the teaching of computing and informatics in education in the year 2018 and it is always good to contribute to the improvement and evolution in my research area.
R.3) Peer review is a process that aims to contribute to improving research.
Publications market
The publishing market can be viewed in many metrics. In most of them, Brazil does not figure very well. According to the SCImago Portal , which publishes quantitative rankings about the degree of academic productivity in countries and magazines, Brazil would be in 15th place in terms of academic productivity.
Also through this ranking, we can have a quantitative overview on specific areas of study. For example, the ranking of magazines with publications on the theme “ Theory of numbers and algebra “
Another tool for visualizing metrics is Google Scholar. Here we are able to rank journals by publication and citation metrics:
SCImago is a portal that uses a database metadata base ( Reed-Elsevier ) , which indexes the content of 24,600 active titles and 5,000 editors that are controlled and selected by an independent review board. Using tools and analysis, they generate citation results, detailed researcher profiles and insights.
Another point concerns the economic concentration in the publications market. A recent analysis of scientific articles published in the “Web of Science” database between 1973 and 2013, found that five companies have published more than half of them since 2006: Reed-Elsevier , Taylor and Francis , Wiley-Blackwell , Springer and Sage.
A Brazilian indicator on this type of metric would be the indicative stratification of Qualis CAPES quality. The strata have a qualitative bias. The classification of journals is carried out by the Coordinators appointed by their peers for a period of three years for the 49 Evaluation Areas that define their own criteria for the classification of the journals for each area. The list of Qualis Journals is updated annually and includes the titles of the journals in strata that are indicative of quality:
A1, more elevated; A2; B1; B2; B3; B4; B5; C.
Brazilian Glossary
* Paper or Article : a published academic text. The term is used for magazine articles or journal articles.
* Preprints and Working papers : refer to a type of distribution of material before its formal publication. The preprint may differ from the final publication in a traditional journal. Authors intend to publish it in a more formal place (magazine, book, etc.), but they want to distribute it beforehand (preprints used to be distributed to colleagues as photocopies, but today they circulate mainly by e-mail or repositories).
* Manuscript : it is, in the words of the New Oxford American Dictionary, “an author’s text that has not yet been published”. Any text that has not been published in any way is a manuscript.
* Draft : the same as a manuscript, except that it insists on the unfinished state of the manuscript.
Adanote
If you got this far, we took the opportunity to share that this text was produced by Adanote, a specialized network, which conduct independent analisys about the Cardano project. English is not our native language, so we apologize in advance for any grammar, spelling or punctuation errors above 😅
Adanote is present on Instagram and Twitter. Finally, this text was prepared by Ambassador Cardano, Marcus Vinicius.
Disclaimer
The information provided in this text does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, business advice or any other type of advice and you should not treat any of this author’s content as such. Please do your own due diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
