Blockchain to help scholarly publishing fight fraud

A 3D visualisation of a blockchain

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Platform can time-stamp data to authenticate research

A new publishing system that uses the underlying technology behind the popular cryptocurrency bitcoin promises to solve some of academia’s thorniest problems.

The ARTiFACTS platform, which launched yesterday, wants to help researchers share data and files to make reproducing work simpler. It also keeps track of author attributions and creates a record of time-stamped research documents.