Aletheia: Decentralized Open Scientific Research Journal Foundation?

If you have not discovered Aletheia, it is a is a decentralized open-access publishing platform for scientific research, giving people an alternative to publishing in and sourcing information from scientific journals that publish behind pay walls.

Aletheia Background

Aletheia was the first official hackathon and it was an amazing experience, for both the developer as well as for Aletheia as a project. It is marvelous to be part of a global event, watching various communication channels explode with talk from people right across the world. It was an invaluable experience first and foremost as a preparatory exercise as Aletheia had to get to a point that people could find the project, easily see what it was about and then have clear paths to contribution, it had to be ready to receive contributors during the Sprint.

Aletheia Preparing For The Global Spirit

Preparing for the Global Sprint got Aletheia to a stage in which we can onboard contributors, participating in the sprint delivered those contributions. One developer found the project through the list of projects taking part in the Sprint that Mozilla advertises, and another heard about the project from a status update call.

As far as getting Aletheia to a minimum viable product, the importance of gaining contributors cannot be overstated. In addition, the Sprint was a great opportunity to talk to people in the same and related fields about the exciting work everyone is doing. With all the doom and gloom in the news of late, it restores faith to see people working hard on projects to benefit others.

Now that the Global Sprint is over, the Aletheia team looks forward to implementing their minimum viable product, as well as seeking funding and public speaking opportunities to evangelize open-source solutions to the problems that beset academic publishing.

What Exactly Is Aletheia?

Aletheia is a decentralized open access scientific journal. Think of it as a combination of peer-to-peer (P2P) publishing platform and database. Users can submit original scientific research or existing non-copyrighted research to help build up its library they can access the library to download articles, all free of charge.

Why Is Aletheia Important?

Currently, a large portion of humanity’s collective scientific knowledge sits behind pay walls, only accessible to those with financial means. What’s worse, with a large amount of research being paid for through government grants and taxpayer funds, people have already paid for this research! Why should we have to pay twice? Scientific knowledge should belong to everyone, and Aletheia gives everyone access to information that they deserve as a basic human right.

The Aletheia Scientific Research Journal Foundation Difference

Open access journals are scientific journals that do not restrict access to scientific information. While Aletheia adheres to this principle, it is different to existing open-access journals in a number of ways. The key difference is that rather than being a static website, Aletheia is a client that you download to your PC to upload and download articles to and from. It is decentralized, meaning the information stored in the network is spread across everyone running the client. Aletheia is not beholden to any single interests and is literally in the hands (or computers!) of the community—in other words, Aletheia is YOURS.

Why Should You Get Involved With Aletheia And How?

Imagine a world where anyone regardless of age, gender, race, creed, or any other identifier can access the totality of human knowledge. Sadly, this world does not exist, yet, and it won’t be given to us on a silver platter. We have to build this better world ourselves. Aletheia is currently under construction and to help us you can donate money or time to the project.

The project is currently seeking developers, designers, and community managers. Even if you don’t fall into one of these buckets, Aletheia is all about community so you can have a home with us if you so choose. Check out their project README for further information.