Introducing ARCs

Exciting News! We've launched Autonomous Research Communities (ARCs) on DeSci Nodes! (1)

ARCs are the centerpiece of our experiment in Scientific Publishing 2.0. With ARCs, we aim to expand the space of possible mechanisms for scientific curation, move beyond the black box of traditional peer review, and expand scientific communities' sovereignty.

In their current form, ARCs bridge the gap between unreviewed preprints and journals, accelerating scientific progress by offering quick, structured feedback and quality markers for all research components (e.g. manuscripts, data, code).

Early, structured feedback from ARCs can aid publication elsewhere: It helps editors and referees to see that a submission has already been reviewed by other scientists along specific dimensions (e.g., “Data Available,” “Code Available,” “Results Reproducible”).

We're proud to have DeSci Foundation, Longevist, MoonDao, and Gridcoin as our genesis ARCs.

How does it work?

ARCs validate and curate research on DeSci Nodes, creating collections tailored to community interests and standards.

ARCs define verifiable claims (attestations) for inclusion. Authors submit their work, community members validate claims, leave comments, and engage with authors. Once all attestations are verified, the Node joins the ARC's curated collection.

You can claim attestations for your work by creating a DeSci Node, publishing it, and then selecting an attestation from the menu of suggested attestations.

Here is a 5-minute video demo by our design technologist Andre.

Unlike traditional journals, multiple ARCs can validate the same Node without claiming copyrights, creating bridges between communities.

Like DeSci Nodes, ARCs are based on open-source software that cannot be bought because our license prevents it. The Public Knowledge Project uses the same approach and license to ensure this software is free and open forever.

What’s coming next?

The current release of ARCs is a minimum viable product (MPV) that allows us to gather user feedback for future development.

Upcoming releases will enhance ARC’s utility with

• editorial roles,

• community features that will speed up the peer-review process,

• DOIs that will index shared research in the CrossRef database,

• selected attestations that, once validated, will be automatically written on the author’s ORCID profile as achievements,

• optional attestation that an ARC values and reviews but doesn’t require for inclusion in their collection,

• and a tokenized incentive layer that will reward ARCs for doing valuable curation and validation work, enabling ARCs to reward referees and authors in ways they see fit.

This will enable ARCs to become the scientific journals of the future.

Create your ARC!

Even our MVP version of ARCs can serve many different purposes:

• Collections of your research that are interoperable, allowing input and commentary from other community members;

• Experiments in structured peer review based on validated attestations;

• Curated reading lists and public archives for open scientific content of all types (including data and code);

• Creating valuable publicly available metadata for research in the form of validated attestations (e.g. Open Data, Open Code, Reproducible).

You can apply for an ISSN for your ARC, listing it as an “ongoing integrating resource.” This gives your ARC a unique identifier for libraries and indexing databases (e.g. OpenAlex, Web of Science, Scopus).

Want to create your own ARC? Apply here. It’s free.

Remember - we do not claim any copyrights, and any content that was shared under a CC-BY license (or other permissive, open licenses) can be reposted and validated on ARCs.

Footnotes

(1) DeSci Nodes is our user-friendly platform for sharing research on a peer-to-peer network, which enables open access without paywalls or fees and persistent identifiers that protect against link rot and content drift.