GPeerReview is a command-line tool that makes it simple to write a review of someone’s work and digitally sign them together.
How does it work?
1. First, you read someone’s paper.
2. Next, write a review. (The review is just a simple text file that contains a few scores and your opinions about the paper.)
3. Use GPeerReview to sign the review. (It will add a hash of the paper to your review, then it will use GPG to digitally sign the review.)
4. Send the signed review to the author. If the author likes the review, he/she will include it with his/her list of published works.
5. Prospective employers or other persons can easily verify that the reviews are valid.
So the author gets to choose
So the author gets to choose which reviews to post? It doesn’t at least tell you how many of the reviews the author received actually got posted? Hmmm … I suppose we’re just supposed to trust the author’s ethics.
PGP becomes necessary
While I could do this as I have GnuPG installed and a cryptographic key pair in use, this is something not too likely to be seen with the average librarian I suppose. GnuPG is a free download for many platforms from here: http://www.gnupg.org/download/
Before this could be used widely, more implementation of GnuPG by librarians would be needed. As such requires a “web of trust” model for interaction the predilection towards online anonymity by librarians doesn’t help. We could easily put together an overview of GnuPG for release on the podcast or otherwise if we hear of enough demand.
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Stephen Michael Kellat, Host, LISTen
PGP KeyID: 899C131F