Building Rejoul, a decentralized research journal

Rejoul is my attempt at one question: what if scientific publishing were transparent, impossible to change quietly, and rewarding for reviewers? I built it as a full stack platform on the Internet Computer.

A publishing flow that runs itself

Authors submit an article with its title and keywords. A smart contract then assigns the most relevant reviewers based on their expertise. Reviewers accept, reject, or request revisions with comments, and everything is recorded on-chain.

The stack

The backend logic is written in Motoko as canisters on the Internet Computer. The interface uses React, Vite, and Tailwind CSS. Sign-in runs on Internet Identity, and journal files are stored permanently on IPFS through Pinata.

Reputation and dashboards

Reviewers earn reputation points for each completed review, and users receive on-chain notifications. Authors and reviewers each have their own dashboard for tracking submissions and review queues.

What I learned

Rejoul changed how I think about the backend. When logic and data live on a blockchain, every rule has to be clear from the start, because the system runs on its own with no admin in the middle.