[http://publons.com/ Publons] is a social networking website for researchers to share and discuss peer review of academic publications. It was launched in 2012 and is now the world’s largest independent repository of peer review information, containing reviews from over 970 different journals.
== Background ==
Publons was founded by Andrew Preston and Daniel Johnston to address the difficulties in publishing peer reviewed literature <ref>{{cite web|last1=Preston|first1=Andrew R.H.|last2=Johnston|first2=Daniel|url=http://figshare.com/articles/The_Future_of_Academic_Research/871466/|website=Figshare|accessdate=5 September 2014|title=Publon #1: The Future of Academic Research}}</ref>. The Publons name is an homage to the "publon", the "[[Least publishable unit|minimum unit of publishable material]]". Highly rated reviews receive [[digital object identifier|DOIs]], similar to [[Figshare]].
== Reception ==
TechCrunch remarked that lack of transparency leads to many problems in the publication process, and Publons purports to help with that <ref>{{cite news|last1=Shu|first1=Catherine|title=Academic Startup Publons Gives Peer Reviewers Credit For Their Work|url=http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/08/academic-startup-publons-gives-peer-reviewers-credit-for-their-work/|accessdate=5 September 2014|work=Techcrunch}}</ref>. ResearchInformation noted that while the site supports both pre- and post-publication review, not all reviews are published in deference to existing publication norms <ref>{{cite web|last1=Harris|first1=Sian|title=Tracking and Validating Reviews|url=http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=448|website=Reasearch Informaiton|publisher=Europa Science Limited|accessdate=5 September 2014}}</ref>.
== Other information ==
Relative to [[Academia.edu]] and [[ResearchGate]], Publons focuses entirely on peer review.
