They are suggesting a blockchain to prevent mutation of the publication (pun intended) after the fact.

The "where others can collect it" part solves that: Suppose that university A announces their study method and university B makes a mirror. Then if A were to forge the announcement after the fact, B could tell. (You would need cryptographic signing, though, to see if the record mirrored by B has not been tampered with.)

> (You would need cryptographic signing, though, to see if the record mirrored by B has not been tampered with.)

Yes, hence the blockchain, which provides all that in a fairly convenient package.

You could even piggyback on any existing public blockchain, for a few fractions of a penny.

If you're making a notary system, the part you can get from a blockchain is a very minor percent of your code, and comes with a lot of complicated baggage. It's not convenient at all.

Or you could publish an announcement in a newspaper or similar. This problem has been solved for a long time and doesn't really need fancy crypto.

You could also just distribute a hash of, or the entire original text of, the original text. No need for a blockchain and all that processing.