CICI: RDP: Open Science Chain (OSC) - A Novel Distributed Ledger-Based Framework for Protecting Integrity and Provenance of Research Data

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

Data sharing is an integral component of scientific research and associated publications. Researchers have the ability to extend and build upon prior research when they are able to efficiently access, validate, and verify the data referenced. Facilitating the future reuse of data in a secure and independently verifiable manner is critical to the advancement of research. Open Science Chain (OSC) allows a broad set of researchers to efficiently share metadata and easily verify authenticity of their scientific datasets in a secure manner, while preserving provenance and lineage information. OSC is a web based cyberinfrastructure platform built using distributed ledger technologies that allows researchers to provide metadata and verification information about their scientific datasets and update this information as the datasets change and evolve over time in an auditable manner. The researchers are able to search, verify and validate scientific datasets and link datasets to show lineage information. OSC features a web-based portal with user-friendly interfaces for metadata registration, data search and verification capability. OSC has been designed and implemented using real world scientific datasets from a diverse set of use cases ensuring the broad applicability across scientific domains. OSC enables sharing and verification of datasets among wider research communities including large facilities, smaller labs, individual researchers and students while promoting good data documentation practices. OSC increases the confidence of the scientific results and promotes data sharing, which in turn increases productivity and promotes good science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.