Blockchain-based research data sharing framework for incentivizing the data owners

Abstract

Data sharing practices are much needed to maximize knowledge gain by researchers. However, when and what data should be shared with whom, and how credit should be awarded to the data owner needs to be clearly addressed to create an individual incentive for data owners to share their data. A platform that allows owners to control and get rewards from sharing their data would be an important enabler of research data-sharing, since presently, such incentives for researchers to share their data are largely missing. Our approach delivers a usable blockchain based model for a collection of researchers’ data, providing accountability of access, maintaining the complete and updated information, and a verifiable record of the provenance, including all accesses/sharing/usages of the data. Data owners will not only enjoy increased transparency and protection of data from falling into the wrong hands, but they will also be incentivized with digital tokens, acknowledgment, or both to share their data with the interested data seekers, thus becoming active participants that stand to benefit from the research data economy.